A Spookies Compendium (again)

It’s time to bore the socks off everyone again with a bit of history, so pay attention, there’ll be an exam at the end of this post.

I’ve been a member of Writelink for six or seven years now. Back in 2005, I used the site’s Arena forum to put up the opening chapter of a piece entitled The Treasure of Melmerby Manor. The idea of Arena was that more experienced writers would comment on pieces, advising the writer how it might be improved. You might think that having been a freelance and novelist for over 20 years at that time, I wouldn’t need such advice. Wrong. We all need constructive feedback at one time or another.

In amongst the general plaudits for the piece were some constructive ideas from two ladies: Maureen Vincent-Northam and Lorraine Mace.

I took their advice away, tinkered with the opening chapter and worked and worked and worked on the piece as a whole until, would you believe it, The Haunting at Melmerby Manor was published by Virtual Tales in 2007.

VT went into liquidation last year and the rights reverted to me. I self-published it along with a sequel, The Man In Black, and then I threw both novels together, added a short story to come up with A Spookies Compendium, which is now enrolled into KDP Select. That in turn means I can promote it by making it free for 5 days out of every 90. More about that in a moment.

I count Maureen and Lorraine as two of my best, online friends, so much so that Maureen now edits all my work (other than blog posts and tweets) and Lo and I exchange ideas and opinions on crime and thrillers, (which she writes under the nom-de-plume Frances di Plino). I guest post on both their blogs and one of these days, when I can be bothered, I may ask them to guest post here. Their co-authored work, The Writer’s ABC Checklist, is the only reference book I keep to hand.

Their advice on Melmerby Manor was invaluable. Had it not been for their input I don’t know that it would ever have been completed, never mind published.

And there you have it. Now you know who to blame

As for A Spookies Compendium, I said I can make it free occasionally. Well it’s free right NOW, but only for the weekend. It’s exclusive to Amazon Kindle, so shoot over there while stocks last.

A Spookies Compendium is exclusive to the Kindle from Amazon UK and Amazon Worldwide.