GRILLED AUTHOR SERVED HOT A question and answer session with Sam Jam
How many books have you sold? About four, maybe five. I sold them at a school Christmas fair last year.
Surely false modesty will get you nowhere in Asia? I don't believe in false modesty. Or any other kind, come to that.
Have you really sold more than 100,000 books, as I read somewhere? Nah, they're all in my garage.
You live in Hong Kong. People don't have garages in Hong Kong. Dang! You're right. I wonder where I put them?
Where do your ideas come from? A nodule in my brain, lower right hand side, towards the back. If I grow the nail of my little finger long enough, and stick it in my ear, I can just about give it a scratch. That's what I do when I have writers' block.
Are you ever serious about anything? I'm serious about everything. My mind is always full of Big Questions of Life, such as "Why do men have nipples?" and "Why don't rocks have nipples?" and "Which came first? The egg or the bacon?"
To what do you credit your success as an author? To the fact that I have written books.
I mean, really. For years I wanted to be an author but it was only after I wrote some books that I feel I truly became one. You may think I'm being flippant, but there are loads of authors out there who are wondering why they haven't made it, not realizing that it's because they haven't actually written any books. Ask them.
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