Robert Muchamore
- Name: Robert Kilgore Muchamore
- Born: 26/12/1972
- Ambition: To become the 4th Powerpuff Girl
- Hates: Ketchup
- Loves:Chocolate and Arsenal Football Team
- Featured Title: Cherub
School is back! The new kids look tiny, everyone's uniform is too big and teachers have spent all summer thinking up ways to make homework even more annoying. But at least you don't have to jump off a platform 20 metres up, run with a heavy pack and then fight someone twice your size like the kids training as spies on CHERUB campus.
The latest novel in the CHERUB series has just been released. There was a sell-out crowd at the launch event. I walked on stage waving a copy of The General in the air. "Does anyone want one of these?" I shouted enthusiastically. There was applause and cheering and lots of fans shouting, "Yes!" After giving a talk I signed CHERUB books for nearly two hours. My hand hurt, but I didn't care. It was a massive buzz knowing that hundreds of fans had got out of bed on a Sunday morning to come and see me. But it wasn't always like that.
Unless you're a film star or a Premiership footballer, nobody knows who you are when your first book comes out. And why would anyone buy a book by an author they've never heard of? My first ever book signing took place at the end of 2004. I sat at a table in a large bookstore with copies of my first two books stacked around me. I stared aimlessly into a Starbucks mug and swirled my coffee dregs. The store was busy but nobody came near me. Eventually an old lady walked up and asked where the history section was. I explained that I didn't know because I was an author and didn't work in the shop. She picked up one of my books and smiled. "I'm sure they're very good," she said pityingly before toddling away
The store manager consoled me with slimline orange muffin (did he think I looked fat?). Finally, two girls in school uniform came by. They asked about my books and we chatted for a while. They seemed nice, but they didn't have any money and as they walked away, one girl whispered to the other, "What a saddo." I didn't sign a single book that day. Sometimes the success of my CHERUB books since they were first published feels like a dream. Or maybe it really is a dream and in a few hours I'll wake up. I'll open my eyes and find the crumpled manuscript of a book that nobody will ever read on my bedside table. ARGHHHHHHHH!
Robert Muchamore is the author of the number one bestselling CHERUB series. He was born in Islington in 1972 and was the youngest of four kids.
After leaving school, Robert spent 13 years working as a private investigator but he left his job to write full-time in mid-2005. The author later admitted to fans on his official CHERUB forum, that he left after a bust up where he threw a box of antiseptic wipes at his boss. Fortunately, he missed his boss and only dented the ceiling.
Robert was inspired to create the CHERUB series by his nephew's complaints about the lack of anything for him to read and the first CHERUB title was published in 2004! The tenth title in the CHERUB series is published on 4th September and available from Red House - see page 3. Fans will be excited to hear that in February 2009 Robert will launch his brand new series Henderson's Boys which will take us back to World War II where the CHERUB story begins.
