The idea of writing a book on Harrison Ford had come up during 1984. It was evident that Ford's star was in the ascendant. The readers of Starburst magazine were making it plain that he was their kind of guy and his performance in Blade Runner marked him as more than just another action star.
A year earlier, Tony Crawley had written a very comprehensive three-part feature on the work of Steven Spielberg for Starburst. The series had been very well received and I'd suggested to Tony that he should think about expanding it to book length and finding a publisher. Tony found Maxim Jacobowsky, the publisher of Zomba Books, and the book duly saw print as The Steven Spielberg Story (1983).
Maxim was very pleased with the sales of the book and chanced to ask me if I had any ideas for another unauthorised biography. I mentioned Harrison Ford and suddenly I had a contract to write a book.

Tony must have been pretty happy with me over the Spielberg project, because he gave me all his Harrison Ford interview transcripts - he'd interviewed Ford three or four times in the years leading up to this point - and said I was welcome to use any of his material. In the event, that vast pile of transcripts formed the backbone of The Harrison Ford Story.
The actual writing work took me the last three months of 1984. I submitted the manuscript then went on holiday over the Christmas break to the Canary Islands.
Right after Christmas, Zomba told me that they'd sold the US rights to The Harrison Ford Story and that I could expect further payments.
Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I decided that I would leave Starburst and become a full-time writer. I figured that having sold one book, I would be able to conjure up another book contract with ease and become a successful author. In the event, that was pretty naive.