In addition, Michael reached international status with more than fifteen foreign rights translations including France, Spain, Russia, and Germany, just to name a few.

In November 2010, he leveraged his success and received his first commercial publishing contract for three novels from Orbit Books (the fantasy imprint of Hachette Book Group, USA). After two and a half years, the first five books sold more than 70,000 copies and ranked in the top twenty of multiple Amazon fantasy lists. So began his second adventure on the road to publication, which included: drafting his wife to be his business manager signing with an independent press and later creating a small press. Michael describes this endeavor as something he did “just for fun with no intention of publishing.” After presenting the first manuscript to his daughter, he was chagrined that she declared, “I can’t read it like this, can’t you get it published?”

Each of the six books was written as an individual episode but also included intertwining elements and mysteries that develop over time. Intrigued by the idea of writing a series with an overarching story line, he created the Riyria Revelations. The itch returned when he decided to create a series of books for his then thirteen-year-old daughter, who was struggling in school due to dyslexia. Michael discovered that never is a very long time, and he ended his writing hiatus after a decade. During that time, he wrote twelve novels, and after finding no traction in publishing, he gave up and vowed never to write creatively again. For ten years Michael developed his craft by studying authors such as Stephen King, Ayn Rand, and John Steinbeck.

But the desire to fill the blank page and see what doors the typewriter keys would unlock wouldn’t let him go. Well, he was just eight years old at the time, so we’ll forgive him that trespass. After finding a manual typewriter in the basement of a friend’s house, Michael inserted a blank piece of paper and typed: It was a dark and stormy night and a shot rang out.

Antithesis by Michael J. Sullivan