[Interview] Samuel Peralta on becoming a USA Today Bestseller, Dominion Rising, and The Future Chronicles

Samuel Peralta has carved a name for himself in Indie publishing as the godfather of the wickedly popular anthology The Future Chronicles which, at last glance, has over 20 volumes out, with a whole slew slated for the very near future.

His newest release, Dominion Rising, a collaborative effort alongside a stable of 23 other amazing authors, landed him on the USA Today bestseller’s list for the first time. In it, you’ll catch Peralta stepping out of the short-story arena (where he has consistently shown himself to be a major player, having landed an honorable mention in the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2015 Anthology) to drop his debut novel, The Zoo at the End of the World.

Sam and I chatted a couple years back over at SF SIgnal. Check out that interview here.

Anthony Vicino: First, huge congratulations on Dominion Rising making the USA Today Bestsellers list. You must be terribly excited! Tell us what it was like working on such a huge collaboration/project.

Samuel Peralta: Thank you – it’s been an exhilarating ride! You should know by now that in addition to USA Today, we hit #4 on the Wall Street Journal Bestsellers list, and #8 on the IndieReader bestseller list. It’s rare to work with such an amazing team. At the start it was organized chaos, but after a while we worked as well together as the boat crew in an Olympic race.

Even more than that, I found that readers and the entire author community came together to support the set. I’ve rarely seen anything like it – only in special cases of The Future Chronicles, like our charity volume The Immortality Chronicles, and the Special Edition – but when it happens, it’s magic. So thank you to everyone out there who cheered us on and who actively supported us in the months leading to our launch. This success belongs to everyone.

AV: You have a reputation as Master of the Anthology (or at least, that’s how I think of you), having produced an absolutely impressive collection of Future Chronicles. Did you play a similar role for Dominion Rising or were you able to sit back, relax, and just write for this one?

SP: Sit back, relax and just write? I wish! Gwynn White and P.K. Tyler – who is a multi-volume Chronicles author, as you know – were the producers of this collection, having had previous experience in boxed sets. But one of the reasons Pav brought me in was my background with the Future Chronicles that made those volumes successful – production, marketing, promotions – and to be able to tap the network and community spirit I’d built up through the Chronicles. I brought everything I knew – building buzz, list-building, sustainable sales – to the team.

And it was definitely a team success, built on a strong ethical approach. Every author brought into this set was able to bring their own unique set of skills – from graphics, to Instagram and Reddit experience, to making book accessories, to Facebook ads. We taught each other as much as we could and, along with the guidance of Gwynn and Pav through the boxed set world, it was the unified application of all those skills from all the authors, and the innovations we made in the marketing and promotion of boxed sets, that made Dominion Rising work.

We’ve done a lot to give back to the author community who strongly supported us, and one of these things included a White Paper, freely available on blogs and Facebook groups everywhere, to tell people how we did it. But, frankly, if authors wanted to emulate Dominion Rising through the White Paper, but don’t put together a team of authors as committed and focused as we had, it wouldn’t work as well. You need that focus, that commitment to each other and the goal. The authors who made it to the finish line on Dominion Rising – I think of them as the dream team.

AV: Your debut novel appears in Dominion. Can you tell us a bit about the story?

SP: The Zoo at the End of the World is about a young girl, Zara Harbridge, one of the caretakers at a private zoo, who looks after her charges in the weeks before a comet destroys humanity.

It’s as simple as that, really. Gabriel’s Comet, fifty times the size of Mount Everest, is on a collision course with the Earth. In many works like this, there’s always something that can be done to avert the disaster. It’s a staple of Hollywood – the team of heroes split the oncoming asteroid, nudge it out of the way, are able to evacuate the Earth. In my scenario, you gradually realize none of that works. The chair legs keep getting kicked out from under you, until you realize the inevitable will happen. The comet will hit, it will destroy humanity.

Can there still be redemption in a scenario like that? Zoo is that story, about the human spirit in the face of overwhelming odds, about heroism despite certain defeat.

AV: How did you tackle your first novel? Was the process similar to how you approach a short story or poem?

