I Have Finished Writing FBK 3...

... for the weeked. I'll continue on Monday.

You may have noticed by now that my mind works along the lines of an internal combustion engine that has been fitted with a nuclear core, it never shuts down. Even a Japanese tsunami couldn't stop me thinking about this, that and the other.

The other day, whilst contemplating hosting a Formula 1 race on the rings of Saturn, it suddenly came to me, wouldn't it be nice if we could add music to our books? If we could insert a file into specific parts of the book, which would then give background music as the readers fell asleep due to the boring storyline? But seriously, think about it. It would bring a more three-dimensional experience to the reader. You could have sad, Hollywood-style piano music when Mr. Mills tells Mrs. Boon their affair is over and he has chlamydia. Or, stirring rock music during a fight scene (although if it were one of Stieg Laaarrrrssssson's fight scenes, it would be the monotonous drone of the Swedish bagpipes, and then his nose would produce excessive bleeding). Not only would this give Indie authors something to do in order to avoid proofreading their books properly, but it would also increase their annual quota of copyright infringements (on top of the stolen cover pictures). This would inevitably lead to the 2012 Literary Copyright Theft Awards.

But, it wouldn't have to stop there. The built-in vibration mode from games console technology could be applied. The reader would then feel the shock Mrs. Boon feels when she's given the devastating news.... No? Well, Bernie Ecclestone thought it was a stupid idea too. [play canned laughter]

My books are still rattling around the charts. Some are doing well, some are like an old faithful dog, which you should have put down weeks ago due to his arthritic hips, but he keeps plodding along next to you.

I sent FBK off to a couple of London agents (more for a laugh than anything else). I won't mention the names of the agents, because I've forgotten them, but the first reply came back saying they didn't have 100% confidence in the book being a success. So I'm going to use the quote, "We have 99% confidence in the Facebook Killer being a huge success." The other reply was a little cheekier: Dear Mr. Stewart, can you send us any manuscripts which haven't been self-published or given away for free? I replied, very politely, No!

I've finally decided that if I invested a billion quid into NASA, the AA, Google Earth & Streets to produce the world's most detailed atlas, I still wouldn't get it published...Dear Mr. Stewart, do you have anything a little more original we can look at?

Once FBK3 is finished, I'm going to take a long break before writing any more, possibly a day or two. I'm going mainstream, too. I know what the Kindlers want. I'll write under the name Melissa Stewart, and it'll be about an orphaned Indian boy who grew up, lost, in the tea plantations. When he eventually finds civilisation, a doctor will inform him that he has every disease known to mankind. It will be a heartrending story of one boy's search for his parents (no one told him they were dead) and his battle, against the odds, to reattach all his limbs using his mouth and a staple gun. It will be set in late 19th century India (as they all are) and I'll give it a touching, intellectual title... "Tealeaves Upon A Cold Wind", and he will befriend a jumper-wearing chimpanzee from the PG Tips adverts. It will be so deep and meaningless it will be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And at the end, when the boy dies, your kindle will shake like a bastard and play the soundtrack from Ghost.

It's true, I am a genius! 

Best regards.

Melissa Stewart.

Award winning author, and president of Chipping Norton Knitting Circle.

Email: ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

Twitter: @AuthorMLStewart

Facebook Killer: Brief Update...very brief.

Just a quickie, said the .....

I'll have to be quick today, Albert's throwing a tantrum, and when it involves a red-hot poker, it's best not to upset him any further.

Just a quick note to say FBK3 is now up to 14,000 words and just warming up.

FBK is still hanging around the #300 bestseller on Amazon UK (#2 in horror-thrillers), which isn't too bad after four long months and some speeling misstakes. I've watched (sorry, gloated) as a lot of well-known authors shoot past it just to drop right back down again.

FBK is also still doing well in the Apple charts. #39 in the top 100 after such a length of time is pretty damn good, in my humble opinion. Still top ten in the Apple thriller charts.

