No Expense Has Been Spared To Promote Blood Bath - Now Free Everywhere!

Blood Bath - a collection of seven free Jack Nightingale stories written by me and six other writers - is now in the UK Kindle Top 40.

No expense has been spared promoting it, as you can see!

You can download Blood Bath  for free HERE

Blood Bath In The UK Kindle Top 40

Blood Bath - a collection of seven Jack Nightingale short stories, has just entered the UK Kindle Top 40 which is pretty good going as it was only published ten days ago.

What makes Blood Bath different from most books is that I bought the cover - and the title - long before I wrote the story.  I saw the cover on the website of Brandi Doane McCann who has done several covers for me, including the US editions of Lastnight and Nightshade and several of the Spider Shepherd short stories. She's a cracking designer and her covers are very reasonably priced.

You can see more of Brandi's work by clicking HERE

I thought the cover was so brilliant that I bought it without even having an idea for a plot!

I finally got around to writing a short story to go with the title and cover earlier this year, but I thought it might be a good idea to see what other writers would do with it.

I asked if anyone else wanted to have a go and to my delight six other writers came forward with stories, including bestselling thriller writer Matt Hilton, author of the Joe Hunter series. He joined writers Alex Shaw, Conrad Jones and Andrew Peters, and Nightingale fans Robert Waterman and Lynnette Waterman.  All put their own spin on the character, and it was fascinating to see how different writers built such different stories based on a cover and a title.

Blood Bath is free - you can get it at Smashwords for all eReaders or for the Kindle by clicking HERE

It was a fascinating experiment, and readers seemed to enjoy it too, as it has been downloaded more than five thousand times already.  It might well be an experiment that I'll repeat!

Twitter - A Barrister's Tale

I’ve never really seen the point of Twitter. Most of the time it seems to be a lot of people shouting and no one listening.

My first twitter account - @stephenleather – was opened by a fan a few years ago who said that he thought it would be an important marketing tool. He sent me the log-in details and gave the account to me.

While I do use it – and another account @firstparagraph – I have to say that I’m not a big fan and don’t use it much. I prefer to keep in touch with readers through my Facebook page or email.  But I do check in every day or so because some readers like to use Twitter to tell me their thoughts or ask about my work.

I tend not to read other Tweets as there is a lot of bullying and sheer stupidity on Twitter that in my humble opinion is a waste of time and best avoided. I have had my fair share of insults thrown at me on Twitter and I have learned from experience that they are best ignored. It’s a bit like having someone shout abuse at you in the street –there is almost certainly an element of mental instability involved and nothing good ever comes from confronting the abuser. Walking away is always the best thing to do!

But recently when I was on seeing if there were questions from fans, I noticed that someone I had never heard of had mentioned me. It was a chap called Howard Jones, and he posted a very strange Tweet. Someone had posted about a character called Mo Ansar being evasive  and Howard Jones then Tweeted ‘Makes Stephen Leather look easy to pin down.’

That was a strange thing to say as I had never heard of Howard Jones. So who is Howard Jones? It seemed the obvious question to ask.

According to his Twitter profile he is a barrister, politician, historian and cricket lover.

Now I was worried, because when a barrister says that you are hard to pin down, it suggests that he has met you and gathered that impression from something you had done. And I was very sure that I had never met Howard Jones, in his professional capacity or indeed in any capacity.

To be honest, I did worry that people might think that he had questioned me in court!

He obviously wasn’t an anonymous troll, he’s clearly a real person, and an educated one at that.  It could of course have been a case of mistaken identity, so I decided to make contact with Howard Jones just to check what on earth was going on.

I Googled him and the only ‘HOWARD JONES, BARRISTER’ appeared to be at the Carmelite Chambers in London, a venerable and much-respected firm. – CARMELITE CHAMBERS

This actually worried me even more – it wasn’t a random stranger casting aspersions on my character but a barrister from a leading City firm.

I sent an email to the firm asking if Mr Jones would please contact me but they didn’t reply, so I picked up the phone and called them. It seems that he doesn’t work there any longer and the charming lady on reception said she didn’t know where he worked now.

According to Google,  Howards Jones’ last case through Carmelite appears to be back in September 2010 – there is a newspaper article about it here -

  http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/Ex-sailor-jailed-downloading-disturbing-child-pornography/story-11362567-detail/story.html

I wasn’t sure what to do as I didn’t want to send him a public Tweet but then I noticed that he was following my @firstparagraph account.  I was following him and he was following me, and when two people follow each other they can send each other a direct message, a Tweet that only they can see. A private Tweet. So I sent Howard Jones a private Tweet, just for his eyes, saying that I wanted to get in touch with him.

