Halesowen author wins Hollwood movie deal and linking up with Guillermo Del Toro

Feb 8 2009 Lorne Jackson, Sunday Mercury

But it’s not an overnight success.

The 38-year-old slogged out novel after novel for15 years before making an impact.

“Initially I was a frustrated film-maker,” he explains.

“That’s what I dreamed of doing after leaving school. Instead, I went to work in a bank since I had no experience of film-making, and didn’t know how to make it happen.

“That’s when I came up with the idea of writing novels. I just thought I’d put down the stories that I wanted to tell.”

In 1996, David managed to get a novel published by a small, independent publisher.

But so-called-success was quickly followed by a setback.

“I thought at the time, that’s me, I’m sorted, I’ve made it!

“But it basically went nowhere. We’re talking sales of less than 500. Which is nothing.

“Reality hit home. But I just kept writing.

“When my second book, Autumn, was ready, I decided to try something a bit different.

“At that time, loads of stuff was happening to me. I suddenly had a family out of nowhere. There was a wife and loads of step-daughters running around.

“Meanwhile, the Internet was really taking off. So I came up with the idea of giving my book away as a free download.”

This may sound quite complex, but David admits he’s no web wizard.

“I’m not particularly computer savvy,” he says. “It was just a lot of trial and error. The first website I put together was awful.

“But the great thing about the Internet is you get immediate feedback. So I’d get messages saying, ‘You’ve done this all right, but why not try this?’

“I took all these points on board and really started to improve my website. It definitely wasn’t local help. The most handy hints came from a guy in Czechoslovakia!”

Eventually, 500,000 people logged on to check out David’s work.

“I don’t know how it got to this stage. You just put it out there and let it go. Now I’ve had half-a-million readers.

“And out of all those readers, I also hooked the interest of Hollywood – without even trying.”

The novel imagines a terrifying scenario where people