Anyway, back to work. No one keeps the rage waiting.

Best regards.

MLS

Email: ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

Twitter: @AuthorMLStewart

 

Do you spell Kindle with a K or a k? And does anyone really care?

Now, call me what you will, but I am no more racist than a panda (black, white AND Asian), I'm about as homophobic as Graham Norton's boyfriend and I'm all for the arty types. I once went to an art exhibition myself, well, a few of us got drunk in a bus shelter that Banksy had graffitied, if that counts. But there is a strange sub-culture I haven't quite got my head around yet. No it's not emos, or Lady Gaga lookalikes, it's the lesser-known-Kindle-worshipper.

Now, before you all jump down my throat and begin ripping out my guts, let me say this. Yes, I know they're a high percentage of my readers, and I love each and every one of them as if they were my own, and yes, I know a kindle cover is a form of protection so you don't end with baby kindles running around all over the place. Whether it's pink, blue, or ribbed for added pleasure makes not a jot of difference to me. BUT! To give your Kindle a name is pushing the boundaries of sanity, in my opinion.

I mention this only due to the fact that, being in Australia avoiding her majesty's pleasure of incarceration, I read one or two forums over my first six cups of tea in the morning. The UK forums are deserted because it's one or two a.m. in Blighty and everyone's tucked up in bed (with their devices, no doubt). I admit to feeling a little like a burglar and have often been tempted to steal someone's thread, but always resisted and simply rifle through their posts before having a big dump on the living room carpet and smashing the television. Anyway, I digress. This morning, whilst sneaking through the Amazon UK forum, I stumbled upon a fresh post called, did you name your kindle? Now, I was tempted to make a run for it, either that or kick it in the head and steal its car keys, but I refrained. I voyeured it (there's a new verb for the Literati!)

My mouse and I were trembling as we clicked on the subject matter and, lo and behold, we were correct to be shit-scared. Instead of the first reply, to the lovely lady who named her electronic book-reading device, Lilly, being NO! Go and seek help! I actually discovered to my horror that this isn't such a rare illness, this kindlenamingpsychosis. In fact other sufferers are blessed with such delights as "Leviathan", "Tick Tock" and "Twinkle", to name but a few. (Christ, they're going to have the piss ripped out of them when they start kindlegarten).

Anyway, I don't have a kindle. I would have bought one but I couldn't find a cover I liked, what's more I don't like the fact that you actually have to pay for the books. So I downloaded a kindle app for my home computer. I've named it Satan. It's good for viewing my spelling mistakes as a kindle-owner would. I must admit, though, they look much more pronounced in extra-large text. Try it! They kind off screem at you. The only downside is that if I want to take my kindle on the train, I need a wheelbarrow and a two-mile long extension lead.

Anyway, we're on the roundabout, remember? So, whilst creaking upon the floorboards of the deserted forums, I began wondering about some of the users sanity. After all, we name ships, space shuttles, dogs and countries, but do you know anyone who has given their computer a name... I'll make lunch in a minute darling, I'm just restarting Mr. Babbage...Now, Mr. Babbage, are you going to be a good boy this time? No more freezing up on me, you naughty little monkey...

.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware a kindle is only good for reading books, it doesn't matter whether it's ribbed or strawberry-flavoured, it's simply for transfer, storage and display of eBooks. Well... my telly transfers, stores and displays moving pictures. It tells me about the weather, what's going on in the world, and sometimes it even shows late night strawberry-flavoured, ribbed movies (which I've heard the neighbour playing the drums to). If I were blind, my telly would still tell me about the weather, the news and I'd still hear my neighbour drumming. But I haven't called the telly Bob or Twinkle or Einstein. He was born Panasonic and so he shall spend the rest of his life as Panasonic.

