Did You Buy a Book Last year? Everyone else did.

I noticed a new Lynsay Sands book in my kindle recommendations. Since I’m writing an alien romance at the moment, I could indulge in some vampire shenanigans.

My kindle bundles book series together now. Sometimes that’s confusing. A couple of times it’s pointed out where I’m at in a series. They also have the series book numbers listed on the covers. Saves me so much time and angst.

I thought I had read all the Argeneau books. Turns out I’m missing a few. If nothing else, kindle has found a great way to get me to buy more books!

2020 had challenges. No lie. But when people say you learn the most from hardship, they were spitting out the whole truth. One thing people did all over the world was read books. Sales were up. Both print and ebook sales. If you had a story to tell, there was someone who would read it.

I always buy a bunch of books. My guy is almost as bad, so we can at least give each other some slack on book budgets. Amazon’s strategy to make books more organized while showing you what you are missing is the best book selling tactic I’ve seen in a while. Worked on me. More than once.

Most readers have authors they always buy. It’s a nirvana we want to reach as authors. Those avid fans give us momentum and not just in sales. When we have a critical review or can’t seem to get the new manuscript under control, we need a boost.

Writing workshops teach social media is the key to nirvana. We should show our lives and not just our books on all the channels. It’s key to sales?

Maybe it is, but I don’t follow a single author on my Twitter or Facebook page. I follow one on Instagram, but her feed isn’t very exciting. Amazon showed me authors I already love to read and pointed out books I’d missed. Cha Ching.

When I ask writer friends if they follow author’s social media, I get mixed results. Some follow authors we know to give them a boost, but it’s not really a fan thing. Most say they don’t follow anyone but authors they want to emulate. My guy follows a couple of authors to keep up on new book releases. I thought that would be the number one way to convert outreach to sales.

Amazon sold me books without me even shopping for new books. Hell of a return on investment, right?

When I’m in the mood for a new book, I will search a couple of author names on Amazon. That’s as much keeping up as I do. The authors in my stable cycle. Sometimes historical, other times sci fi and all the time romance books land on my kindle depending on my mood. But Amazon knows and hooks me while I'm surfing for a doggie pool or ponytail holders.

Lynsay Sands also writes Scottish Historical novels. I bought a few of those while I was buying the vampire novels. They were there and then they were on my kindle. I looked at Grace Goodwin alien romances. Way steamy. Caution for those who like sweet over spicy. That lead me over to Yasmine Galenorn. Bought a new book of hers and lost an afternoon to reading.

I used to discover books as I wandered aisles. Great covers and familiar names. I’d pick up four or five books, read a few pages and decide if it was a buy or not. That method waned as the only bookstore near me stopped carrying any midlist authors and almost no backlist unless a new NYT author puts out a new book in a wildly popular series.

Amazon has figured out a way to sell me books I didn’t even know I wanted.

I can’t help but think how much that helped readers find new books to love and talk about. What I’m really hoping is that new readers keep the book machine humming.

Did you buy more books than usual in the last sixteen months? What did you read? Leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you.