My book 'Various Matters Forensic: The Thames Torso Murders'

[scriptor]

Hi, there. This is from Stephen Gouriet Ryan. Aficionardos of my scholarly true crime articles of the past may be interested to hear that, at long last, my work on the Thames Torso Murders is nearly ready for publication after 15 years of research and writing (because I was looking after my elderly mother for 13 years of that time), the project having morphed from a series of articles which had been slated for publication in Ripper Notes some years back, into a 502-page definitive, scholarly book on the subject. In order to facilitate the final stage and in order to secure a True Crime literary agent in London and a publishing deal there, I have lodged my book as a creative project on the crowd-funding platform website 'Pozible'. Those interested in viewing it, and a video on the project, can do so at: http://pozible.com/vmftttm
or www.pozible.com/project/34446
Also by typing VARIOUS MATTERS FORENSIC into a search engine.

Regards,

STEPHEN GOURIET RYAN

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Stephen, congratulations. I was writing for Ripper Notes back then and recall the high praise Dan Norder had for the work you submitted at the time. I was quite disappointed that I was not able to read your work then.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[scriptor]

Thank you for your kind words, Tom. It's been a long, hard road getting to this stage, although I'm VERY pleased with the results.
I am currently experiencing no little difficulty getting interested people to learn of the existence of my creative project on 'Pozible'. I've sent e-mails to friends, colleagues and acquaintances, even those in America and the U.K., but so far no pledges have been forthcoming. I've posted on Facebook and a few other sites, but many seem to have rules against self-promotion. I'm hoping that Debra Arif will see this and check my project out, because she has been an avowed, long-term fan of my work, I've also sent to Stewart Evans and David O'Flaherty... Perhaps you, she and others will be good enough to spread the word. If you've got any ideas on what sites to place a posting regarding this, I'd be happy to hear of them, for the internet is not really my natural milieu and I'm definitely not tech-savvy, having done my final year at college in 1970, long before the advent of personal computers, which the Christian Brothers had absolutely no inkling would ever come to be...

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Stephen. Your approach for funding is quite unorthodox. If it should not prove a success there are other avenues for you to consider. You could contact literary agents in your area, all of whom work with London publishers. You might also consider self-publication, which is not the same as vanity (i.e. expensive) publication. I have a book coming out next month and went this route and have thus far enjoyed the process. It's not really costing me anything, I get to sell through amazon and kindle (bookstores are sadly obsolete), and my royalties are probably higher than they would be through a traditional publisher. For my third book I'll seek an agent.

I watched and enjoyed your video. Your appearance (you look like an eccentric professor type) and captivating manner of speaking would certainly lend itself well to a documentary.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Debra A]

Hi Stephen. Great to hear from you.
Like Tom, I was disappointed when your torso series couldn't be published in Ripper Notes and I've been waiting and keeping an eye out for the promised book ever since. I thought you had maybe abandoned the idea!

The torso murders from a forensic angle is an absolute must and I have to confess that up until last year, I had been planning to write a book on the murders, along with fellow researcher Rob Clack, utilising the medical jurisprudence material as well as other research. I had to abandon the project because of important family related reasons too.


I agree with Tom that there may be other avenues open to you as regards publishing that wouldn't be as expensive. I haven't any experience of it but I know several have gone the self publishing route very successfully.
There is also another excellent forum that you may want to join

https://www.jtrforums.com

A lot of us are members there too. I'm sure there are members who can give you more detailed input on how to go about getting your work published.

I will send you a private message with my email address. Please feel free to email me.

[HelenaWojtczak]

This is most interesting!

From what I can see, Stephen, you are trying to raise money not to publish the book but to carry on researching -- a month in London, for example.

Once the book is finished there will be lots of choices. If for some reason you cannot get a publisher, you can always publish it on Kindle.

I know a publisher who will almost certainly take it on for you, and give you an advance, but only of about £1,00 to £1,500, not enough to cover the AUS$8,700 you are looking for.

