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Q&A with New York Times best-selling
author Steve Alten Steve Alten has become one of the most popular fiction writers in the country since the arrival of his first thriller, the New York Times bestseller MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror, in 1997. He has since published The TRENCHin 1999, DOMAINin 2001, and now GOLIATH. MEG was an astounding success for a first-time novelist who had never taken a creative writing course and had only previously penned academic papers and a doctoral dissertation. Notably, it made every national bestseller list in the country, was selected as the #1 recommended book by the Young Adult Library Service, has been published in 15 countries (becoming a bestseller in France) was adapted into a radio show in Japan, and is now being used in over 1,000 high school curriculums across America to encourage young people to read. As well, The TRENCHbecame a New York Times bestseller in paperback and has been published in nine countries. Alten grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and earned a bachelors degree in Health and Physical Education from Penn State and a masters degree in Sports Administration from the University of Delaware University. He completed his education with a Doctorate degree in Sports Administration from Temple University in 1988. What were you planning to do with your degrees in physical education and sports administration? ALTEN: My aspirations were to be a basketball coach, not a writer. I played basketball in high school and college, and coached at the University of Delaware while earning my masters. Were you a star player? ALTEN: No, I wasn’t that good. I was the guy who hustles off the bench, but I didn’t have much talent. Personally, I think that makes for a better coach. I think the best coaches are not the stars, but the guys who have to work extra hard to make the team. While you were working on your doctorate at Temple, you had the opportunity to work with John Chaney, the legendary Hall of Fame basketball coach. ALTEN: I arrived his second year there, which was 1984. All I wanted to do was learn from him and hopefully earn a place on his staff. He had no openings, but after much persistence and pestering from me, he said I could observe his coaching practices. Back then, nobody else was doing this. Now the bleachers are filled with observers every morning. At the same time, I was a graduate assistant, so my days consisted of getting up at 4 am, driving into Temple, observing Chaney’s basketball practice from 5:30 to 7:30, teaching courses from 8 am until 2 pm – and since my graduate classes didn’t start until about 7 pm, I’d study for a bit, then sack out on the floor of my office (I’d actually brought a mattress in for this), then take classes from 7 to 11 pm at night. And I’d go home, then do it all over again the next day. I did this for three years, until I couldn’t afford to live on a graduate assistant’s salary anymore. While finishing my dissertation, I took a job selling water treatment systems. Did you ever become a coach after graduating? ALTEN: I had taken a job as a high school basketball coach, but it’s very difficult to get a good coaching position if you want to break into the college ranks. What were you doing prior to selling your first book, MEG, in September 1996? ALTEN: I did so well selling water treatment equipment that the headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, offered me an opportunity to open up my own company – which I did in 1988 with a partner. I ran the sales force, he ran the business end. We were the number one franchise in the country that year. A year later we went bankrupt. My partner was not as adept in business as I was in sales. We had a company comptroller who decided not to make our tax deposits. After she quit, we found out from Uncle Sam that we owed $150,000 in back taxes. The company went bankrupt, I lost my house and my first marriage ended up in divorce. So I moved to South Florida and opened up another water company without a partner. It’s a tough market here. After 18 months, I shut down the office and wound up walking from neighborhood to neighborhood, knocking on doors, setting myself up for appointments to come back and sell $4000 whole house water treatment systems. It was just a miserable existence. There were times that I didn’t make a sale for maybe six weeks, and I would have to borrow money from my father, getting me further into debt. I also tried a bunch of different things on the side. I tried to sell prefabricated hospitals, used power generators, multi-level marketing vitamins – you name it, I tried it. So how did you get into writing? ALTEN: I always felt that I could write, and I had this idea for a book about a prehistoric great white shark. I just needed the reason why these extinct monsters might still be alive. In the summer of 1995, I read a Time magazine article on the Mariana Trench and these hydrothermal vents that scientists had discovered at the bottom of the ocean. All of a sudden, the story just started forming in my head, and I went to the library, because we didn’t have the Internet back then, and spent 30 days researching and putting together a semblance of a book. One Saturday, I just sat down and starting writing it. I had a job, so the only time I could work on the book was 10:00 at night till 3:00 in the morning and on weekends, and my wife wasn’t too happy about that. Were you working at the time? ALTEN: I was still selling water treatment systems. I set a goal that I was going to finish the manuscript in January [1996], which I did, and went to the bookstore and bought a book on how to get published. The book said you need a literary agent, and I had no “in,” so I put together a two page query letter and sent it out to every literary agent who handles fiction, about 60 of them. The only agent who seemed interested was this guy in Los Angeles named Ken Atchity. He felt it would make a great movie and book, but that it would need a lot of editing. The problem was it was going to cost $6,000 to edit the book, and I didn’t even have $600 in the bank. But I did have was a 1971 Chevy Malibu convertible, the car my dad had bought me when I was 17. I had kept it all those years. It had over 200,000 miles on it. It was my baby. So I sold it, and my dad lent me a little bit more money, and I paid for the editing fees to get the manuscript in shape. At this point, were you still selling water treatment systems? ALTEN: I had just taken a job at a wholesale meat company. I had sold the owner a water treatment system for his plant and talked myself into a job in sales. Within a week, I was the sales manager. I knew nothing about meat. Still don’t. But I do know about sales. By the fourth month, I was general manager. Meanwhile, I’m finishing the edits on MEG. Ken’s associate, film producer Warren Zide (“American Pie,” “Final Destination”), had a first look deal with Disney, and Ken gave him the first 100 pages of MEG and a treatment for the rest of the book. And it was sold to Disney’s Hollywood Pictures. So while the lawyers were preparing the contract, I continued to edit the book. Then on Friday the 13th [September 13, 1966], I go to work and find out I’ve been fired. The owner’s sons wanted to take the company in a different direction, and all of the employees got laid off in the process. Now I’m really broke. The Disney deal still hadn’t been signed. Plus, the book hadn’t been sold. So I go home. My wife was all upset. I said, “Honey, this is the best thing that could have happened. Now can work on my second book.” She wasn’t real happy about that! Then, that weekend, Ken sends MEG out to the biggest publishing houses in New York, and a bidding war ensues. And we settled for a seven figure two-book deal with Doubleday. So why hasn’t the movie been made yet? ALTEN: The guy who wrote the original screenplay for MEG wrote a sub-par script, which Disney rejected. After that, the president of Hollywood Pictures – who had made the deal – was fired, and the rights reverted back to us. Since then, we’ve had some interest, but we’re waiting for the right offer. Tell us about your latest thriller, GOLIATH. How were you able to make it so authentic? ALTEN: I was fortunate enough to meet the sister of a former commander
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