Stephen Leather's Blog, page 12

A new type of armed cop was seen on the streets of Lon...

A new type of armed cop was seen on the streets of London yesterday, members of the Metropolitan Police elite CO19 unit but in plain clothes and with their faces covered, more like the SAS than cops. As it happens my new book False Friends has Spider running around taking on armed terrorists in London, but Spider draws the line at wearing a balaclava! The cops were in Tottenham Court Road to deal with a white guy threatening to blow himself up with gas canisters. The cynic in me can't help but wonder if the whole thing wasn't a set up to demonstrate that the Met is fully prepared for the Olympics and getting us used to seeing masked policeman.

There aren’t many places left where a man can enjoy a cig...

There aren’t many places left where a man can enjoy a cigarette these days – but at least fictional characters can still light up in books. Jack Nightingale – a former cop turned private eye and the hero of my new book Nightfall – is a forty-a-day man. He’s a Brit but he prefers to smoke Marlboro. I’m a non-smoker – unless you count the half dozen or so I tried at school. I never liked it, never saw the point in it, and could never afford the habit anyway. Now that I can afford it I know the dangers and wouldn’t dream of smoking. But when I started writing Nightfall I knew that Nightingale had to be a smoker. It’s something to do with the fact that smokers are the new underdogs, hounded by all and sundry because of their habit. Smoking has been banned pretty much everywhere and the anti-smoking lobby has pretty much forced smoking off movies and television. I get emails from people complaining about Nightingale’s love of nicotine but I like the fact that Nightingale smokes. It makes him an outsider, and a bit of a rebel. The only downside is that when I’m writing about Nightingale I get a craving for a cigarette myself. It’s been forty years since I last held a cigarette, but when I write about Nightingale the urge kicks in. So far I’ve managed to resist! In Nightfall Nightingale inherits a mansion that used to belong to his father. But with the windfall comes bad news – Nightingale’s father was a Satanist who had made a deal with a devil. On Nightingale’s thirty-third birthday, just weeks away, that devil is coming to claim his soul. The more Nightingale looks into his past the more secrets he discovers. And when everyone he talks to about his father dies horribly, he realises that perhaps devils do exist and that he faces an eternity in the fires of Hell. Nightfall is the first book in a trilogy – the further adventures of Jack Nightingale will follow in Midnight and Nightmare. And as the series continues, Nightingale will continue to smoke. I just hope that I can resist the urge to smoke myself!

False Friends Hardback Cover

Hodder are working on the hardback cover of False Friends, the new Spider Shepherd book which should be out in July. I think it looks great.

Midnight In The States

Amazon are preparing to publish Midnight - the second book in the Jack Nightingale series - in the States. They are doing the final edit and already have the cover.

The first book in the series - Nightfall - was published by Amazon's 47 North imprint last week and is already in the Kindle US Top 200.

Top 10 Amazon eBook Writers - And I'm Number Two!

Amazon.co.uk has just announced that Lee Child is the most successful British Kindle book author worldwide, followed by me and Ken Follett.

The company has released a list of the top-10 bestselling UK-born Kindle e-book authors, based on purchases from 1st January 2011 onwards in the US, UK, France, Spain and Italy.

Lee is great but truth be told he's way behind me in terms of UK sales. The bulk of his eBook sales have been in the US, where I don't sell that many.

Anyway, here's Amazon's top 10 of British authors.





SEE THE FULL STORY HERE

The New Spider Shepherd Book - False Friends

I finished the first draft of the new Spider Shepherd book last week and Hodder have already come up with a cover. I think it's a cracker. There's still some work to be done but if all goes to plan it will be in the shops in July.

Nightmare Is Published Tomorrow!

Nightmare, the third book in the Jack Nightingale series, is published tomorrow. Hodder have already commissioned two more, which is good news. Sadly it won't be sold in the supermarkets, which isn't such good news. So you'll have to buy it on Amazon or (gasp) in a book shop! Amazon will be publishing the three Nightingale books - Nightfall, Midnight and Nightmare - in the United States later this year.

Nightfall - the US edition

Nightmare - the third book in the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective series will be published by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK next week - following on from Nightfall and Midnight.

It rounds off the trilogy but sets the scene for a continuing series based around Jack - solving crimes and battling the forces of darkness. I have great fun writing the Nightingale books and the research is a blast!

Meanwhile, Amazon is preparing to publish the first book - Nightfall - in the United States. They will be using their 47North imprint and will have the book out in March, followed soon afterwards by the other two. It's going to be exciting seeing them launched onto the American market!

Cursed is published, Nightmare is out January 19

Cursed is now available as a free short story on Amazon UK. It's not available in the US yet as Amazon Encore will be publishing it in 2012. So if you've got a Kindle, you can get it free on Amazon. If you haven't got a Kindle, get in touch through Facebook and I'll send you a PDF.




Nightmare, the third book in the Jack Nightingale trilogy, will be published on January 19. I've already signed a contract to write two more Nightingale books for my publisher Hodder and Stoughton. And I have a brilliant idea to be going on with!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that you get what you want in 2012. I want another book at the top of the Amazon Kindle Bestseller chart in the US and the UK (The Basement managed it in 2011) but I don't think it'll be easy!

I'm pretty proud of the fact that The Basement topped both charts and sold more than 160,000 copies in the UK, making it the third bestselling book in the UK according to The Bookseller magazine.

This is what The Bookseller had to say -


The number one title is Confessions of a GP, the Benjamin Daniels hit that has been in and around the the weekly chart for much of the year, thanks to some smart pricing decisions and marketing from publisher The Friday Project: in print the book has sold just 8,500 copies in UK, but has been downloaded more than 100,000 times.