Helena

[scriptor]

Dear Helen,
Thank you. You are perfectly correct: I'm not trying to get money to WRITE the book, it's virtually finished. I want to get to London, in order to wrap up any loose ends, then find a True Crime literary agent who will get me a True Crime Publisher's book deal. Whatever people may think in the U.S. or the U.K., it is different here in Australia. It's very parochial. Australian agents and publishers are only interested in Australian material. I don't do Australian material. I was raised an English gentleman and exposed to English culture by my London-born mother, even though I was born in Sydney and lived all my life here. My brain is not Australian. Therefore it is not simply a case of finding a literary agent here in Sydney with connections to London agents. I took my manuscript to London in 2011 and submitted it to the world-famous Curtis Brown agency, in Haymarket, London. The rather uppetty female agent to whom it was submitted finally got back to me to say that she had thoroughly enjoyed my work, but that she didn't think that she was the right agent to represent it (for which, read: she didn't have any contacts in the True Crime publishing trade), and in any case that they only took on clients who were living in England, because they want them to be available to promote the book, not live on the other side of the world. It therefore would have done no good whatsoever to have sumitted the manuscript via Curtis Brown in Sydney. I really don't think that the route I have chosen is at all unorthodox; it is dictated by my circumstances. To Tom; I was playing a 'role' on the video of a somewhat eccentric professor type deliberately. I am a trained actor, and I don't usually wear a chin beard, only a clipped moustache. I was going for an effect, and, rather than being 'eccentric' I would prefer the word 'different'. I don't do anything without deliberation.

Regards to all,

STEPHEN GOURIET RYAN
Regards,

STEPHEN GOURIET RYAN

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Stephen,

I didn't intend any offense. Eccentric is a commodity in promotion. Put you in a documentary about anything and you'd reek of 'authority', at least to us Yanks. And by 'unorthodox' I simply mean you're the only Ripper writer I'm aware of who has gone this route. In that sense, it is unorthodox. I would personally like to see you get your book published. I just haven't gotten the impression that you're informed on how publishing works nowadays. Rob House has had one of the top selling Ripper books for over a year now and he's in America. I'm pretty sure he didn't have to fly out of the country to make that happen. It's a niche market. Not like it was in the 70's. So large advances and heavy promotion are exceptionally unlikely through a standard publisher.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Debra A]

[John Wheat]

To Stephen

Your book sounds excellent. I find the Torso Killer as interesting as Jack the Ripper, I hope you get a True Crime publishers deal soon.

Cheers John

[scriptor]

I'm not at all offended, Tom. My response was intended to be light-hearted, unfortunately in an e-mail message the intonations and nuances are lost. I don't do 'lol'. I assure you it is different in Australia, for the very reasons I gave, and I am very well aware of the processes in getting a publisher. It just doesn't apply to my situation. I am doing what I have to do, in the way that I have to do it. If this way doesn't work out, I have other options for getting to London. Indeed, I have Right Of Abode, because my mother was born in London, and I would very much like to live there, but there's just one sticking-point: one has to have $5000 or more in one's bank account before applying, so that the British government is satisfied that one will not be a burden on the economy. What I need in order to make the crowd-funding method work, is that people should be kind enough to oblige me by simply spreading the word of the existence of my Creative Project on Pozible. THAT'S been the difficulty.

Regards,

STEPHEN GOURIET RYAN

[Scott Nelson]

Hi Stephen,

Some years ago I took a beating on these boards for raising the possibility that MJK's killer deliberately removed her pubic hair as you suggested in the Criminologist, 1998, v. 21, no. 1. This was based on Dr. Charles Albert Hebbert's material published in "A System of Legal Medicine" by Dr. Francis Harris in 1894. Dr. Hebbert was Bond's assistant and was present at the Kelly crime scene and her autopsy. Hebbert's handwriting (confirmed by his great-grandson) appears in the Bond report, so he recorded the details, including the fact that Kelly's heart had been removed and taken away. Do you still consider the deliberate removal of her body hair possible? To quote you from Ripperana, no. 56, April 2006, ".. Kelly's pudenda were devoid of pubic hair - whether by her hand or that of her murderer is not made clear, but in my opinion quite likely by the latter, for apparently, by inference, there wasn't even so much as some pubic stubble to help identify the remains on the bed as as clearly feminine (which seems to imply very recent removal...)"

[Debra A]

[m_w_r]

Quiet, Debs. The men are talking.

Regards,

Mark

[Tom_Wescott]

Quiet, Debs. The men are talking.

Regards,

Mark

No kidding...Ugh...fangirls.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott