Honestly,
relax... you can trust me."
Now normally, if you
hear or read something like that, I'd advise you to start running and don't
look back. This time though, I'm asking you to stick around, mostly because
it's me who is sounding like a cheesy psycho in a bad book.
Let me explain why.
I've been reading
about marketing for the last few days (I should make it clear by the way, I am
not a fan of marketing, but I am a writer who has a second book out, and this
is the sort of thing HarperCollins tells me to read.) Anyway, while I was
reading about marketing, I stumbled across the following fact:
"Over sixty
percent of the sixty million people who are regular Thriller/Suspense readers
in the USA, say they are reluctant to buy a book by an author they haven't read
before..."
That means that approximately
thirty-six million people in the USA don't trust me.
Which, if I'm honest,
makes me feel like a puppy who has pee'd on the carpet once, and now can't
innocently sniff the rug without being thrown in the yard.
Anyway, why am I
telling you this? Well, basically, because I am needy, and my feelings have
been hurt.
You see, I know you
love James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Nicholas Sparks, Patricia Cornwell and
Ken Follett. I also know I'm the snotty nosed kid HarperCollins have given a
bat to and said: "Get out there kid, show 'em what you can
do."
I know all that, but
the problem is I can't show you what I can do, if you won't pitch me the
ball.
It doesn't matter that
the Wall Street Journal called my last book a "memorable
novel..." or that the Fort Worth Star Telegraph said it was "an
exhilarating roller-coaster ride that would have made a great Hitchcock
movie..."
None of that matters
if you won't pick it up and see for yourself.
Now I know why you
might be reluctant to do that, but I want you to cast your mind back to the day
you fell in love with your current favourite author. I want you to think about
the moment you looked up from the book, broke into a big smile and said "wow!" to
yourself. I want you to remember how good that feeling was, and then I want to
ask you a question:
Why don't you try a
new writer, and see if you can fall in love all over again?
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