SALISBURY — Author Christopher Paolini was the guest speaker for the Rowan Public Library’s “Virtual Author Talk” series on March 14 as part of the Library Speakers Consortium. The consortium consists of 400 library systems across multiple countries where authors reflect on their careers and answer questions from those who registered for the virtual lecture.

Paolini is the mastermind of the young-adult fantasy novel, “Eragon” and the rest of “The Inheritance Cycle” which has gone on to sell millions of copies. Brandon Adler moderated the hour-long discussion and asked several submitted questions to Paolini.

Paolini started writing his debut novel, “Eragon” in 1998 when he was just a teenager and back then, he could not foresee it becoming the success it would go on to be.

“I never thought anyone outside of my family would read the book, I barely expected even my sister to read the book,” Paolini said.

Originally self-published, Paolini cold called schools and libraries asking them if he could do presentations for them in order to sell copies of his book. Through “a combination of hard work and luck,” Paolini eventually signed with the publisher Random House after also receiving interest from Scholastic, the publisher of the “Harry Potter” series.

“They were looking for their own “Harry Potter” essentially,” Paolini said. “I could tell Random House was the one who really loved the book and Scholastic was doing it because they thought it was a good business opportunity,” Paolini said.

Dragons are an important element to Paolini’s influences and his most famous works. He sees them as a literary device that opens his books to a myriad of possibilities.

“They are a creative and destructive force as they always are in mythology and when a dragon shows up you just know things are about to get serious,’ Paolini said. “Dragons are just interesting and add a lot to a story I think.”

Recently, Paolini has written the adult science fiction novel, “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” and the story collection, “ The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm.” Last year, he published, “Murtagh,” a continuation of “The Inheritance Cycle” based on one of the supporting characters in the series.

Paolini said being a husband and father allowed him to be able to write a book like “Murtagh” and now that it has been released, he wants to dive deeper into that universe again going forward.

“I don’t think that I could’ve written this book 10 years ago, not the way I did,” Paolini said. “I hope to write a lot more in that world. ‘Murtagh’ is the first stone of many stones along the way, the first brick in the wall of some of the new stories that I’m planning to tell.”

Paolini teased that “Eragon” and “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” are both being developed into television shows and that more updates will be coming soon.

When Paolini looks back on his nearly three decades of being an author, he’s grateful for all that has happened to him and is aware that no matter what he does in the future, he’ll be best remembered for the very first thing he wrote before he was legally allowed to drink.

“At this point I’ve resigned myself to the fact that when I die my tombstone will say, ‘Here lies the author of ‘Eragon.’’ I’m very fortunate with that, but it is kind of weird that the thing I’m best known for, in the sort of objective sense, is the most successful thing I’ve ever done is also the first thing I ever did.”