Success
Authors tend to be understandably guarded and self-deprecating when it comes to naming their own favourite works. In my case, this is because I never read my own stuff (and can’t imagine any author who would willingly do so) for pleasure, and I rarely return to it once the editing/delivery process is complete. Nevertheless, we are - generally speaking, in my experience of authors - always aware of our strongest and weakest work. Ironically, this often involves a reverse-order chart of the stuff that has done well.
My bestselling series were Gladiator Boy (250,000 copies) and Undead Ed (50,000). My least successful were The Illmoor Chronicles (100,000 but over six books and mostly weighted in favour of the first few), Davey Swag (barely over 5,000 copies) and Outcasts (not even 5,000).
For a long time, I have considered my greatest work to be The Lickspittle Leviathan, a short story published in 2014 in the anthology ‘Sharkpunk’ edited by Jonathan Green and published by Snowbooks. I think it’s probably the strongest and most ‘complete’ piece I’ve ever written. A close second would be my most recent novella ‘The Shinbone Shadowhunter’ (just starting to establish itself on Amazon as I type this), but that has been a long and rigorously hard ‘sell’ for readers.
Sharkpunk was the first anthology I contributed to following Hodder’s decision not to renew my contract (something I was never officially notified of either at the time or since).
The story was taken for reprinting in the anthology Shoal, edited by Alice Olivia Scarlett and published in 2018 by Thanet Writers. It can also be found my collection, Curse of the Kingslayer (Kingsbrook, 2022).
My career hit several notable slopes of decline. When my dog died in 2014, my writing suffered quite badly, but I was already through The Kazbrack Kingslayer by this point and trying not to let the darkness infect the humorous tone of the fiction (which is usually quite dark to begin with). When Terry Pratchett died in 2015, just a few months after my own grandmother, my passion for writing deserted me almost completely, and I found myself unable to write at all.
This changed in 2022 when I sat down determined to write just ONE more Illmoor story and was completely thrilled with the result when I finished ‘Shinbone’. I picked up the pen once again (or, in my case, a keyboard) at the beginning of 2026 and wrote about twenty short stories: some of the unfinished ones are currently on this site, while others are out on submission. Every author works in the hope of a return to form…and I’m currently trying to find mine.
MY OWN TOP TEN (in some sort of order) AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
The Lickspittle Leviathan (2014, in Curse of the Kingslayer, Kingsbrook)
The Shinbone Shadowhunter (2022, Kingsbrook)
Curse of the Kingslayer (2015, in Curse of the Kingslayer, Kingsbrook)
Outcasts: The Game (2012, Hodder Worldwide)
The Ratastrophe Catastrophe (2003, Hodder/Disney)
Undead Ed and The Devil’s Fingers (2012, Hodder/Penguin)
Undead Ed and the Howling Moon (2011, Hodder/Penguin)
The Shadewell Shenanigans (2005, Hodder/Disney)
Gladiator Boy: A Hero’s Quest (2009, Hodder/Penguin)
Gladiator Boy: The Blade of Fire (2009, Hodder/Penguin)
