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.
