LONDON - The Rev. Graham Taylor couldn't find anyone who had faith in his first book, so he bet on himself.
He used money from the sale of his motorbike and his clergy fuel allowance to publish "Shadowmancer," the dark tale of a power-crazed vicar.
His first edition was such a hit that British publishers Faber and Faber Ltd. quickly offered a deal and released a new edition on June 21, the same day as "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
"We had the confidence to publish head-to-head because we knew that readers everywhere would be looking for an alternative," said Stephen Page, chief executive of Faber and Faber.
When Harry Potter shot to No. 1 on the Booktrack Top 10 of children's books, an industry list of best sellers, "Shadowmancer" was just one place behind. Last week, it stood at No. 7 — with editions of various Potter books holding the top five places.
Earlier this week, Taylor signed what insiders said was a six-figure deal with Penguin Putnam, which will publish "Shadowmancer" and Taylor's next two books in the United States, starting May 2004.
Taylor's own editions of "Shadowmancer" are now being offered for up to $1,600 on the Internet. Rights to the books have also been sold in Germany, Japan and Spain. Several offers have been made for a movie version.
"People have called me everything from 'the new Dickens' to '(J.R.R.) Tolkien on acid,'" the author, who writes as G.P. Taylor, said in an interview. "But as a down-to-Earth Yorkshireman, I'm not taking any notice of that. I just had this story that I had to tell."
Taylor, 43, is a Church of England vicar in northeast England. He wrote the book at the suggestion of someone who attended a lecture Taylor gave on children's literature. A student of the occult and new age philosophies, he says the devilish plot "came out of the darkest depths of my imagination."
The book is set in the 1700s on the northeast coast of England in the world of mystery and magic. Obadiah Demurral is the vicar of Ravenscar — a village in Taylor's own parish — an evil figure who dances at the death of sailors and lights his study with a severed hand dipped in candle wax.
Demurral will stop at nothing to control the highest power in the universe. The only people standing in his way are three children called Raphah, Kate and Thomas, and the mysterious Jacob Crane. The conflict culminates in a dramatic clash in a church at Halloween.
Although a beneficent supreme being is part of the story, and the book "deals with issues of human spirituality," Taylor says this is not a Christian book per se. "I think many people today find their spirituality in literature, instead of in organized religion, and I'm trying to show the choices."
Critics have generally been kind, although there are dissenters. "The adventure unfolds at a vivid and breathless pace, but the religious symbolism is rather too fundamental and proscriptive for comfort," wrote Kit Spring in The Observer newspaper.
Faber will publish G.P. Taylor's second novel, "Wormwood," in June 2004. Its U.S. publication date has not been announced.