Do you remember the first time?

My books sales have stalled a little - maybe it's the credit crunch, maybe it's because Mills & Boon are 100 years old and every flipping programme (especially on the BBC) is dedicated to them and everyone and their mother are buying M&B books instead of 'proper' ones - I don't know. I personally think it's because my marketing isn't working.

So, I am conducting a major study into what made you choose your first book by your favourite author? If I can find out why people bought what they did and where, maybe I can target my audience. So, in the comments section can you please answer the following questions;

Who is your favourite author?

Where did you first discover them? (ie picked up randomly in a book shop, bought in a second hand shop, did a friend lend you the book etc.)

What attracted you to the book? (ie the cover, the blurb, friend's recommendation, author's reputation, media advertising)

Thanks for taking the time to do this

Karen

The New Books Store

In my quest to turn around the fates of self published authors like myself I have come up with a new idea. I have this fantasy of opening up a bookshop for just self-published authors but unfortunately this is unlikely to happen as I just don’t have the capital. So I’ve come to the conclusion that my second best option is to create a website where self-published authors can sell their work.

I’m not even sure if this will work but there must be people out there who are bored with the same old same old books they get in regular book shops and are looking for something different. So I’ve set up this website which just sells self-published and independent authors and I’ll be interested in what people think. So if you get a chance, take a look and leave a comment here.

http://sites.google.com/site/newbooksstore/

On another front, I’ve almost finished Mrs Osbourne Regrets so that’ll be put into its final stages before I published. So curious to see if this new way of marketing my work is effective. Once it is done, I might put some of it onto my website for people to read, but it’s far too raw at the moment.

Ciao for now x