Now, most of you will have realised by now that I'm not exactly the greatest ambassador for political correctness in the world. I blame my grandfather, that's why my parents changed the family name from Hess to Stewart, but I recently received a review calling FBK racist. This was due to the fact that a little girl mentioned the fact that "the boys speak funny at my school", a mention of one Muslim character looking similar to his wife, and the fact that obviously Muslims NEVER EVER touch a drop of alcohol, worldwide, ever... yet one of my characters got drunk.

I was tempted to direct the reviewer towards the United Kingdom of Islam, where not only do the Islamic supremacists take a bit of a bashing, but also the Irish, Welsh, Scots, English, British Empire, Gypsies, Anti-nazi league, football hooligans, worldwide governments and presidents, the Serb army, the entire country of Norway (and France), paedophiles and right-wing activists. To name but a few. So there! I'm capable of upsetting any walk of life, race or religion. Whether their alcoholic wives look similar to their husbands or not.

I actually have tickets for  the Australian Open tennis men's final tonight, I can't even begin to explain the excitement harbouring inside anticipating watching two grown men hit fluorescent green balls at each other. I won't divulge how many zeros were on the end of the ticket price, but I'd rather be curled up in bed with Kylie the Kindle.

Oh, I'd best go! Polly the kettle is singing to me... stroppy bitch!

Best regards.

MLS

Email: ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

Twitter: @AuthorMLStewart

Facebook Channel: MrMLStewart

Disclaimer: ML Stewart is not now and never has been related to Rudolf Hess.

Today's Post Has No Title.

I don't know about anyone else, but the immense relief I feel when finishing a book is only comparable to the realisation that the test results I'm reading, telling me I have six weeks to live, were actually addressed to the noisy neighbour who plays his music at 1,000 decibels until 6:00am and pisses through my letterbox for a laugh.

I've spent five months writing, editing, proofreading and developing a set of red wine-stained teeth (offset with a subtle hint of nicotine-saffron). My loyal readers, who really should find a job or, at the very least, a more entertaining blog to read, will remember my flippant attitude towards the speeling and punktuwation mistakes made in FBK 1. Well, I eventually got round to sorting them out, after the wrath of the literati reviewers.

I knew I couldn't risk publishing The United Kingdom of Islam before I made sure it was as damned near perfect as possible. So, I spent a full six weeks proofreading the book. Three times I edited that bloody book, then I compared the final version with my (expensive) editor, and guess what? My final cut was actually better. She missed a hell of a lot of mistakes. I paid her in full, of course, but at least she won't be spending any of it until they release her from the intensive care unit. A Jeep Cherokee versus an editor? The Jeep will win every time.

By the time I'd read UKI for the millionth time, I actually began doubting it's worth. I was bored with it. I even considered not publishing the book. I'd just received a bad review for one of the other books (because I'd used a comma instead of a semi-colon type thing) and my confidence was about as high as a veruca. But, in typical ML Stewart fashion, I thought f##k them! I didn't stain my teeth red and yellow for nothing, and published.

Now, other new authors who read this blog will know what I'm talking about. It's the fear of rejection, the terrifying second before you hit the SUBMIT button, the nightmares you have about the correct use of capital letters, hyphenation and what the f#ck is a semi-colon actually for, who invented it, and what sort of drugs was he using when he did?

But then I received my first review. Now, you all know about my aversion to self-trumpet blowing, but when the UK's top-selling crime / thriller writer, and author of more than thirty bestsellers, wets the brass mouthpiece for you it's only polite to attempt a tune. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to use the review for blatant advertising, in fact, the only place it'll be mentioned is here, on this blog. What I'm attempting to say is, as I've said time and time before, never give up.

Here's the five-star review from Mr. Stephen Leather. A man who has taken the time to read a nobody's book, reviewed it and given said author the confidence to continue writing until his teeth fall out.

Hard-hitting story, written with flair. 25 Jan, 2012.

