No, it’s not me who’s had a facelift. Even though some mornings the bleary-eyed woman gazing back at me from the bathroom mirror looks as though she could do with one, I’m afraid my personal preparations for my upcoming book launch are more likely to be of the new-concealer-and-a-blow-dry variety.

But eagle-eyed habitual readers will notice that my website has had a recent re-vamp. When I started writing a blog last summer, I was a totally unpublished writer, and the idea that I would get a book deal seemed a distant dream. What I had discovered, however, was that I loved writing, and so blogging seemed to be the perfect solution as it meant I could inflict my musings on the world at will, with no concerns about niggling details such as publishers or contracts. It also, happily, meant that when I did get an offer for my book, and someone at my publishers asked me about my ‘online presence’ I was able to reply airily “Well, of course, I’ve got my blog…”, instead of stammering that I had once sold an exercise bike I ill-advisedly purchased in a fit of post-Christmas body panic on Ebay.

I was aware though that my ‘online presence’ was still a bit sketchy and unprofessional looking, and this is where my fabulous expert-blogger sister-in-law came into play. She moved my site over to WordPress, set up some pages, advised me on content, and gave me a strict instruction that I should blog at least once a week. Which, give or take, I have. And a few months later the stats do seem to indicate that someone other than my mum is reading it, so I’ve been pretty chuffed.

However, the fact that Two for Joy has the nicest cover I’ve ever seen on a book (no, of course I’m not biased), made me feel I should up my game even further, and so I employed a graphic and web-designer friend of a friend to pretty things up a bit more, and the results are now live. I’m really pleased with it, and am already planning more content to go with the lovely design, in order to avoid a fur-coat-and-no-knickers situation. Which would be both unethical and draughty. Reading Two for Joy you will see that there is quite a lot of eating and drinking going on, and I’m working on some tie-in recipes, but I would also really welcome any other feedback on the kind of thing you’d like to see on a writer’s website. Let me know.