I was so excited to see that my favorite author, who I had written to and had much communication, was having his family re-release all of his books.
I have all of these books, somewhere, but have rebought many on my Nook.
And whomever edited for ebook release needs to be shot.
I started reading Sweet Dreams, a book he wrote in the 80’s, and sent me an autographed copy of, and the spelling errors are horrible. I fear that the family is so intent on making money, that they are not paying attention to the quality of his work.
I was a 13 year old girl who read his books, and literally wrote him a letter. I received many letters back, and autographed books. But the fact that they would re-publish his work, so fast and haphazardly, is really sad.
He stopped writing the horror books I loved as a teen, and started writing westerns. But he always replied to my letters, and encouraged me to write, and never give up.
Good gracious, I would edit these ebooks for free rather than see the crap they are putting out.
Mr. Johnstone, thank you for being kind to a teenager, and encouraging me.
booksandopinions.com 
I have never heard of this author, but the cover of this book reminds me of R.L. Stein’s Fear Street novels. Are William W. Johnstone’s books similar to R.L. Stein?
His horror stories are. My Mom would be furious because we would go to the store, she would buy me a book, and I would have it read before the day was done.
LOL! I was like that too. I’m going to have to check out the horror books by Johnstone. I liked the cover and I am guilty of judging a book by its cover.
I read all of his books. Honestly, if you can start with “Rockinghorse”, that is the boom that compelled me to write to him. You may only be able to find it in eBook, so please ignore all of the errors.
That is my most favorite book ever, and I have read thousands😀
Book, good gracious I hate using my dumb phone!
Awesome. I will check it out for sure.
I was very young, and I would write all kinds of stories on my mom’s typewriter and make covers with markers and construction paper. My family went to the fair, and there was a writer there selling books. I started telling him that I wrote stories and wanted to be a writer. I got the feeling my parents wouldn’t buy the book, making me feel very awkward, so he signed a copy and gave it to me. I still remember what he said: “From one writer to another.” That made a huge impact on me.
Writers just get it, don’t they? What a great story, thank you for sharing!
You’re welcome!
Hi Angela! Jo Johnstone here..
Bill’s niece. This is a problem we have seen with the older books that have been out of print for a while. Since these books were written well before the digital age, the process of turning them into an Ebook format is quite different with them. The scanning process is done with an actual book, page by page. I’ve sent many of the older books to the publisher to have them available for Ebooks. If you have ever tried turning a scanned document into editable text, you can get some pretty weird words after they are downloaded. LOL! (Funny story here) I once gave Bill the brand new program of Dragon Naturally Speaking to help with his manuscripts.. he and I both laughed so hard at the words it came up with. Of course, it was just released and a lot of bugs had to be worked out over the years.
Anyway.. I’ve talked with the publisher several times about this problem and we are going to try to rectify these issues in the future. That’s a promise!
It’s nice getting to talk to someone that I heard Bill talk about several times. Keep in touch with us on Facebook or email. Bill’s email address is still the same Dogcia@aol.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wwja.johnstone/
Thanks so much for reaching out Jo! It is great to hear from one of Bill’s relatives. I definitely understand the issues of scanning to convert to an ebook.
The biggest issue I saw that would be a problem for first time readers is that where there would normally be a page-break as the scene shifts to a different place and set of characters, there is no page break. Sometimes there wasn’t even a new paragraph started. It was off-putting for me and I remembered every bit of the story 🙂
I apologize for my rudeness, and will certainly be in touch!!
Yes I really get what your saying here. Some writers have inspired me for years and years. One writer even turned my life around when I really needed help. I still have most of her books!