Kerry Wilkinson began writing his debut novel, Locked In, 11 months ago "as a challenge to myself to see if it was something I could do".
It became the first in the Jessica Daniel detective series and Wilkinson quickly went on to produce two follow-ups, Vigilante and The Woman in Black.
Despite Wilkinson having no agent or professional publicity machine, the three books have sold more than 250,000 copies in total to make him the best-selling author at the Kindle Store in the last quarter of 2011.
"This time last year, I hadn't even started writing Locked In," said Wilkinson, 31, a sports journalist from Lancashire. "Now I'm outselling many authors that I have grown up reading.
"I wrote it more as a test for myself as opposed to anything else. I hadn't put any thought into publishing - either traditionally or by myself - let alone any success it could possibly have. I only wrote it to see if I could."
As an experiment, Wilkinson decided to put out the novel - the plot involves a body found in a locked house with seemingly no way in or out - via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing tool.
His strategy involved selling the novel for 98p (the follow-ups cost more),setting up his own website and utilising social media, but he said: "Ultimately, I think any success they have had is that the books hit something of a gap in the market.
"Jessica, the lead character, is a strong-willed female so it's not a traditional detective story with an ageing bloke."
Wilkinson received 30p from each sale of Locked In, and has earned just over £50,000 from that novel so far. Royalties from the other books are coming in.
The next two books in the series, Think of the Children and Playing With Fire, are due for release this year........
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