Saturday, May 7, 2011

What Makes You Buy a Book?

Today, I read a great post by my new hero J.A. Konrath over at his blog, and had to share.

He discusses marketing and promotional tips that have worked for him, as well as dispensing this great advice:

"What are the last ten books you bought, and what made you buy them? Use those techniques to sell your books to other people. Do what works on you."


I'd never thought about self promotion that way, and I felt like facepalming when I read that.


It's so deceptively simple, but brilliant.  We're all our own audience since we're writing what we love to read, right?  So what makes us buy books?


I'd love to hear your thoughts :).


What was the last book you bought, and why did you buy it?

3 comments:

Anne R. Allen said...

Great post from Konrath and this is such a great question for all writers to ask ourselves.

I'm not a Kindle owner, so buying a new book is still a financial decision for me. The last new book I bought was Sophie Littlefield's "Bad Day for Sorry." My urge to buy it was cumulative. I first heard about it from agent Janet Reid. Then I read some comments on blogs from Sophie Littlefield and liked her. Then I read a review and saw the protagonist is woman in her 50s. Wow. A heroine I can relate to. That was final push that made me order the book.

Alex Sinclair said...

I mostly buy books based on recommendations, which I guess is a good way to promote your work and doable through social networking sites. I facepalmed myself too, lol.

Rebecca Knight said...

Me, too :). I'm a big review-based buyer, but if someone recommends it, I'm 90% more likely to go looking for it and buy it.