The Chinaman - My Fourth Book

I wrote my first three novels - Pay Off, The Fireman, Hungry Ghost - for Collins, now Harper Collins, while I was working as a journalist. The first Stephen Leather novels sold OK, but they didn't set the world on fire. Then, as now, getting a publishing deal was only the first step on a very long road. Just because a book has been published doesn't mean that it will sell, never mind fly off the shelves, as many writers have discovered.

Having published my first three novels, Collins rejected my fourth.  It was called Dreamer's Cat and is a science fiction mystery set in a world where virtual reality is a way of life. It was very different from the first three and I'm not surprised that they didn't want it. But what Collins didn't do is to ask me what I was working on at the time.  When I approached Gerald Seymour's agent - Michael Sissons at Peters, Fraser and Dunlop - he agreed that Dreamer's Cat wasn't publishable but he did ask what else I was writing. I told him I was writing a novel called The Chinaman, where a former VC assassin starts a new life in London only to have his family killed in an IRA bombing. Michael loved the idea, begged me to finish it, and then sold it for a six-figure sum in the UK and for even more in the US.

Hodder and Stoughton bought the UK rights and they have been my publishers ever since.  The Chinaman has always been in print and is selling well as an eBook.  At the time we signed the deal I was a night news editor on The Times, but the deal was so good that I was able to quit my day job and write full time.  Stephen Leather had become a full time author!

Incidentally, I went to self-publish Dreamer's Cat as an eBook many years later and sold over 100,000 copies.  You can read about my self-published books here -  MY SELF PUBLISHED E-BOOKS

Hungry Ghost - My Third Book

Hungry Ghost was the first of my books written in the third person. The first two - Pay Off and The Fireman - were in the first person.  But my editor at Collins told me that the way to sell more books was to write 'bigger' books and that really requires them to be written in the third person.

I was living in Hong Kong at the time - where I was Business Editor of the South China Morning Post. The book is set in Hong Kong - I've always tried to set my books wherever I'm living. And I used my own flat at the time as the basis for the flat that the main character lives in, complete with noisy neighbours!

Hungry Ghost was the first Stephen Leather true hardback edition, though it was a small print run and they are quite rare these days.  It's still in print and sells well as an eBook.

Here's the latest cover:

I think the story stands up well over the years, though obviously it's set in pre-handover Hong Kong.  And I've often thought of revisiting the main character and his Chinese girlfriend. It's on my to-do list!

The Fireman - My Second Book

I wrote my second book, The Fireman, while I was working as the Business Editor of the South China Morning Post.  Like Pay Off, it was written in the first person.   The main character, a journalist who flies to Hong Kong to find out why his sister died, is very much based on me.  It was set long before Hong Kong was handed back to China so it has dated a bit, but it still gives you the feel for what Hong Kong was like under British rule.

Like Pay Off, The Fireman had a very short print run and the original editions are collectors items. Hodder have republished the book and it still sells, and does particularly well as an eBook.

I really enjoyed my time in Hong Kong and sometimes wish that I had stayed longer. I was there for three years an I don't think I've ever worked harder or had such fun.

The Fireman didn't sell particularly well when it was first published - Stephen Leather wasn't a brand name back then - so I asked my then editor what I should do. She suggested that I started writing in the third person and to make the books 'bigger', both in terms of content and length, and that's what I tried to do with my third book.

My First Book

The first book I wrote was a thriller called Pay Off.  I sent it to half a dozen publishers and two - Collins and Macmillan - asked me in for a chat about it. I ended up being published by Collins and I began my career as a professional novelist.  The original cover was very simple - a shotgun with a couple of cartridges next to a glass of whisky. They are now collector's items as it was a very short print run, but by the age of 30 I was Stephen Leather, published author.  It would be another four years before I would be Stephen Leather, full-time author.  Writing is a craft that has to be learned, and just because your first book is published doesn't mean you have what it takes to make a living from it.  The sale of Pay Off was just a small step in my publishing career, though obviously a step in the right direction!

Years later, Hodder and Stoughton republished Pay Off and it still sells well, especially as an eBook.  It has dated a little (I did write it almost 30 years ago!) but it's still, in my humble opinion, a good fast-paced read.  Every now and again I think about updating it.  It's on my to-do list!