Marketing Battles and Promotional Breakthroughs

As you’ve most likely gathered from my last post, I’m obsessed with my book. In the past couple of weeks I started to feel very anxious and nervous that there was no movement in the conquest of my book sales and marketing. With Christmas coming up I really need to take advantage of the timing. But there seemed to be nothing happening and I began to fret and stress, to which Mom kept saying, “stop stressing so much, it’ll all work out. We’re all working our hardest.” And she was right, as usual. It seems over night the book has picked up and things are lining themselves up. The next couple weeks are going to be really eventful and exciting. Starting yesterday, a journalist for the Dutch Newspaper, Noord Holland Dagblad, came to our house to interview Kees and me. We were both able to tell about our adventurous travel and our how lives crossed paths in West Africa while both on long term journeys, he in his truck, the family and I on foot with backpacks. To bring those up to date, Kees has a well-travelled past having done many trips to West Africa for drumming, South East Asia, a two year overland journey to India and back in his own bus and then the one year African adventure in the big yellow truck which my family promptly hijacked. The journalist seemed very interested (by Dutch standards, not American) as we showed him pictures, the line on the map, journals, the book and trailer (that Kees made), “Sihpromatum”. He stayed for over an hour and was certain he would be able to make an interesting article out of the stories we’d told. It was really nice to share this experience with Kees and Dad, as I’d already had a similar experience with Ammon, Mom and Bre with North Shore News. I am just so elated to have been interviewed not only by another newspaper but to have my story shared internationally. The interview went extremely well and I will post the article as soon as it is out (though it of course is going to be in Dutch).


The first book trailer.

We also recently put a few books in a large Alkmaar bookstore, which was placed in the English section. Our success in this had a lot to do with the newspaper coming to interview us. Of course the fact that it is in English doesn’t play to my advantage but I am just happy to have any kind of exposure. It really feels like a blessing and I am so grateful for all the support I have and the wonderful people in my life who have been willing to help me make my dreams come true (I’m looking at Kees when I write that). The upcoming weeks will be exciting as I wait for the newspaper to come out in Holland which is distributed all over Northern Holland and has a readership of 140,000, the equivalent of North Shore News, except this is not a free newspaper. It is sold in gas stations, train stations, grocery stores, just about anywhere you can think a newspaper would be sold. Mom has been working on her side of the world arranging to go to Christmas markets to sell and promote the book. Ammon has been an amazing help, proofreading my interviews, blogs, etc, searching reviewers, contacting libraries and writing incredibly professional proposal letters for me.
“Sihpromatum” is now available in the West and North Vancouver Libraries, Black Bond Books, People's Co-Op Bookstore on Commercial Drive, Hagar Books Ltd. on 41st Ave, 32 Books in Edgemont Village and Wanderlust on 7th Ave.
We recently received a request from the West Coast Christmas Show for us to send them a copy of the book so that they could put it on display on CTV NEWS! There will be hundreds of vendors, thousands of items sold at this market so it is an honor that they requested my book to be one of few on the display table, with the possibility that it gets picked it up and given a brief description. The ad will be playing on Tuesday November 27th, on CTV NEWS!!
To further our luck and chances when Mom dropped off the book and actually met with George, the show organizer who will be appearing on CTV, he seemed very interested in our story and even implied he would be showing and giving a description of the book but it would only be for a few seconds. But that is ALL we need!!! This particular Christmas market has been going since 2008 and last year there was a turnout of 13,500 people!
The West Coast Christmas Show will be on from November 30th-December 2rd in Abottsford and you can expect to see Mom, Ammon, Donavin and Bree there, in high Christmas spirits. Poor Ammon will suffer for three days straight having to listen to Christmas carols… but it’s not my fault he’s such a BA-HUM-BUG! ;) Bree will be in her element having the chance to dress up as a little princess Santa Clause. If anyone in or around Vancouver is interested, they would be so happy to see you there!
And then there are another 2 Christmas …markets/fairs. One at BCIT Dec 6-7 and another December 15th-16th in false creek.
If we can only manage to break even on the cost of renting a stall I will be thrilled because our main goal here is to get exposure. Though Bre of course won’t settle for anything less than 50,000 copies sold! 
In the meantime I have been writing lots of interviews for small travel blogs and websites. I’ve lined up dozens of reviewers, signed up in some contests and will be the featured author in January in “Real Family Travel Magazine” which is a new electronic magazine available on the Apple Ibookstore.
I feel good about our progress and can’t wait for the next couple weeks to play out. I will try to keep you updated as well!!!
With all of this going on it would seem I have been doing extremely well for myself as an unknown author with a newly released book. I really couldn’t be happier and at this point it is all about the exposure so I just hope to keep this rhythm up. I still can’t believe my book has made it locally and internationally in newspapers, bookstores, libraries, interviews, magazines, and now TV!!
To date “Sihpromatum” has been read in over fifteen countries and the website has been viewed in eighty-three!
Savannah