ML Stewart caused a bit of a stir with his eBook bestseller The Facebook Killer so I was interested in seeing this latest book. I was especially interested because for years I've been playing around with plots set in a UK under Sharia law. I was looking at a murder investigation with a Christian inspector shadowed by a Muslim sergeant and looking at how crimes might be investigated differently from the way they are now. All I have is notes and I doubt the book will ever be written. MLS has taken a different route with his novel and it's a cracker, though not for the faint-hearted. What I noticed immediately is the way the writing flows. Most self-published eBooks read like they've been written by amateurs but MLS writes like a pro. His descriptions of a UK under Muslim control are clever - I loved the idea of the London Eye being used as a rotating gallows for instance. It's very much an alternative reality type of story, and you have to suspend quite a lot of belief as you read it, but that doesn't take away from the story in the least. It's quite violent and so won't please everybody but I enjoyed it.

Mr. Leather's website has excellent advice to other new authors.

www.stephenleather.com

That's it for today folks. I have a trumpet lesson booked for seven o'clock.

Best regards.

MLS

Please send all Jihadist threats and hate mail to: ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk
Or you can follow my Twits on Tweeter: @AuthorMLStewart

PO Box 187.
10 Downing Street,
London.

The United Kingdom of Islam Goes Live - Jihad declared upon ML Stewart, like he gives a shit :)

It's done; it's finished and uploaded.

It has been proofread several times, by the blind, the poor and the professionals.

The Is have been crossed and the Ts have been dotted.

Almost five months of my life have evaporated during the creation of it.

"The United Kingdom of Islam" is now available on Amazon  United Kingom of Islam




Best regards,

MLS

Twitter Rubbish - @AuthorMLStewart

E-Hate Mail (Please include the word FATWA in the subject) - ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

The Sinking of the Costa Concordia - As The World Reels - Carnival Call Their Lawyers And Wipe The Blood Off Their Hands.

Today's blog has nothing to do with books, apart from the fact that in FBK2 Dermott Madison and Albert took a cruise on a Carnival ship.

This blog may seem disrespectful in the current light of things, but no matter, this blog must be written.

If you have been personally affected by the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise liner I urge you to stop reading now.

As the world mourns, argues about and debates the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, let me give you some cold hard facts about the company that owns the line and the safety hazards that occur within these ships.

Firstly, you will ask yourselves, how does this bloke know anything about anything? Well, if you have read FBK2 you will realise that I have actually been on a Carnival cruise ship, several actually.

There was a time in my life when I had to disappear for a while, well, six months to be precise. I decided the best option was to float about on federal waters in a Panama or Bahamas registered ship. Visiting Mexico, the Caribbean (East & West) and South America.

All of these ships were part of the Carnival fleet (Carnival Corporation owns Costa Cruise lines) To cut a long story short I spent six months of my life travelling back and forth on their ships, getting to know the crew and eventually blagging a "crew area" pass for the last ship, Carnival Glory, upon which I spent three weeks as a VIP guest.

That's the history - Here are the facts.

The good points:

A) The onboard safety training of all crew is to the highest standard (International Maritime Organisation & US Coastguard). They are basically brainwashed into knowing what to do and where to go in case of an "emergency at sea"

And that's where the good points stop.

The bad points:

1) Most ships have a crew of around 1,000. In my estimation only 10% of these have English as their first language (USC, British, some Filipinos and Indians). The Costa Concordia, like most ships, had a predominantly Asian crew (Filipino, Indonesians and Indians) None of which would be able to speak Italian to the predominantly Italian passengers and officers. Most Italians DO NOT speak English, it is not taught in their schools, even though it is the legal language of the sea. I have met captains who do not speak English!!!

2) The Carnival Corporation employ the cheapest labour they can find. Therefore they use native language speakers to conduct employment interviews in the aforementioned countries. English, the language of the sea, is never used in said interviews.

