oh gorgeous, gorgeous. I want one, I want to have a book in one. I ADORE snow globes. Tried to buy one of Stone Henge recently but the queues were huge and it was raining. Clearly I lack commitment and should put my money where my mouth is.

I frequently swing by the front page, although I come straight to the blog more often (and more often that that, I'm reading you guys via RSS).

As for interpreting stats - a nightmare. Unique visitors has to be a good thing, I like to think, although I think even that can be distorted by spambots registering. I look at my own stats in Google's analytics program, and usually get no further in analysing them than saying 'ooooh... pretty....' under my breath.

I come straight to the blog.
I LOVE Richard Gwynne's book cover but also feel slightly peeved because I was going to ask to have my cover done landscape, and he's beaten me to it.
Lastly, what's the difference between a hit and a visit?

Hi, Emma,

Probably the most reliable/important stats for a site are your monthly unique users. (How many individual users, returning or otherswises, do you have over a calendar month.)

These will always be a bit skewed by users that delete cookies.

I come straight to the blog, since I have it on RSS feed.

Looking at these stats, the ratio could indicate that people are jumping straight to the blog and skipping the homepage. From a marketing point of view, there are various ways you can fix this. An easy option is to link to excerpts from your published books via the blog. A great enticement to go to the homepage. Excerpts is something you may want to consider anyway. I've heard of at least one major publisher who has revamped their website to include substantial excerpts because they’ve learned that customers like to read sample pages before deciding to buy. This is a good way to increase sales. And I know you have links to your books on Amazon but you’d need to be part of their Search Inside program. (Not sure if you already are). But in addition to that, it would be good to include your own excerpts on your homepage.

Sorry you're peeved, Sue! You know the rules, though, on cover design. It has to help the reader make a decision about whether the book is the sort of book they're looking for. Richard's book looks like that because it's literary fiction. Literary fiction features either original artwork or use of a bold design - see Life of Pi, Timoleon Vieta Come Home, Dan Rhode's Gold, etc. Plotting is not literary fiction, it's commercial fiction, so we would never have put that sort of cover on it because it would have misled the reader. I like to think that we got Plotting's cover exactly right. x

No, Em, I'm not peeved about the Plotting cover - I was thinking about the cover for the next book, Zuzu's Petals.

so i'm the only website visitor to be frivolous enough to concentrate on the snowglobe am i...?

Sarah, you read my mind! That's the bit I'm most interested in!

And Sue - oh, I *see*! Sorry! Yes, we should have fun with that cover.

x

So...how about producing some snowglobes??? Would make great Christmas presents!! And be good publicity...

Mary-Jane, I'm on it!

good - that will be some consolation for not getting a gingerbread sparkly star like gilly made for me last year!

Ooh-er, I've seen the prices of them now. Min. order 250, £3.99 for a not too cheap and nasty one. Hmm. Maybe *after* we win the Orange prize...

I'm chiming in late on this one. Work has been a bear. I generally go straight to the blog, and look at it at least once a day, sometimes twice from two different IPs. My $0.02 is that Emma, you shouldn't be all too worried about people skipping the homepage, because it's my guess that a lot of the traffic you get straight to the blog is people like me, who already know how terrific Snowbooks is and are checking in to see how you all are doing. We aren't the people you're marketing to anyway, are we? We're the choir. When I first came to this site, I read the front page first, looked at the blog, read the info, looked at the catalogue, etc. and I think that anyone coming to the site because it's been promoted to them would do the same. Now I'm a regular, and the homepage changes a lot less often than I visit the site. Does that make sense?

BTW, Sue, the title for your next book is truly terrific. I think there's an underground band here in the US with the same name, but I'm not sure.