Matthew Reilly(I)

His debut novel, Contest, was rejected by every major publishing company in Sydney. This caused Reilly to self-publish 1,000 copies using money borrowed from his family. Unfortunately, some books were stolen from the back of his car and the original Contest books have become such a rarity that they have been known to fetch up to $1200 on Ebay. Matthew went to a bookstore in Sydney and asked if he could place the copies on one of their book shelves. They accepted the offer and placed them up. Very shortly after, the books had sold out and the owner of the bookstore called Reilly to order more books. One copy was read by Cate Paterson, Commissioning Editor for Pan Macmillan, who immediately signed Matthew up to write Ice Station, which became an international best-seller.