Chocolate brownies ………… and twitter

As a self-confessed “voracious lexivore" aka  avid or voracious reader I had no knowledge of the actual mechanics of the book market until last year when my “surrogate daughter” Brianna Karp brought out her memoir The Girl's Guide to Homelessness and the fact that as Amazon controls the book market and discount like mad the first time author has a hard time getting self-space in book shops and it being sold at full price- getting noticed unless you have a remarkable story is very hard as a first time novelist.

So a few weeks ago I was mentioned in a tweet by Tamsin Todd aka @tamsintodd  

@stellanewmanPear Shaped looks fun. @mrsd_daily @sarahembush see if you can get an early copy b.pi.mu/x4sCvS   #pearshapedbk

So I clicked on the link and won the book PearShaped which is great read about a girl who works as a pudding developer for a supermarket group her loves her life and her job  & life at a supermarket head office – they also included a letter with a brownie recipe as the book as brownies and the search for the perfect texture and taste running through it.

After I clicked on this the page which then asked for my address to send the book also had a readymade tweet to include two of my contacts from Twitter for me to tweet out so the book – #hashtag could spread virally which I then tweeted.

I saw #pearshapedbk all over twitter and this was all done by Peer Index who are like Klout but more efficient and less ego ( sorry but I do think this scoring is ego driven ) about  they are backed by the guy from Last.fm – to me this has to be one of the most imaginative ways of getting a brand new book and author to be noticed across the web and the book then to be reviewed and also a great recipe to be tried .

We have cooking up a storm with the brownie and they were scoffed in one sitting – I loved this whole idea as it’s perfect easy reading chick lit and every book now needs a unique selling point so it doesn't get lost in Amazon discounted. it’s all about thinking outside discounting to attract the consumer and using peer to peer leverage !

Now if anyone has any ideas on how to sell the UK rights to Brianna’s book please email me – I have a big role in the book ………..