Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Robert Estko
Local author starting up his literary career
By Scott Steinberg
Robert Estko says writing a novel is like having a good dream.
"It provides a wonderful outlet," he says. "You get caught up in it; you get lost in it."
Estko, a 47-year-old Sunnyvale lawyer and corporate executive, published his first novel, Evil, Be Gone, with iUniverse, Inc., on March 25. Evil is a thriller set in Sunnyvale, Chicago and Washington, D.C. It was written with frequent fliers - like Estko himself - in mind.
As a human resources executive for start-up companies in the Silicon Valley, traveling became just as much a part of Estko's schedule as lunch. Between departure and arrival, points A and B, home and 'there,' he found himself in relentless pursuit of a good read.
Although perusing page-turning thrillers by James Patterson and Tom Clancy proved to be rewarding downtime experiences, ultimately Estko decided to write his own good read.
"I went about [writing the book] the way someone goes about starting a start-up," he says. "I identified my product and then created it with the customer in mind."
The novel, he says, isn't too demanding of readers. With 70 chapters in 304 pages, he assumes there are plenty of places to stop. In the end, Evil is what he calls "a fun, fast-moving bit of escapism."
Estko began writing the novel after work, 20 to 30 minutes a go before knocking off for the night. By 1993 he had three chapters of what would eventually become Evil. Eight years later, he returned to the text at the prodding of his wife.
Estko dedicated himself to a metric (writing 1,100 words per day). In six months the novel had become a reality
"I never had writer's block," he says. "I had seller's block."
The publishing industry was daunting. Estko mailed letters to 15 literary agents. He received 15 rejections. Then someone told him about print-on-demand publishers, or PODs.
Through the POD iUniverse, Estko created a template for his book. It was released through Internet bookshops, including barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com. On these sites, a customer orders Evil, and iUniverse then prints it.
Sales, to this point, have pleased Estko. He says that four days after the book's release, he was ranked 24,201 in total sales. Next to the multitude of available texts (Barnes & Noble has hundreds of thousands), placing in the mid-20,000s is a grand feeling.
The downside to POD publishing, Estko says, is that the author must assume all marketing responsibility. He says he was "shameless" in promoting his book, handing out business cards and running a mail campaign.
But a sequel is already in the works. He plans to serialize the protagonist of Evil, a former CIA operative - a man perpetually caught between a rock and a hard place.
Estko's ambitions now stop nothing short of being financially successful in this, his new "start-up."
"This started out as an avocation, but it may become a vocation," he says. "It would be great for someone to express interest in movie rights. [My book] would make for a great movie."
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