Top 10

1 Confessions of a GP Benjamin Daniels The Friday Project
2 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson Quercus
3 The Basement Stephen Leather AmazonEncore
4 Hard Landing Stephen Leather Hodder
5 One Day David Nicholls Hodder
6 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest Stieg Larsson Quercus
7 The Girl Who Played with Fire Stieg Larsson Quercus
8 A Game of Thrones George R R Martin Harper Voyager
9 Room Emma Donoghue Picador
10 The Hanging Shed Gordon Ferris Corvus

Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo is in second place (and with the US film version of the book now out we can expect sales to once again begin climbing), ahead of two Stephen Leather titles, one self-published and now part of the AmazonEncore programme. David Nicholls One Day, a print and film success over the year, comes in at fifth, ahead of the next two Millennium titles, with A Game of Thrones, Room, and The Hanging Shed, making up the remainder of the top ten.

11 to 20

11 Sugar & Spice Saffina Desforges MWiDP
12 Truth Dare Kill Gordon Ferris Corvus
13 The Alchemist's Secret Scott Mariani Avon
14 Bloody Valentine James Patterson Cornerstone
15 Star Sullivan Maeve Binchy Orion
16 Life and Laughing Michael McIntyre Penguin
17 Sister Rosamund Lupton Hachette Digital
18 The Unremarkable Heart Karin Slaughter Cornerstone
19 A Clash of Kings George R R Martin Voyager
20 The Help Kathryn Stockett Penguin

Despite having no titles in the top ten, Transworld is actually the most successful publisher in the top 50 with five titles, though among the big groups the spoils are won by Hachette, which has 11 titles in the list compared with Random's nine. There are fewer self-published titles than one might have thought given all the noise they generate, but of course this is not just a Kindle chart, it includes chart positions from the likes of Waterstone's and W H Smith, where self-published titles gain little light. There are, of course, no self-published books in the equivalent print chart.

21 to 30

21 The Last 10 Seconds Simon Kernick Transworld
22 The Redbreast Jo Nesbø Vintage
23 A Tiny Bit Marvellous Dawn French Penguin
24 Limitless Alan Glynn Faber
25 Those in Peril Wilbur Smith Macmillan
26 Caught Harlan Coben Orion
27 The Case of the Missing Boyfriend Nick Alexander Corvus
28 Silver Steven Savile Bad Press
29 Unlikely Killer Ricki Thomas Wild Wolf
30 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro Faber

The chart is dominated by fiction, and in particular adventure/thriller novels. There are 30 such books in the digital top 50 compared with just 12 in the print equivalent. In non-fiction the highest charting book is Life and Laughing by Michael McIntrye, which at 16 is 22 places ahead of the next contender, Madeleine by Kate McCann. The McInyre title was of course last Christmas' big Christmas hit—unlike in the print chart there are barely any Christmas biggies from 2011, in particular not a Jamie in sight. James Corden does, however, sneak in at 47—he has shifted 130,000 print copies too.

31 to 40

31 Second Son Lee Child Transworld
32 Locked in Kerry Wilkinson Self-published
33 Mr Right for the Night Marisa Mackle Self-published
34 The Affair Lee Child Transworld
35 Cold Kill Neil White Avon
36 Mile High Guy Marisa Mackle Dodder
37 The Family Martina Cole Headline
38 Madeleine Kate McCann Transworld
39 Into the Darkest Corner Elizabeth Haynes Myriad
40 The Crimson Petal and the White Michel Faber Canongate

The average selling price of the top 50 on Amazon was just £3.50, with 10 available for less than £1. In the printt char, the equivalent price was £6.60 with just one book (The Official Highway Code) retailing at under £4.

41 to 50

41 Afterwards Rosamund Lupton Hachette Digital
42 That Summer in Ischia Penny Feeny Tindal Street
43 Steve Jobs Walter Isaacson Hachette Digital
44 Suicide Run Michael Connelly Orion
45 Candles on the Sand Katie Stephens Self-published
46 Snuff Terry Pratchett Transworld
47 May I Have Your Attention Please? James Corden Cornerstone
48 Daddy's Home A K Alexander Self-published
49 Catch Your Death Voss/Edwards Harper
50 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John le Carré Sceptre

Ignoring the self-published titles, there are two e-book originals in the top 50 Lee Child's Second Son and Karin Slaughter's The Unremarkable Heart. Given the announcements coming out from publishers towards the end of this year, I think we'll see more originals and shorter works in next year's Top 50.

That's what The Bookseller had to say, but actually I'm pretty sure that The Basement was Number One and not Number 3. I was much higher in the charts than the GP book for most of the year. The Bookseller has pretty much ignored me over the past year, despite the fact that I sold close to half a million eBooks. When I had three books in the UK KIndle Top 5 Bestseller list I emailed the magazine but they weren't interested. And when they did start running their own eBook chart they rarely mentioned me. I guess that's because their survival depends on the traditional publishers, self-published authors really have no interest in a publication like The Bookseller, which makes much of its money from advertising from publishers. They did put me in their list of the Top 100 influential people in the publishing business, though, which was nice of them. The Bookseller has been making predictions of what the industry will be like over the next year or so. Well, I have a few predictions of my own, but I'll wait until the New Year before revealing them!

I Make The Bookseller 100 Most Influential List

I made the Bookseller magazine list of 100 Most Influential people in the UK book trade. How cool is that?