Book Hero Nicola was fortunate to be invited to an exclusive Q & A session with Callie Hart ahead of her New Zealand tour for bestselling enemies-to-lovers Romantasy series, Quicksilver and upcoming sequel, Brimstone.
Disclaimer: Quotes in this article may have been paraphrased.
This is your first fantasy novel, how did that come about?
Callie Hart has written and published 43 books in the Romance genre, therefore many of her fans were Romance-only readers. "I've been thinking about this story for years and finally wanted to tell it, so I put a poll in my reader group asking if they wanted to read a fantasy romance from me and 8,000 people said no," she explained. But this didn't stop Callie.
"My agent kept asking me for a story that she could help me sell to a publisher instead of me just self-publishing it, and I said well there is this one I've been thinking of."
She wrote Quicksilver- well, quickly- in just 6 weeks. It was over 100,000 words long.
When Callie handed it in to her agent, the feedback she received was that 70,000 words needed to be cut and characters needed to be changed so that it could be commercially viable.
"Well I'm not going to do that," said Callie.
And so she self-published Quicksilver with Amazon Kindle, hoping to prove 8,000 people and her literary agent wrong.
At first, Quicksilver saw no significant success.
"My books would usually debut in the Amazon top 100, and this one was #101"
Quicksilver continued to slip down the Amazon charts, landing down in the 4,000s.
Until one night Callie was lying in bed and decided she wouldn't take that. "I believed in my story," she said.
And so, despite admitting she wasn't confident in using social media to promote herself, she decided to give Tiktok a go, reaching out to 30 Booktokkers who had engaged viewerships, and offered them an early copy of the book, "not expecting anything in return, I just think you might like it".
Out of those 30 Booktokkers, 15 replied and a smaller fraction began to post about the book.
Within four days of the first Booktok review, someone spoiled the ending of Quicksilver, which surprisingly seemed to catapult its popularity into the mainstream Booktok sphere.
"My sister kept calling me in the middle of the night to update me on Quicksilver's progress back up the Amazon charts"
Quicksilver began climbing back up the charts, from the 4000s to the 1000s, to the 100s, until finally Callie's sister called her in the middle of the night to tell her that Quicksilver was #1.
Now, Quicksilver has sold over 1 MILLION copies, and the rights have been sold to Netflix in a 7-figure bidding war.
The story of how Quicksilver came about is a testament to Callie's determination, grit and self-belief...
Who are your Fantasy & Sci-Fi Inspirations?
"Definitely Lord of the Rings, there are so many tip of the hats to [Lord Of The Rings] in Quicksilver", mainly drawing inspirations from Tolkien's Elven language sounds and how things were named, as well as the calibre and depth of worldbuilding in his series.
"Worldbuilding is a living, breathing character and the goal is to keep it alive throughout the book" ~ Callie Hart
Also on Callie Hart's list of inspiration was Kiwi author Tamsyn Muir- whose writing in Gideon The Ninth Callie described as "lethal".
George R. R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie and Patrick Rothfuss were Callie's other Fantasy influences.
"I try not to let other people's work colour mine but it's impossible, your work will always be coloured by the media you consume."
If you could have any item of merchandise from this world you have created, what would it be?
(This was my personal question since Callie had previously mentioned a t-shirt she had designed in honour of fan-favourite character Carrion Swift, with the quote "Not that kind of Swiftie" in reference to pop star juggernaut Taylor Swift. Sorry Tay-Tay, Carrion is here to stay stay stay.)
Callie began her answer with "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell you this but..." which meant we were going to get some juicy info!
I won't spoil too much in case she really wasn't meant to announce it yet but Callie took a long shot and contacted her favourite jewellery brand thinking she wouldn't hear back... Within 30 minutes they replied and said their book club was actually reading her book right now- talk about fate!
This collab will be one to keep your eye out for...
She also appreciated the bookish merch items such as the tote bags and gestured to the ones we were all sporting thanks to Hachette!
One of a kind merchandise:
Bookstagrammer @kaitlinsreads gifted Callie Hart a custom-bound copy of Quicksilver which included a ribbon bookmark, stunning endpaper art and gold foil, on behalf of her Book Club!
Get in Quick for a limited special edition!
Don't miss out on the super deluxe, limited-edition ANZ version of the bestselling Quicksilver, featuring a striking new cover design and the following special finishes:
- Foiled, embossed jacket
- Reversible white jacket
- Hidden cover case foil
- Metallic gilded edges
- Exclusive character art endpapers
- Exclusive bonus scene
Check out the video below to see its features in real life:
Shop all Callie Hart titles
Thank you to Hachette NZ for the opportunity to attend this exclusive event!
Nicola Moody-Turnwald
Book Hero Nicola is an avid reader, writer and Bookstagrammer (@storyofmyshelf) who loves all things Fantasy, and the occasional Thriller. Nicola has two degrees, majoring in Management, Marketing, Communications and French.
1 comment
Awesome article Nicola! What an experience to have met Callie and hear about how her determination and belief in herself paid off in the end. Looking forward to when Brimstone comes out! 🤩