So what do we have? A disaster at sea and a crew who hardly speak English let alone Italian. That is why some guests were told to go back to their cabins and others were ordered to head to their "muster stations" in preparation of boarding lifeboats. We have a situation of chaos caused by the desire to employ slave labour.

A galley worker can earn $600 (three hundred quid) for working, not a week, but a month. That's seven days a week (officially 10 hours a day but normally much more) for six to eight months at a time. Carnival don't care if the galley slave speaks English, as long as he can cook eggs or clean dishes until the day he dies. But if Carnival obeyed maritime law, we wouldn't have dead bodies off the coast of Italy and many more missing.

3) The company implemented the fact (as of last year) that any new employee must pass the Marlin's English test before they were allowed to join a ship. But the fact remains that 90% of their employees (that's a guess) expect to work for the Carnival for a minimum of 10 years and most of those employees were with the company before the English test was introduced.

There is a story among the Carnival employees about an inspection from the US Coastguard. They do an excellent job (especially due to the fact that Carnival hide all of their non-English speaking crew during an inspection) Anyway, the Coastguard collared a Chinese crewmember and asked him what was the signal for an emergency. (Its seven short blasts of the whistle followed by one long blast, btw) The only English this guy understood was emergency, so he proceeded to imitate the ship's whistle, covering the Coastguard Inspector in spittle.

I laughed when I heard this story. But no one is laughing now.

In short, Carnival are a law-breaking, racist company (who pay higher wages to white Europeans for doing the same job as their Asian or South American counterparts.)

If every crewmember had spoken English/Italian on the Costa Concordia (as they should) there would be no hearses waiting on the pier.

4) All of Carnival's cruise ships used to be built in Scandinavia (mainly Finland) to the highest quality. The steel used in the hulls would kick any rock's arse. To please the shareholders costs were brought down and now the ships are built in Trieste, Italy. Low grade craftsmanship, low quality steel...rock...fucked!

I could go on for pages and eventually clog up the entire server but I won't. You get my drift. This was something which was destined to happen and thank God they weren't out to sea.

MLS 

Voted Most Irritating Blog Of 2011 By The Readers Of "Latvian Stamp Collectors Monthly"

Boo! Heeeeere's Stupid!

"Darling, he's written another blog."

"That's it, I'm turning the power off at the fuse box and the computer's going straight back to the shop on Saturday."

As I sit here, unshaven, my beard down to my month-old socks, an ashtray replaced by a skip and a layer of dust on my folically-challenged brain covering. I have to ask myself, is it really worth it? Paying all that money for a skip, when I could get off my lazy arse and empty the ashtray?

But seriously, is it? I've spent day at night working on my latest book, UKI. My eyes aren't just square; if I don't blink for a minute my pupils become screensavers. Five long months in writer's quarantine. I envy the fresh air afforded to hermits, the camaraderie shared by monks of the silent order as they play charades and pretend to laugh. I hear people in the street, laughing and having fun, and I tell them to keep the noise down or ask them questions about the correct use of punctuation. I dream about Emily Piper, my latest protagonist, we go on picnics and discuss semi colons.

United Kingdom Of Islam has over three quarters of a million characters (including spaces) and every one has to be checked, or the Literati will crucify me with their reviews. If I asked a man in the street to press my doorbell 760,000 times, he'd think I was insane (it's not a strange request, is it?)

So why do so many Kindle readers complain about having to pay for books? Or worse still, grumble that they can't share books with each other...to avoid payment. Piracy (theft) of ebooks is bad enough without our legitimate channels of income turning into a shoplifter's amnesty. I wouldn't dream of...  *desperately thinking of an analogy as Emily Piper calls me back to work* ....I wouldn't dream of buying a factory and then expect all of the employees to work long and hard for no pay, just because I bought the bloody building. Crap? Mmm a bit... but time is my enemy, bear with me.  So why should authors, be they good, bad or dead, do the same?

