The Bookstop Cafe, Steep Hill, Lincoln.
To paraphrase President Obama, if you can’t get in through the front door, go round the back. If you can’t get in through the back – climb over the wall. This ideal has driven the New Romantics 4 forward in their quest to become published authors. And as a result, their novels became available on Amazon as kindle download and paperbacks last autumn.
They took this ideal a step further on Saturday 4th May when June and Lizzie drove over to Lincoln for the grand opening of Joff Gainey and Becky Lindley’s Bookstop Café, 47b Steep Hill, Lincoln. An indie author himself, Joff has opened the BookStop Café to provide an environment where book lovers can browse the wonderful selection of books written by indie authors and rest awhile, drink coffee and eat home made cake. Hopefully they will feel moved to purchase one of the excellent indie novels on display after reading the ‘shop copy’ as a taster.
The grand opening ceremony took place amidst loud cheers and applause, while inside the café a jazz band added to the carnival atmosphere. For the first three hours of the café’s opening, tea, coffee and cake were complimentary and the customers poured in.
Whilst writers rubbed shoulders with potential readers, Lizzie and June were happy to stand back and admire copies of Tall, Dark and Kilted, An Englishwoman’s Guide to the Cowboy, The Hollow Heart and Last Bite of the Cherry displayed on the back lit bookshelves next to Joff’s novel Sleeping on a Cloud.
To paraphrase Obama again – the front door was barred, we knocked loudly on the back door but nobody answered – so we’ve climbed over the wall and into Joff and Becky’s Bookstop Cafe. Indie authors and proud of it, the New Romantics 4 will be adding new titles to the bookshelves in autumn 2013.
Follow the Bookstop Cafe on TWITTER.
Please click on the links below to purchase one of our books:
Last Bite Of The Cherry The Hollow Heart
Tall, Dark and Kilted An Englishwoman’s Guide to the Cowboy
Posted on May 10, 2013, in Uncategorized and tagged cafe, indie author, novels, romance, self-publishing. Bookmark the permalink. 36 Comments.
New Romantics Press 
Wonderfully written Lizzie. The exciting day is still buzzing in my head and still buzzing through our customers. The success of BookStop Cafe is perpetuated by such supportive friends as yourself. Thank you.
Joff 🙂
A pleasure Joff. I hope that all four of us will be able to pay you a visit at some point over the summer. Get the cake in !!
Great post Lizzie totally brought the event to life, so sorry I missed it and huge thanks to Joff and team for all their support. Passion is a great motivator, look what a little love can do! 🙂
Hi Ade, have promised Joff that we’ll be coming to visit him over the summer. Think it might have sounded more threatening than reassuring. LOL.
Bet there’ll be a ‘Gone fishin” sign on the door when we get there, as long as he brings back some chips with the fish, eh?
Great to see you on my old stomping ground, Lizzie! At the heart of Lincoln’s tourist area, The Bookstop Cafe should get custom aplenty. 🙂
Hi Jayne, thanks for popping by. I know that as well as being a brilliant poet you are THE QUEEN OF CAKES. You Have to go over and sample the cakes and check out Joff’s wonderful enterprise. (He’s an ex-teacher, too, funny that !!)
A wonderful venture and a great excuse to visit Lincoln one day! Thanks for reporting Lizzie xxx
Shani, Let me know when you;re going over and I’ll try and get across on the same day. It’d be GREAT to meet up, wouldn’t it? Better give Joff plenty of notice so he can get extra cakes in.
Lovely post! I can’t wait to visit the cafe myself.
Liz, can’t wait to see one of your paperbacks on the shelves, too.
Best of luck to you all!
Hi Fennie, so glad that you took the time and trouble to read my blog post. Would it be too OTT to send a link to the President, too? #cheekyauthor
What an interesting post, Lizzie. And loads of luck to Joff and Becky on their imaginative and helpful enterprise.
Margaret. Room on the shelf for Song for a Butterfly!! Thanks you for popping by.
Good luck to Joff and Becky, their Bookstop cafe is a great place to stop on the way up or down Steep hill.
Kate, we started at the top and went downwards. We should all meet there one day in the summer.
What a wonderful enterprise and combining books and cake is always a winner!
Angela, it is such a leg up for indie writers. Although most people do want to buy the download – having a paperback in one’s hands is a great feeling.
Joff and Becky are an inspiration to all us Indie writers. No use just being dreamers/thinkers/writers, sitting back and congratulating ourselves when we come to type ‘The End’. Nowadays, if we want to see our work out there before we become too old, we have to self-publish, then promote/market our work. Providing a shop to sell it to our readers makes perfect sense. Best of luck with your enterprise, Joff and Becky. Book Stop Cafe seems to be in a perfect location to succeed.
Thanks for the comments, Mags. As I said to Ade, a trip over to LIncoln by the Gang of Four later on in the summer is definitely on the cards. Great to see our books finally out there and on show for the (hopefully) book buying public.
Hi girls – I’ll certainly want to visit this bookstop cafe whenever
I’m down that way.
Good luck to you all.
Hi girls – I’ll certainly visit bookstop cafe whenever I’m down that way.
Best of luck to you all!
Thanks, cathy, I hope that one day your books will be rubbing shoulders with ours on the shelves.
P.S. Should have added, as always a great blog, Lizzie. Would have loved to have been with your and June last Saturday, 4th. Your account’s the next best thing.
Thanks, Mags. I have been asked by the British Romance Forum to write a blog on the subject. Our fame spreads . . .
Thanks for the tip, it sounds a wonderful shop/cafe. We could do with more of them around the country:)
Hi Jean, have just seen this comment.thanks for stopping by. We have all left five books there and will be very interested to see how it all works out.
What a brilliant venture this is! Congratulations to both Joff and Becky. I’d love to visit the café. The opening day sounds like it went fabulously, and such great photos too. Lizzie, your post is so entertaining. You’ve really conveyed the excitement and success of the whole enterprise. Love it! 🙂
Hi Jan, it would have been a real cake-athon if we’d been there together !! Its a fabulous idea and I hope it takes off for all of us. Hurry up and finish your book and then you can join us.
Dear New Romantics,
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog so much that I decided to nominate it for the Liebster Blog Award. Please see my blog for full details, http://henriettegyland.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/ive-been-awarded-the-liebster-blog-award/
Hx
Thank you for nominating our New Romantics 4 blog for the Liebster award, Henriette – We, Lizzie Lamb, June Kearns, Adrienne Vaughan and I have fun taking it in turns to write something we hope our readers find interesting. And, it will be fun coming up with answers we all agree on, for example our favorite book, favorite historical character – no prizes for guessing Lizzie’s. I suppose we’ll each have to answer for ourselves. Thanks again.
Thanks henriette, a great honour indeed, I’ll pop over and check out the details of it. A blog is certainly easier when four of you take turns !! And varied, too, we hope.
Great achievement! When I move back to the UK, I will add the cafe as a place to visit one day. 🙂
Glynis, you would love it there. Great shops in Lincoln, too.
I can’t wait to visit this place! It sounds absolutely fantastic 🙂