Unfortunately, instead of getting in touch as I’d asked, he then fired off four public tweets, for everyone to read.

In the public Tweets he said that I had been putting some time and research into trying to get in touch with him. That’s a bit of an exaggeration as I spent just one minute on Google and one minute on the phone. Ten seconds to send him a private Tweet.

And he made it seem as if I had been doing something wrong in following him –  completely ignoring the fact that he was following me.  If he hadn’t been following me, I wouldn’t have been able to send him a Direct Message.

But what really worried me was his public comment – “Should I expect grief or do you have to be a fellow writer to get grief?’

I was stunned that a barrister would think it appropriate to ask such a leading question in public.  It’s on a par with the legendary ‘how long have you been beating your wife’ question. I doubt any judge would allow such a question in court and I don’t understand why he felt it necessary to say that in public. All I wanted to do was to talk to him, to ask him why he felt that I was hard to pin down when he had never even spoken to me. Why would I want to cause him grief?  It looks like I’ll never know because I certainly don’t want to start a conversation with him in public and he’s clearly not interested in talking to me man-to-man.

As I said, I’m not sure where Howard Jones works now. His last chambers said they didn’t know where he had gone.

I did notice that not long after he sent the Tweets, he changed his profile to say that he was a non-practising barrister.

I don’t know why Howard Jones isn’t practising any more, but according to Google he does have political aspirations.

For some time he was a thorn in the side of Surrey Police. – There is a NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT IT HERE

He was so frustrated with Surrey Police that he tried to get elected as Surrey Police Commissioner.  He managed to get on the Conservative short list. – THE BBC TALKED ABOUT IT HERE

He wasn’t chosen as the Conservative candidate and the people of Surrey  eventually  elected someone else – AS REPORTED BY THE BBC

It could well be that Howard Jones will be seeking public office elsewhere, in which case I wish him well, but I trust he realises that as a politician he will need to engage with people directly and not just through Twitter.

Anyway, as I said at the beginning, I don’t really understand Twitter or the people who use it to attack others.

Some of the best advice on dealing with trolls comes from self-publishing guru Joe Konrath. His mantra is - ignore them. –  ALWAYS GREAT ADVICE FROM JOE KONRATH

Joe’s right, of course. He usually is. So I’ll just do what I usually do with strangers who have a go at me and ignore Howard Jones if he Tweets about me in future.   I have better things to do with my time.

To be honest, Howard Jones isn't my only troll.  But they do all seem to be cut from the same cloth. Not long after Howard had a go at me, another middle-aged, middle-class, university-educated professional took to Twitter to sneer at me.

I have to say that it's a very middle-class way of attacking me, and I guess that most of my readers won't even know who Johann Hari and Mo Ansar are.  But trust me, when Mobeena Khan sent that Tweet she wasn't trying to do me any favours!

Now, I didn't know Mobeena Khan, I've never met her, never spoken to her or about her, and until she sent that Tweet I had no idea who she was.

It turns out that Mobeena Khan is the editor of the journal of the Public and Mobile Libraries Group for Hertfordshire Libraries and has a BA and an MA in Literature, so she is clearly well-educated. I am a huge fan of libraries. I spent much of my youth in the local library and these days I do whatever I can to support the library system. I'm also very proud of the fact that I am one of the most borrowed authors in UK libraries. So why would a librarian decide I'm fair game for abuse?

Mobeena Khan is also the Chair of the Dagger in the Library Judges for the Crime Writers Association. We know a lot of the same people. I have no doubt that if I met her at a dinner party or in a bar I'd find her articulate, pleasant and polite.  So why would a middle-aged, middle-class professional decide that it is acceptable to cast aspersions on the character of someone they have never met, in public? The same goes for Howard Jones. I have no doubt at all that neither Howard Jones nor Mobeena Khan would behave like that if they actually met me.  But there is something about social media that encourages people like Howard Jones and Mobeena Khan to behave badly.

Mobeena Khan, like most middle-class middle-aged trolls on Twitter, is also a hypocrite. For example, this is a recent post of hers -

See that?  She thinks it's wrong to pick fights with strangers.  Yet she is quite happy to attack me, and trust me, I had never heard of her before she took a swing at me. Mobeena Khan says one thing, but does another, which is pretty much the definition of a hypocrite.