Amazon needs to share the blame. They lower prices so much that some of the "kindlers", especially the new ones, expect cheap or free books all the time.  FBK1 is still free and they can't give me the "price-matching" bullshit, because Amazon is the only one giving it away for free, almost 35,000 copies now! I admit, it was a good leg up for selling Part 2, but enough is enough. When Part 1 reverts to its normal price it still sells well and I make some skip money, but that only lasts a few days at a time and then it's thrown back in the Slush Pond.

Returns! They're another pain in the arse. The reader can return the book within seven days if they aren't satisfied. My US sales are never affected by returns, neither Europe, but in the UK? I don't have many returns a month, last month only 10. But, to prove a point 5 returns were from FBK1 and the other 5, you guessed it, FBK2. That tells me this, these tightwads are downloading all the free books they can get their hands on, forgetting which were free and which were paid for, so they return everything once they've read it. Effectively, free books. Amazon should make a limit of, say, 5 book returns per month. The reader can judge by the sample and reviews whether they are going to like a book (unless of course its a new release) so why give the bastards their money back?

When UKI is finally published it's going to be ₤1.99 and if Uncle Amazon changes the price, I'm going to remove it. My face is in severe need of spiting, and my nose is too big anyway.

Okay, moving along and lowering the blood pressure as I go.

I found the following while trawling the net in search of goldfish porn. I know this is probably quite tragic in most people's eyes and I don't want to upset anyone, but if I do you can get to the back of the ML Stewart Assassination Queue.

In 2010 this chap, Charles Kembo, murdered almost his entire family: wife, mistress, friend and stepchild. That part, I agree, is tragic (depending on the circumstances). Anyway, he went on to self-publish a children's book under an assumed female name. When the Canadian press got hold of this they went public with the story.

To cut a long story short, this guy's book has five reviews on Amazon.

1 Star: This book was written by a serial killer. Seriously, research the author. I choose not to support the art of murderers, sent my copy back.  

1 Star: Do not buy this book.

1 Star: it's true - he's a serial killer

4 Stars: love it, cant wait for the rest of the series!!!, Not sure what the guy above me is talking about but I read this to my 5 and 7 year old boys every night and they love it! Even if the guy is a serial killer (yea right hahaha) the book is still great. Maybe writting children's books is all he's good at. Shame on you trying to take that away from him. For shame.

5 Stars: Not a bad first effort; rape scene may be inappropriate for some children. ...... My 5-year-old and 10-year-old loved it - we look forward to future entries in the series!

WTF? ... RAPE SCENE MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR SOME CHILDREN? Oh, don't be such an old fuddy duddy. This is the 21st Century, all the kids are talking about rape and murder by the time they finish kindergarten... Sweet Jesus!

It gets better. This guy likes "to write in semi-darkness, alone in the nude," and you lot think I'm strange.

It gets better still. The price of the book is $110..... pass the lethal injection someone.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Believe it or not, but it's true. I received this email at the weekend.

Dear Mr. ML Stewart.

I am writing to you with an unusual request and I hope you dont find it rude of me. My 8 year old son uses my Kindle quite alot as I have got books on there for him. Last week I left him with his aunt while my husband and I went away for the weekend. When we got back he was in a terrible state and refused to sleep in his bedroom. It turns out that he read your book Facebook Killer while we were away and is now scared out of his wits. He wont even walk past the computer.

Could you find it in your heart to send him an email at this address, his name is Toby, and tell him that its only a story. I would be so happy if you'd do this for us.

Yours sincerely,

XXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX

Now, I have two replies saved in my drafts. The first is the one her son wants to read, BUT the other begins like this.

Dear Toby,

Remember when Mummy and Daddy told you that the monsters under the bed don't exist? Well they lied to you............

That's all folks, Emily Piper is calling.

Until next time.........

MLS

The independent ML Stewart Fan Page on Facebook


Follow @AuthorMLStewart

HATEmail: ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

The above blog posting was not edited, proofread or given a shit about.