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

A Brave New World

In the words of Jeff Wayne, this is indeed a 'Brave New World' (I am a complete War of the Worlds geek). Ever since my friend Alice suggested to me in 1993 that I should consider publishing my work, I have chosen the traditional route of writing, printing, packing in brown envelopes and sending off to publishers and literary agents who won't even read what I've sent. So this year (I think the fact I'm approaching forty is prompting me to get moving) I have decided to take matters into my own hands and have published my own books, Summerset and Mad About the Boy. Summerset was received quite well, but as with most self-published authors it was only bought by friends except for one e-copy that was bought by a nice lady on the internet.

Mad About the Boy is such a rocking book that I have decided to conduct an all out marketing campaign to make sure people are made aware of it and buy it for goodness sakes!!!! Not exactly being rich, I haven't got money to spend on fancy PR campaigns and I'm certainly not prepared to prostitute myself by hawking my work around uninterested radio stations and book shops. No, I am determined to make MATB one of the first books that receive a following purely from the net (except the copies I'm sending out to magazines, but I'm not talking about that).

A whole new world has opened up to me: Ebooks, viral marketing, blogs indeed. I have created a teasing trailer for Mad About the Boy and placed in on You Tube in the hope people will see it and be beside themselves with curiosity as to what it's all about and this will draw them to my site. So far I've had 50 hits and only about 30 of them have been me myself!! I've forwarded it onto all my Facebook friends and they say they'll put it onto people's funwalls, but I'm not holding my breath.

Today I have invested some of the money I've made with MATB on some blank CDs, labels and jewel cases and have decided that I am going to go down the ebook route. Unfortunately I'm not clever enough to sell downloads from my website, so people who want to read it in the US or wherever are going to have to go via lulu.com. But my UK customers can read Summerset on their PDAs wherever they go. I'm going to give away 10 free copies at work and secret another 5 in various second hand shops.

Let's see if it draws me the audience I deserve............