Vampires are nothing new in teenage fiction but the stakes have been upped with a new wave of blood-sucking ninjas, swords and decapitation Inspired by an interest in Japanese mythology and literature, author Nick Lake admits the idea for his books was triggered by a jokey exchange with a fellow editor at publishers HarperCollins, where he is an editorial director and children’s editor.

“We were brainstorming in an idle way about what might be exciting for teenage boys.

“With the Twilight phenomena, teenage girls were being served very well and 9-12-year-old boys by the likes of Anthony Horowitz but 13-plus boys were being slightly neglected. “I said ‘What about vampire ninjas?’ as a joke and she replied ‘That sounds quite cool, you should write that,’ so I did.

In his day job, 31-year-old Mr Lake edits the work of well-known children’s authors including Michael Morpurgo, Derek Landy and most recently, David Wallaims.

But he fell into publishing when he happened to see an advertisement for a HarperCollins graduate training scheme through the Oxford University Careers service. “I’d never thought about publishing until then. Although I was fascinated with reading and analysing literature, there is very little focus on editing.

“Few people are aware how much editors work on books and give comments to authors about structure and characters and so on.

“It is one of these unseen professions. It’s about melting into the background, being anonymous.”

His childhood was spent in Luxembourg where the family moved when he was four because his father worked for the European Parliament.

He stayed there until starting an English degree at Trinity, afterwards taking time out to travel around China before going back to do an MPhil in Linguistics and phonetics, mainly he says to “defer the inevitable of having to get a job”.

“Being at Trinity was absolutely incredible. You get to live in the centre of Oxford with bells going around you and beautiful lawns.

“Aside from Japanese tourists looking in at your windows, it is really a nice experience.”

Home is in Burford which he shares with wife Hannah, who grew up in Eynsham and is an outreach tutor in Oxfordshire and their 10-month-old daughter Lyra, named after the character in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series.

“We have the same agent. He kindly sent her a couple of signed books when she was born which we shall treasure,” he said. Much of his writing is done while commuting to London three times a week.

“Lyra’s not sleeping brilliantly at the moment, so working evenings or weekends is difficult. Plus I have a massive wodge of time, as I get on the train at Charlbury, then it is an hour-and-a-half to Paddington and same again on the way back,” he said.

He has just written the third and final Ninja book The Betrayal of the Living which comes out next year.

In a departure from blood-sucking samurai, he has penned a teen/adult crossover novel which will be published by Bloomsbury in January.

In Darkness is narrated by a teenage boy trapped under the rubble after the earthquake in Haiti. The young gangster, who grew up in the slums, hallucinates about an 18th-century slave leader.

His second tome for Bloomsbury, which he is half-way through writing, is about a rich girl kidnapped by Somali pirates.

With his inside knowledge of the industry, is it easier to craft a novel?

“It’s harder in some ways. It can be a hindrance in terms of looking at the market and thinking about what might be or might not be working,” he explained.

“In terms of structure, I don’t think it makes any difference as no one can be objective about their own writing, I needed an editor to look at it dispassionately.

“I am almost envious of people who don’t know anything about the business. It can be easier to be original if you don’t know what’s working.

“As an editor and a reader, I despair of all the bandwagon stuff that comes out when everyone starts doing vampire romance or Dystopian romances which is the big thing at the moment, driven by The Hunger Games [by Suzanne Collins].”

He has never been to Japan, Haiti or Somalia, but has a fascination for stories set in far-flung places.

“The one thing I can’t stand is books that are set now in Britain in this time. I like things that take me to a different place.”

* Blood Ninja II: Lord Oda’s Revenge by Nick Lake, Corvus Books, £12.99.