It's also significant that Mobeena Khan is tweeting to Jeremy Duns - it was to the same Jeremy Duns that Howard Jones sent those defamatory tweets.  In fact Jeremy Duns, Mobeena Khan and Howard Jones have all attacked me at one point or another so I suppose it is not surprising that they are Twitter friends. Several people have accused Jeremy Duns of being an online bully.

YOU CAN READ ABOUT JEREMY DUNS BY CLICKING HERE

Another middle-aged, middle class, well-educated woman who has trolled me on social media is Suw Charman-Anderson who likes to describe herself as a journalist and writer but who is less than successful in both fields and recently announced she was giving up self-publishing after a number of setbacks.  You can read about that BY CLICKING HERE

Despite claiming to be a professional journalist, Suw Charman-Anderson posted this on Twitter recently.

It is amazing that anyone who considers herself to be a serious journalist would behave like that in public. Though to be honest she doesn't do much journalism these days and recently gave up her blog which was attached to the Forbes website. She's very clever in that her CV says that she "blogs about publishing and crowd funding for Forebs.com" - in fact they don't employ her. It's just a blog. And not a particularly well read one, either)

What's interesting is the way that trolls often band together in their attacks. Some time after Howard Jones attacked me in Twitter, Mobeena Khan twitted in his defence, even though the two have never met and don't know each other. The only connection is that they both troll me on Twitter, but that single connections means she will rush to defend him. How weird is that?

Another respectable middle-aged middle class chap who has attacked me on twitter is the writer Lloyd Shepherd.  Again I have never met Lloyd Shepherd or read any of his books, but he seemed to think it acceptable to call me a scumbag in public. It came right out of the blue. I didn't even know who he was, I had to look him up. Turns out he's a former journalist, like me. Anyway, this is his offensive tweet.

I haven't heard of Grant Shapps, but I have heard of Johann Hari, a journalist who has had his fair share of on-line trolls, as has Mo Ansar.  I don't know why Lloyd Shepherd decided to lump us all together and describe us as scumbags, but would he say that to our face?  I doubt it. I really doubt it. Does he think it's clever to attack the four of us like that? To the best of my knowledge none of us have ever even mentioned him.

Anyway, this is Lloyd Shepherd, author of The English Monster, published by Simon and Schuster -

Why did Lloyd Shepherd, a man I have never heard of, decide to call me a scumbag in public?

Maybe it has something to do with him being a social media contact of Jeremy Duns, a less than successful writer who has made a name for himself by attacking other writers in public, often with the assistance of like-minded lefties.

That is the same Jeremy Duns that Howard Jones enjoys talking to on Twitter. Jeremy Duns is also a close friend of horror writer Steve Mosby, who Mobeena Khan enjoys talking to and who has attacked me dozens of times on Twitter and on his blog.  You can read more about Jeremy Duns BY CLICKING HERE   I am sensing a pattern, aren't you?  The Mobeena Khan-Steve Mosby link is an interesting one. She was on the judging panel of the Crime Writers Association Dagger In The Library award in 2012 - the year that it was awarded to Steve Mosby. The award is presented for a body of work but in Steve Mosby's case this meant six books that had sold in very small numbers in the UK and which represented a tiny tiny fraction of library lending. In fact his name has never appeared in the top 250 of borrowed authors in the UK. Despite this Mobeena Khan and the other judges gave the award to Steve Mosby.

Oh, and would it surprise you to learn that Steve Mosby and Lloyd Shepherd are Twitter friends? It shouldn't, because Steve Mosby is in some way connected to pretty much every troll who has had a go at me over the last three years.

Steve Mosby is a nasty piece of work. He  pretends to be a feminist and is always attacking for people he claims are misogynists, but he is quite happy to use the female anatomy as an insult.

Steve Mosby clearly doesn't care that there are a lot of youngsters on Twitter. He uses the C-word often, and aggressively.

Steve Mosby also thinks it's acceptable to blaspheme in public, in the most vile manner.

Steve Mosby is also happy to throw around the F-word, not caring that children can see his public posts.

A lot of the trolls I have come across do seem to be readers of the Guardian, so maybe it is significant that Lloyd Shepherd used to work for them. I just think it's sad that nice middle-class, middle-aged Guardian readers think it's acceptable to attack people they don't know on social media.

