Author publishes first book

JOHN BISSET/ The Timaru Herald

SELF-PUBLISHED: Timaru author Dave Dearman with his book, Tui Brown and the Spiral.

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He woke up one day with five books written and decided to do something about it.

Timaru man Dave Dearman was spurred into getting one of his books published and, to cut a long story short, he did.

The English teacher describes the book, Tui Brown and the Spiral, as young adult fiction set around the Auckland volcanoes and the strange power Tui and her friends have developed.

"It is Harry Potter meets the Famous Five.

"I cut my teeth on Enid Blyton when I started reading, growing up in Nottingham, England."

Teaching English has taken Mr Dearman and his wife and four daughters all around the world, to Singapore, Brunei, Hong Kong, France, Niue and now Timaru.

"Our daughter lives in Geraldine with four young children so we came here to be close to them.

"We enjoy travelling but decided it was time to consolidate and slow down a bit."

From here, he has pursued his desire to be published.

"One day I woke up with five books written and thought `this is stupid, I might as well do something about getting them published'.

"Publishers were all saying there is a recession and have you been published before.

"I decided to try publishing it myself, and, hopefully, once it gets out there it will attract a wider audience."

He found PublishMe.co.nz, a self-publishing website of Zenith Publishing.

"The book has been rewritten several times and took about seven years all up to write.

"I used my knowledge of Auckland and its volcanoes as well as time we spent time living on the East Coast at Ruatoria, learning about Maori myths and legends."

He is already working on the sequel and hopes that by then an audience will have developed a taste for his books.

- © Fairfax NZ News