Knowing Me, Knowing You by Emily Owen

Some dates stick in the mind.

For me, this week contains such dates. It was this week, many years ago, that I had surgery. In fact, today marks the one-in-four days when I did not have an operation on my brain.

During that time, people prayed for me. As they did, more people got to know about me, and so the prayer links grew.

But people were not galvanised to pray by knowing a nebulous name (mine). They were praying because they had learned about some of my story. They wanted to know about the person behind the name.

Earlier this month, I was invited to the Isle of Man, where I had the pleasure of meeting with Georgia and Andrew. They manage Churches Bookshop, a Christian bookshop on the Island.

I had a question for them: What is the main thing authors can do to help you in your work?

I confess, I didn’t anticipate their answer at all:

‘Meet us.’

Apparently, while it is possible to sell books without having met the author, knowing the person behind the book leads to more sales.

Much as, while it’s possible to pray for someone when you only know their name, knowing more about them enables you to pray further into their situation.

To be honest, whilst I am always invested in the books I write, I think I’d assumed that the selling of my books in shops was not part of my role. That booksellers and authors were wheels running parallel along the same road.

As Andrew pointed out, we’re actually all part of the same wheel.

The lyrics in the ABBA song go: ‘Knowing me, knowing you; there is nothing we can do…’

Thankfully, that’s not true in the book world!

So, next time you’re near a shop, why not pop in and say hello?

Knowing me, knowing you; there is something we can do…

Andrew didn’t have actual statistics but, at a guess, he thought that knowing the author often doubles the sales of their book.

Maybe the same is true of bookshops you pass.

Or maybe it’s different there.

To be on the safe side, maybe you could go in and ask.