"My book 'Mystery and Misadventure - An old Acquaintance' has just made the finalist list for Ghost stories et al.
As I do not have a huge following, it will go no further as to win requires votes from people who can be canvassed. I'm not even sure if they need to read the book in order to vote. As there will be people out there with huge twitter/Facebook followings, it seems pointless to me to even attempt to keep up."

"Thanks Conrad. Now all I have to do is become an overnight social media expert ... Now, where is that idiot's guide?"

"As I was afraid. Unless your readers use social media – and many don't – they are precluded from voting.
This is an extract of an email from one of my readers ... I expect many more like it:

"Unfortunately it requires connecting through facebook, twitter - media I
don't use.

There's no way of just voting without them?

Best regards - "

I have left the identity deliberately blank.

This is someone who has taken the time to vote, but cannot."

"Wow! Three replies this evening and they go like this ...

" ...it seems that I have to either have facebook or twitter or a google account to vote; I cannot stand any of them. It would be great if one could just vote..."

and

"I wanted to vote for you. But I don’t do Twitter, Google+ is too invasive a program (I tried it some time ago), and I’d still like to vote somehow!

There must be many of us who would vote without using these!""

"Some people ... many people are strongly anti-social media.
I hope something can be done. Perhaps an email address where people can log their vote."

"Some people ... many people are strongly anti-social media.
I hope something can be done. Perhaps an email address where people can log their vote."

"Thanks to Conrad, at a trying time, for adapting the voting process to require an email address to register a vote, rather than social media.

I am pleased to say that my book 'Mystery and Misadventure – An Old Acquaintance' was the winner in the 'Horror and Ghost Stories' category."

"Congratulations!
Well deserved I'm sure."

"If anyone out there has news as to what has become of this competition, feel free to post it here.
On 5th March the site said 2-3 days before winners heard anything more, since then only silence.
I appreciate that Conrad has suffered a massive personal hit, and it was with that in mind that I waited 11 days before sending a message to the site tentatively asking for progress – maybe that length of time isn't a decent interval.
Still silence.
Is this something to chalk up to experience?"

"The latest in the saga that is The Prize Writer Competition ... All links to the site do not work. Whether on my Mac, or through Windows, the pages cannot be displayed.
I left a message on their site a week ago and there has been no response.
Where do I go from here? Obviously, nowhere. All these things are based upon certain fundamental understandings and when that basis dissolves, there is nothing left to do. I can only imagine that the personal difficulties alluded to on the website are even more far reaching than anyone imagined.
I think the answer to the question in my last comment is: "Yes, chalk it up to experience.""

"I'll let you know as soon as I hear something. I'm sure there's a legitimate explanation as I'd been in regular contact with him until a couple of weeks ago."

"I need to make it clear that I'm not suggesting anything illegitimate. It's simply that, in the self-published world – as you know better than I – we rely upon mutual help and understanding in place of legalities and strict timetables. In this case eleven days after the two to three days mentioned is not pursuing a strict timetable.
The Website going down is not, I think, indicative of anything more than a general malaise."

"Hello Conrad,
I don't know if you read this blog but here goes.
You sent a message to your competition winners via your website explaining your personal travails. The upshot was that the prize money had been purloined. It went without saying that the televised publicity and reviews were also likely to remain elusive.
Your second message expressed the intention that prize money would be forthcoming from other funds by the end of April.
We have now entered the second week of May and the silence is deafening.
I emailed you some days ago. Now I know how – in the first of Dr. Who's adventures with the Daleks – the Tharl who dropped a rock into the crevasse under the Dalek city must have felt. That was sixty years ago and, as far as I know, the rock hasn't hit bottom. We might be waiting as long for this to resolve ..."

"... the rock is still falling."

"There we are then. No prize money ... No review ... No refund ... No reply. I have read a number of blogs where less than complimentary things are said about the man who ran this competition. I can understand the frustration that might lead to speculation. All I can say is: the very least those who paid money, in good faith, can expect is a reply from the owner to legitimate queries.
My own thoughts? I will be dumbfounded if I ever get a review or prize money, and I will avoid any venture espoused by this person."