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UK Haunted Hospitality - Volume 1: Pubs And Clubs

Frideswide said:
I wonder... do people like more geographical attraction than UK? Like the Norfolk ones are... about... Norfolk. *voice trails off*
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This is a good point.

@DrPaulLee How easy is it to split it into regions and sell individual chapters or sets of chapters as shorter/cheaper ebooks?

They could co-exist alongside the full length version and you put a note to say they are part of a larger work if people are interested.
 
Stormkhan said:
Personally I 'collect' books of 'local' tales whenever I've visited counties, such as Cornwall, Isle of Wight, Kent etc.
However, I also like having 'collected travelogues' as reference material too.
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Yes, me too - I have a enormous amount of county-level books, and a few with national coverage.
 
Stormkhan said:
Personally I 'collect' books of 'local' tales whenever I've visited counties, such as Cornwall, Isle of Wight, Kent etc.
However, I also like having 'collected travelogues' as reference material too.
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I have a number of 'gazetteer–type' books on ghosts and folklore, but I confess I always prefer some narrative input: an author who has visited all these sites and can add an account of the experiences they had and the impressions they formed while they were there—especially when the author has sufficient knowledge of the subject to draw cross-comparisons with other sites and tales.
 
It would be quite easy to split the manuscript into little booklets and sell them separately, that's something I could look into.
It wouldn't be feasible for some counties due to a dearth of material. For instance, Kent would be good for a pubs or hotels booklet as I have about 30 of each. It might be difficult with other places like Cumbria as I only have two haunted pubs there, but a few more hotels/BnBs.
A "haunted places of ..." book might be a possibility but I think the History press etc series might be better as they rely on people with local knowledge, photographs and historical cases. I've tended to focus on places that have had at least one incident since the 1980s and can be visited.
The number of places especially pubs that have closed in recent years is depressing.
And then I have to check the category of each location. Many pubs offered accommodation and then gave it up and referred to being a hostelry. The same for hotels in this merry dance.

I'm constantly switching locations in my spreadsheet between pubs and hotels "sheets" and it's maddening. It isn't always easy how I can categorise them and I'm perpetually aware that there must be places I've missed or miscategorised. That preys on my mind and I know it shouldn't. And as I've said in my book, it's really hard to know the boundaries between pubs and restaurants. When does one become the other? The oft used phrase "gastropub" doesn't help. Often I have to guess.

(As an example of how confusing things can be, I've just written up a Scottish hotel today and naturally I went to check it. I found out that it went on the market recently and is *probably* now a private home. So it gets knocked out, dammit)
 
DrPaulLee said:
It would be quite easy to split the manuscript into little booklets and sell them separately, that's something I could look into.
It wouldn't be feasible for some counties due to a dearth of material. For instance, Kent would be good for a pubs or hotels booklet as I have about 30 of each. It might be difficult with other places like Cumbria as I only have two haunted pubs there, but a few more hotels/BnBs.
A "haunted places of ..." book might be a possibility but I think the History press etc series might be better as they rely on people with local knowledge, photographs and historical cases. I've tended to focus on places that have had at least one incident since the 1980s and can be visited.
The number of places especially pubs that have closed in recent years is depressing.
And then I have to check the category of each location. Many pubs offered accommodation and then gave it up and referred to being a hostelry. The same for hotels in this merry dance.

I'm constantly switching locations in my spreadsheet between pubs and hotels "sheets" and it's maddening. It isn't always easy how I can categorise them and I'm perpetually aware that there must be places I've missed or miscategorised. That preys on my mind and I know it shouldn't. And as I've said in my book, it's really hard to know the boundaries between pubs and restaurants. When does one become the other? The oft used phrase "gastropub" doesn't help. Often I have to guess.

(As an example of how confusing things can be, I've just written up a Scottish hotel today and naturally I went to check it. I found out that it went on the market recently and is *probably* now a private home. So it gets knocked out, dammit)
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A pub/restaurant in my home town has changed names so many times, I struggle to keep up. Arthur Conan Doyle stayed there and wrote some of Hound of the Baskervilles there but there's no blue plaque to celebrate that .. then The Sex Pistols stayed there one night after doing a local gig. Cilla Black as well as some point. When I moved to my home town, it was still The Dolphin pub and Phyliss did the best carvery's to date I've ever had, then it became 'Craft Burger', then 'Lilly May's'. No one currently knows what's going to happen next with the place or what it's going to be re named as next.
 
A bedraggled burger van outside a local pub has been rechristened 'The Foodie Shack' and now, instead of tatty hot dogs made of real dogs, it promises to serve 'brisket'* (whatever that is), 'smash burgers'** (whatever they are) and all sorts of gentrified alleged delights. I don't know whether to laugh at the pretension or to be annoyed. I hope they still garnish stuff with jet black onions which smell like burnt tyres though.


* &** I'm hopelessly clueless about food generally, as you can see.
 
Steven said:
A bedraggled burger van outside a local pub has been rechristened 'The Foodie Shack' and now, instead of tatty hot dogs made of real dogs, it promises to serve 'brisket'* (whatever that is), 'smash burgers'** (whatever they are) and all sorts of gentrified alleged delights. I don't know whether to laugh at the pretension or to be annoyed. I hope they still garnish stuff with jet black onions which smell like burnt tyres though.


* I'm hopelessly clueless about food generally, as you can see.
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Are their sign boards painted 'gentrified' grey or are they identifying as black signs with 'quirky' white chalk pen painted advertising quips instead?.
 
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