There's a difference between scaring a reader and haunting one — and most horror writers never stop to think about which they're actually doing. Scaring is a jump on page 40. Haunting is the thing that's still in your head three weeks later. This week's guest has built his whole approach around chasing the second one, and it's changed how he writes, drafts, and even decides which books to write next.

Alex Hunter is a British horror author whose debut novel, The Harvest shot to #1 in free horror on Amazon. His new novel, The House That Screamed — a dual-timeline, found-footage haunted house story — released this week, and his third, a folk horror titled The Forest Remembers, is due in 2027. He's been querying and signing with small presses since the start, and has very deliberately never self-published.

We get into why he cut a two-thousand-word "clever" prologue to actually finish his first manuscript, how he went from a two-year, seven-draft slog to a twelve-week drafting process, and why hitting #1 on a free Amazon promo taught him to stop chasing downloads. He also walks through exactly how he cold-emailed an author for a blurb (and got a reply in ten minutes), and lays out the specific red flags that mean a small press is about to take your money instead of publish your book.

🎙️ What we get into:

• Why cutting a 2,000-word "literary" prologue was the thing that got him to the finish line
• His shift from a two-year, seven-draft first novel to a twelve-week drafting process
• The placeholder trick he uses to keep moving when a scene isn't working ("Chapter 10: something happens here")
• Why a #1 free Amazon promo taught him that quality beats quantity
• The deliberate trope-stacking technique he used to subvert haunted house clichés in The House That Screamed
• How he restructured a multi-timeline manuscript (news articles, scripts, emails) to plant breadcrumbs without cheating the reader
• The exact, low-key message that landed him a blurb from Bram Stoker Award winner Clay McLeod Chapman
• Why he's never self-published, and what he wanted from traditional validation instead
• Red flags in small press contracts — "author's contributions," rights grabs, and being charged to fix a typo
• Writing The Forest Remembers through grief, and why a brutal beta-reader response felt like a compliment

Links & Resources:

• Alex Hunter: https://alexhunterhorror.com
• Alex Hunter on Instagram: @AlexHunterWrites
• Clay McLeod Chapman (Bram Stoker Award–winning author)

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📚 About Alex Hunter

The first child in his school year to be granted an adult library card, Alex Hunter borrowed The Rats by James Herbert and began dreaming of giving other people nightmares.

His debut novel, The Harvest, was published in 2025. His latest novel, The House That Screamed, explores how trauma can be packaged, commodified, and consumed. His third novel, The Forest Remembers, will be published in 2027.

Alex spends his time writing in the company of too many books and not enough daylight.

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