Lloyd Shepherd is also something of a hypocrite. Back in 2013, he blogged this -

You can read the full blog BY CLICKING HERE  See what he says there? "Be kind. Be honest. Do unto others as you would be done by".  Then he goes and calls me a scumbag in public. Shame on you, Lloyd Shepherd. Shame on you.

So, going back to the question of dealing with trolls. Ignoring them is the best thing to do. Or blog about them so others can recognise them for what they are. But never engage with them - that never works. DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS is sound advice.  So read Joe Konrath's advice and follow it. Oh, and if you can develop a thick skin, that will help!

The 9th Spider Shepherd Short Story

I've just self-published the 9th Spider Shepherd short story - Personal Protection - in which Spider, still in the SAS, is tasked with protecting a Middle Eastern ruler whose life is under threat.

You can buy Personal Protection on the Kindle  BY CLICKING HERE

There are now nine Spider Shepherd short stories, more than 120,000 words in total, so I'm going to look into the possibility of having them published as a paperback.

Watch this space!

White Lies - Off To The Editor

Well, White Lies, the 11th Spider Shepherd novel, is off to the line editor.  My editor at Hodder and Stoughton, Oliver Johnson, who also edits John Grisham in the UK, gave me his input and there wasn't much to do - about three hours' worth of rewriting.  Three hours?  Yup, that's how long it took to get from the first draft to the final draft.

I always smile when I hear writers talk about the weeks they spend polishing and rewriting their books.  I've never worked like that.  I rewrite as I go along, so if I write a paragraph that I'm not 100 per cent happy with, I delete it.  If I'm not happy with a description I change it, and I rewrite all my dialogue as I go along, after reading it out loud. Generally my first drafts are pretty much complete. Rarely do I have to make any changes to the structure of the plot, for instance.

My journalistic background is a big help. When you work on newspapers like The Times and The Daly Mail, the news desk expects you to deliver your copy on time and ready to go. There isn't time to edit and polish, a reporter who doesn't get it right the first time won't last long. When you deliver a story to a national newspaper the facts need to be right and the writing has to flow. Yes there are sub-editors, but if your copy isn't good enough they will soon let you know.  I always prided myself on being fast and accurate when I was a reporter, and that has carried over to my fiction writing.

Writing shouldn't be like pulling teeth, and getting your work ready for publication needn't be a struggle.  Some writers say that once the first draft is done, the hard work really begins. And I get what they mean, I just think it's a very wasteful way of writing. I know some writers who throw away half of what they've written between the first draft and the second draft, and another big chunk between the second and third draft. That seems to me to be very inefficient. Far better to maintain quality control as you work and if you see something you're not completely happy with, don't be afraid to use the delete button.  I always think it's far better to produce 200 words that are close to perfect than 2,000 words that are going to require hours of rewriting. Having said that, as a writer you have to choose what works best for you.

So what's next for me?  I have another Spider Shepherd short story I want to write, and a couple of Jack Nightingale short stories. I already have a rough plot for the 12th Spider Shepherd book.  But I also have a really neat idea for a totally different sort of thriller, one that I'm pretty sure hasn't been done before. I'm keeping that one close to my chest, but I've already started on the research and I'm pretty sure it's going to be amazing!

The New Spider Shepherd Short Story

I've just self-published the new Spider Shepherd short story. It's called Narrow Escape and is set at the time Spider was on SAS Selection - in particular on the Escape and Evasion part of the course. It's generally regarded as the toughest part of the SAS Selection process, but as Spider progresses through it he realises that all is not as it should be, and that his life is truly on the line.

You can buy Narrow Escape BY CLICKING HERE

I have another Spider Shepherd short story planned - I shall keep you posted! It will be the ninth at which point I hope to publish them in a paperback. The series of short stories take Spider from his time on SAS selection, through missions in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, and end with the episode where he got shot.  I had great fun writing them and will probably do more in the future!  Spider was in Sarajevo before he joined the SAS and I think there is a good story to be told about his time in the former Yugoslavia. We'll see!

The 11th Spider Shepherd book

Whew, I've just finished writing White Lies - the 11th Spider Shepherd novel. It came in at about 108,000 words, which is about 400 pages and a good length for a thriller.

I had a blast writing it and don't think it will need much in the way of editing.  We'll see!

Unusually, the cover isn't ready. Publication is set for the first week in August so I'm expecting the cover sooner rather than later!

In the meantime, I'm working on two more Spider Shepherd short stories - Narrow Escape and Personal Protection. Watch this space!