SP: I used similar craftsmanship tools – compact storytelling, brushstroke characterization, extended metaphor. In essence, the process was similar, but organized around a few sections – standalone stories – that all connected and drove each other in one extended narrative. I usually write intuitively, but for this work I had to make extensive use of outlining. I definitely learned a lot in the writing of Zoo.

AV: Can we expect more novels from Samuel Peralta in the future?

SP: Definitely. It’s a different high you get from finishing a book-length work, compared to finishing a short story or poem. I’m outlining something tentatively called A War to the End of Time. I also have the skeletons of novels that I almost made it to the finish line for Dominion Rising but didn’t – one a thriller about a future where robots pervade our society – this was to be A Labyrinth of Steel. Perhaps I’ll put some flesh on those bones.

For the version of Zoo in Dominion Rising, I surgically excised much of the backstory in my attempt to get the same sharp impact I do in a narrative poem or short story. But readers have told me that they do want that back story, so you’ll also see in 2018 a new, more expansive version of The Zoo at the End of the World.

AV: With the novel and Dominion Rising behind you, what comes next? Knowing you, I can’t imagine there will be much idling.

SP: I have to catch up on my release schedule for anthologies. First up will be Chronicle Worlds: B-Movie. Very soon after, I’m bringing out Chronicle Worlds: No Way Home and Chronicle Worlds: Crime and Punishment, two anthologies that were previously published but are now under the Future Chronicles umbrella.

After that, a whole slew of Chronicles have already been planned, including The Gamer Chronicles, Chronicle Worlds: Half Way Home, Chronicle Worlds: Drifting Isle, Alt.History 103, and Chronicle Worlds: Tails.
In 2018 I’m looking forward to Chronicle Worlds: WOOL, with the amazing support of Hugh Howey, and The Mars Chronicles, which I think of as capping off The Future Chronicles set.

In 2018 I’m also helping curate a special issue of the Pushcart-winning literary and arts magazine PoetsArtists, edited and published by Didi Menendez. Both artistic and literary works are being solicited now, with the theme being the intersection of science, technology and the human condition – “Chronicles of a Future Foretold” – and the special issue will be available in print and digital format.

Artwork selected from the print edition will also be exhibited at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago at 33 Contemporary/ArtNXTLevel.

AV: What have been the most notable changes to your writing over the last couple years since the Chronicles really got off the ground?

SP: I’ve become more confident in prose, definitely. I think I’ve finally found some sort of balance between the poetic and the narrative form. The Chronicles have been a great boon to this evolution, but have also taken up a lot of time. I’m hoping that slowing down the pace of publication will give me more time to further develop my narrative craft.

AV: Last time we spoke, you had just been shortlisted for John Joseph Adams’ Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 anthology. How has the industry, and your place within it, changed or grown since then?

SP: There’s been more and more acceptance of the independent author as a legitimate voice in speculative fiction – major works like The Martian and WOOL show that there’s a place for us even in the mainstream. But issues that have culminated in slate-voting in the major industry awards have not helped the cause.

There’s no doubt that there’s been an upsurge in the influence that independent authors have on the market, in terms of volume and financial clout. But I’d also love to see recognition from the industry that quality writing – and perhaps even literary quality – can be found in the works of independent authors. The Future Chronicles have always stood for the former – that’s our great differentiator compared to some other anthologies. I’m striving to lift my own craft as well, and encourage others, so that we can make progress toward the latter.

AV: And last, tell us truthfully, how’s it feel hitting the USA Today Bestseller’s list?

SP: It was a great rush. But for me, truthfully, it was a bigger rush writing the final chapter of Zoo.

AV: Thank you so much for your time, Sam. Where can people find you out there on the interwebs?

SP: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about my work! My website is www.samuelperalta.com and you can find me on Twitter at @semaphore. I’m pretty active on Facebook as well, www.facebook.com/semaphore1 or my page www.facebook.com/samperalta.

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Thanks again!

[box] Wow, what a great chat. Great behind the scenes insight into what made Dominion Rising so massively popular. Now, get down to the comments and tell me, have you read anything from Peralta? If so, what? Give us some recommendations![/box]