Fans, or readers, are important for they are the ones whom you are trying to communicate to in writing a book. What is the purpose in writing? It is to communicate. Without fans or readers, there is little point in writing. Writing a good for yourself does not have a lot of purpose or future. If someone lists my books or me as a favourite author, it means a lot. I do not write to make money, as I am a building contractor and architect. I write for the passion of writing and communicating ideas. Plus I hope my ideas will help someone.

Usually it is my contract to build a building, or help those around me who I have decided to help. But also perhaps it is more than that. Perhaps there is an underlying purpose to life and when you are on, and delivering, that purpose it makes life very much worth living. It is not just about building and writing. I also spent a lot of time in Asia doing volunteer work. One of those regions was in war and I did a lot to end that war. I felt very alive.

Mainly it is building building, or designing them, or helping people with volunteer work.

I started writing my series of book in the late 1980's, during the cold war. That was an interesting era. You always had it in your mind that you might not make it through the night, and this was every day of your life. That is what it was like living in the Cold War. I recall once travelling to some communist countries during the Cold War and I found they were people, just like you and me. People were people, regardless how others painted them. Then one day I started to write when I came home from a large building project I was doing, in 1987. I simply sat down and grabbed a pen and began to simply write what came into my mind. It just did not stop that whole night, and I could not write fast enough. The ideas poured out. I did this day after day, until the paper and books was actually several feet high. I then went and bought a computer. It was cheaper than buying pens and paper. So the ideas kept pouring out, and it continued when I went to Japan, and now, after 23 books, it is stopped. Even printed out the files were boxes high. Then as computers became good enough, and there were electronic readers around, I decided that ebooks was the only way I would get these published.

I simply sit down and write what comes tonight. It seems that there is already a plot there, with all the mystery, and I just have to write it.

Yes, and it was the Isaac Asimov Foundation Trilogy. I remember thinking, was there a group out there really directing where we go, what we think. Could that be true. I started to look at the world a bit different. Fiction is powerful that way. It is not a statement of fact. It is merely a suggestion.

I designed my own covers initially, in colour. Then I searched for one that suits the book based on that design, and buy it and use it.

I grew up in Australia, and spent a lot of time climbing mountains and sleeping under the stars as par5t of school boy training. I had adventures in avoiding being bitten by deadly snakes while bush walking. Some of it was a bit wild. I spent a few weeks in the highlands of New Guinea is 1970, where I and my group were the second ever westerners to go there. Some of the places I went, others died, and even some of our own had to be flown out due to exotic disease and parasites. I climbed Mount Wilhelm, where there is a crashed B 25 plane, that never made it over the top. I saw a "pay back" where one village got painted up and killed the accused of another, in Mount Hagan. From the top of Mount Wilhelm we had to be flown off a cliff as our drivers died in a landslide trying to get to us. Then the plane that came to rescue us flew through a tree, trying to get our attention. There was a lot more too. This was life to me and this adventure shows its way into my books.