The Rotary Club of Jacksonville added another name to its long list of nationally and internationally known guest speakers Monday when best-selling author Steve Berry visited the club.
Berry, a former attorney who practiced criminal law in Camden County, Ga., for 30 years before beginning his career as a writer, signed copies of his latest novel, “The Columbus Affair.”
He said it was inspired by a book that put forth the hypothesis that Christopher Columbus may have been Jewish.
“We know nothing about Columbus – where he was born, how he learned to sail. We don’t even know his real name,” Berry said.
“We know that Columbus did not discover America – that had already been done – but he put the New World on the map. He established the connection between the Old World and the New World,” he said.
Berry’s first published novel was “The Amber Room” in 2002. Since then, he has released a new novel each year based on economics and a steadfast rule from his publisher.
“They won’t give you a check until you give them a book,” he said.
Berry, who lives at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, said he does almost all of the research for his historically-based fiction at Chamblin Bookmine on Roosevelt Boulevard in West Jacksonville.
“I go there every six or eight weeks,” he said.
Berry said he doesn’t depend on the Internet for his research because so much information found online is incorrect.
Berry said one aspect of technology that he can’t ignore is the proliferation of e-books. He said electronic publishing has gone from only 5 percent of the book market a year ago to 70 percent of the market today.
“The iPad and the Kindle e-reader changed everything. The revolution is over and the e-book won. The delivery of information has shifted,” he said.
“(Printed) books aren’t going away, but there will be less of them,” said Berry.
He said writing is a discipline, not an obsession, and each author must find their own style and discipline.
“I just peck away at 40 words per minute and I have to look at the keyboard,” Berry said.
As for what he reads, Berry said he enjoys thrillers, the genre he writes, and reads 6-8 books for enjoyment each year.
“I read about 400 books a year for research,” he said.
Berry is already writing his next novel, scheduled for release in spring 2014.
“It will be something about Abraham Lincoln,” he said.
As for advice for people who wish to become writers, Berry recalled his early experience. He began writing in 1990 and had 85 rejections from publishers over a 12-year period before he sold his first novel.
“I’m living proof that you should never give up,” he said.
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