What
genre do you write and why?
Thrillers, of the spy and
espionage variety.
Agency
Rules – Never an Easy Day at the Office takes you behind the headlines into the
events that created today’s Pakistan. It is a tough look at a nation in
conflict from the eyes of a young man, Kamal Khan, who is looking for his own
identity and place in society. Kamal is raised in privilege, but leaves it all
behind as a man to serve his nation. Once in that environment, finds himself
embroiled in a complex narrative that shifts with the fiery speeches of their
anointed political and religious leaders.
Who are your favourite
authors?
I read Fredrick Forsyth, Tom Clancy, John le
Carre, Helen MacInnes and Alistair MacLean.
What advice do you
have for other writers?
So my
advice to aspiring authors is simple - Never give up. There are so many reasons
that you may stop writing, there are hundreds of people that will demotivate
you when you are writing, but you have to take them with a grain of salt. You
can’t achieve something when you are worried about what the naysayers think.
Where can people find
out more about you and your writing?
There are four places. The Agency Rules website
at http://agencyrules.com. On Goodreads at
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7243288.Khalid_Muhammad.
Or on social media at http://facebook.com/AgencyRulesPK
or http://twitter.com/AgencyRulesPK.
Why
do you think readers are going to enjoy your book?
Well, other than the genre
and being a book about Pakistan and terrorism, Agency
Rules – Never an Easy Day at the Office is a fast-paced, action packed story
that will keep you guessing all the way to the end. I hope that, as a reader,
you will experience that Pakistan that I fell in love with when I moved home
from the United States after 25 years. You will feel your heart wrench with
Kamal’s when he is stationed in Karachi, Peshawar and buried deep inside the
terrorist camps. And, hopefully, you will cheer him on, because he is the
Pakistani that you don’t see in the media – smart, driven and motivated to do
good for his family, fellow citizens and country.
Where
can a reader purchase your book?
The book will be published on
Amazon on 16 January and available in bookstores around the world (hopefully)
in February.
How do you
research your books?
I read and read and read, then I watch
movies. I think I spent 5 years researching for this series. I read books, read
newspapers from around the world and read Internet websites so that I could get
a clear understanding of what the discourse really was. Since I wanted to
portray the real picture, along with a bit of fiction, I had to understand
everything, positive or negative, before I started writing my first word.
I traveled a great deal to the areas
that I have written about in my novel. I wanted to make sure that I got the
feel, tempo and environment right so that the reader could visualize the
locations in their imaginations. Writing is never an easy road when you want to
do it right.
Khalid Muhammad |
What are your
thoughts on self-publishing verses traditional publishing?
I think both are needed in today’s
publishing world. The big traditional publishers are too busy looking for the
next bestseller to see the emerging author with a great voice and story. The
hoops that writers must jump through to get a publisher’s attention just make
the whole process much harder and keeps great stories from coming into the
market.
Having said that, I also don’t agree
that everyone should self-publish. There is a level of work that must be put
into crafting a great story for the reader. You need to have a great editor
that disagrees with you. You need to have people that read your chapters and
turn around to ask questions where they see holes. You need to put in the
effort to get the story right, otherwise you make the self-publishing look
inferior, which it is not.
Again, writing is never an easy road
when you want to do it right. There are no shortcuts to a great story.
When
you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?
Working. Being that this is my first
novel, I am not someone who has a stream of revenue from my writing, either in
books or articles. For the past 10 years, I have owned and built a marketing
company that has been able to grab a good market share and pay my bills, feed
my family and allow me to enjoy the downtime in my life.
Other than that, I like to read, watch
movies, play video games and experience the new tech gadgets.
Agency Rules
author interview
books
interview feature
Jo Linsdell
Khalid Muhammad
writers and authors
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