Later this month I will be closing down the web-site for ‘The Village; A Year in Twelve Tales’. So, if you haven’t taken a look at it and want to do so, I 
suggest that you so soon ( click here ).
It will have been nine months since the short story collection was launched and, although there is occasional interest in the site, including over Christmas, I no longer post Village-specific blog pieces on it, so it doesn’t attract the casual browser via standard search engines ( Google et al direct would-be readers to those sites which have regular activity and this site no longer does ). It is now only attracting about 50 visitors a month, some of whom I hope will migrate to The Story Bazaar.
Since inception the web-site has attracted over 500 visitors, including, crucially, the actress who subsequently became the narrator of the audio-book of The Village, Elizabeth Bergstone. It was her initial response to the site which started that particular process and which resulted, in 
October, in the publication of the audio-book. Visitors have come from a total of 31 countries around the world (though some countries produced very few visitors). The majority (42%) are from the UK, closely followed by Brazil (25%), the US (14%), then Italy (4%) . Other numbers are too small to mention. The most popular pages are the ‘Home’ page, then ‘The Author’/’Ask the Author’, then ‘Praise for The Village’. I plan to include Author Pages on The Story Bazaar soon, especially as new authors are published. I will continue to include snippets from favourable reviews for all the Story Bazaar books. By the way, if you’re reading this and have read and enjoyed ‘The Village; A Year in Twelve Tales’, or any of the e-short versions, please write a review, on Amazon and/or on Goodreads. It helps.
The book launch-site is still de rigueur for all on-line book launches, however, so I will be replacing the site with another site, this time for ‘Reconquista‘. The site will be at www.reconquista.online but it won’t be live until the end of February 2016, so there aren’t any links yet. I’ll be publicising the launch of the new site in various ways, including on The Story Bazaar web-site.
The evolution of the book-specific web-site has moved on, even since I set up ‘The Village’ site back in early 2015. Many single books now have a whole site, whereas this was quite rare a year ago. Sites provide much background information and often, early, galley copies of the book, before it is published, to generate goodwill, reviews and sales. Good examples are A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral . I’ll definitely be providing some excerpts before publication.
I also plan to put lots of information on the site, including pieces about each of the characters, about the design process for the cover and examples of 
what everyday life would have been like in thirteenth century Jerez. I hope to make it far more interactive than The Village site was and to include video and music ( I will be building the site myself, in order to learn, though there is software and software firms like booklaunch.io which will do it for you). There will be discussion pieces about what might happen after the end of the book (because not all is resolved at the final page). So readers will have the opportunity to guess what happens next (and, indeed, to influence the next book, as it’s only in the early stages so far). Look out for blog pieces about the contents of the site ( and my trials and travails in setting it up ).
If you enjoyed reading this article you might also enjoy How NOT to promote a book
RSS – Posts