Juxtabook

Best Book Sales

Thinking about the influences of social media on book buying for my last post made me consider the effect of Juxtabook. I know that I have influenced some reading because of comments either here or in posts on other blogs. The most tangible results I guess are revealed by the stats generated by my book affiliate schemes. I can see from my accounts with The Book Depository and Amazon which books people buy after clicking through from here (I can't see who buys them obviously). I thought you might like to see what were the most popular purchases:

The Dig by John Preston

A Jealous Ghost by A N Wilson

Testament by Alis Hawkins

The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin and others in the Jim Stringer Steam Detective series

After the Armistice Ball by Catriona McPherson and others in the Dandy Gilver series.

In non-fiction the most popular is probably England In Particular by Sue Clifford and Angela King.

The oddest purchases have been repeated Mr Men related items. Odd because I have never mentioned the Mr Men on here! I am very grateful nonetheless to that purchaser and and anyone else who has used the affiliate links to support Juxtabook!

If you have a blog what have been your most bought books? Or what has been the best book purchase you've made as recommended by a blogger?

What's the point of Twitter?

People not on Twitter often ask what the point of it is and what you can do with just 140 characters. Writers must wonder whether they ever get any sales out of it. Well, to give you a concrete example, about a week ago I logged onto Twitter and came in on the end of a three way conversation singing the praises of a book. It wasn't a book I had seen reviewed on blogs even thought the tweeters were bloggers, after all you can review everything can you? Or I might just have missed the relevant posts. The book sounded really good. Since tweeting the fact that I ordered it this morning other tweeters have chipped (chirruped in?) saying they enjoy the book too. This is first book I have definitely bought entirely because of Twitter. I know have not seen it anywhere else (not saying it has not been mentioned ,just it had otherwise passed me by) so entirely advertised, to me at least, by tweets is:

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler. It is another take on the vampire myth. I have bought books prompted by Twitter in the past but usually because I had seen reviews and it was in my mind to buy when the final clincher is a another tweet praising the title. Fledgling was my first ever totally Twitter purchase but I am sure it won't be my last.

Book recommending tweeters well worth following include:

bluepootle

teresareads

Nymeth

paperbk_reader

gaskella

Thanks for the bookish tweets ladies, I'm really looking forward to the book!

And, in case you missed it, Stephenie Meyer has a new vampire book. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is a novella telling the story of Bree who appears as newborn vampire at the end of Eclipse (the third Twilight novel). It is available to pre-order from lots of places including the Book Depository to whom I link above.

Books Sales online or where to buy both new and used books

There has been a good deal of comment on recent goings on in the world of online book selling. I won't rehearse the arguments here but it you are interested then my colleague Jane made an excellent post on the subject on her blog, so excellent it was picked up by The Guardian as one of their Best of the Web items this week. You can read it here. She followed it up with this, which also makes interesting reading. The Scotsman also cover the story but from the perspective of new booksellers, and you can read that here.

So if you are looking for indie friendly alternatives to buy from online then here are a few:

For new books:

The Book Depository with its free world wide delivery is always a favourite.

Play.com sell new books plus some used books. They also sell games, gadgets, DVDs and such like.

For used, rare and out -of -print books:

ibooknet is a co-operative of British and Irish sellers of used books. The order process is a bit long winded but all the sellers contact details are available so you can fire off an email or telephone.

ukbookworld is only for books over £4 but this does mean that if you put in a keyword like Bronte you get decent editions and serious literary criticism or biography not pages and pages of tatty paperbacks of their novels. Like Ibooknet you can easily access the booksellers details to pay by phone or ask a question.

On the continent there is the excellent Antiqbook based in the Netherlands with a UK interface and also Choosebooks and Bibliophile.

In North America there is Biblio who again make bookseller's details available and have a very fair commission structure which rewards the best behaved sellers.

Ebay needs little introduction in its various incarnations, and has both auction and shop style books for purchase.

Ebid, like Ebay has various national sites and this link lets you pick the nation closest to you via the drop down box at the top right. Ebid has both shops and auctions and is actually quite good for inexpensive fiction paperback and children's paperbacks.

Booksellers own websites: if you like the service a bookseller gives you google their name and see if they have their own website. Some booksellers include promotional material with a book but as many of the best know selling sites forbid this then your excellent knowledgeable seller might be too intimidated to let you know they have their own site. So have a look!

I hope the above is useful. It may save you from having to shop at the Other Place or its very many subsidiaries.

Edited to add: thank you for all the support on and offline. A few more links for you supplied by readers:

GreenMetropolis is an excellent venue for selling your own books within the UK with a clear and fair fee structure. They're also, hurrah, a site that recognises that some books cost more to post than others. 5p from each sale goes to the Woodland Trust. However they're not as cheap as buying from booksellers' own sites or from Ebid for cheap paperbacks, but they're still very reasonable.

Indiebound helps you find your independent used bookshop with in the USA

Quidco is a cashback co-operative. There's a five pound fee but only if you earn at least five pounds and you can get cashback for books, dvds etc bought from play.com and Waterstones if you click through from your Quidco members page.

Lastly someone pointed out that LOVEFiLM also sells films as well as rents them.