Pounding The Pavement In The Adirondacks

Well, this being my first blog post and all, I guess I'll try to catch folks up on what I've been up to. My son, Nick, is a sophmore at Peru Central School and he is the illustrator for our new book,
"Adirondack Nightmare: A Spooky Tale in the North Country". The book is published and it's time to get it into stores!

I have a distributor but, well, a little legwork doesn't hurt. I could use the exercise and fresh air. I've gained some weight (ok quite a bit of weight) this winter and really need to do something about it!

So, on Friday, April 22nd I grabbed a bunch of books and fliers (for our upcoming book signing/presentation-our first, gulp) and hit the road on Friday. It was sunny and beautiful out. Sold books to 2 bookstores, 2 museums, a beauty salon, and 1 to my kids' orthodontist. The only retailer who said "no" took a flier to display. So did all the other retailers. One museum is going to let us do a presentation at the end of June! A good day.

On Tuesday, April 24th I went to a school book presentation. The authors are Gary and Justin VanRiper, a father and son writing team residing in Camden, New York of the Tug Hill region. They write the "Adirondack Kids" series of books and are very friendly and supportive. They've been doing presentations for a long time and since we have our first one coming up I thought I'd go to get some ideas, meet the authors, etc. I showed up at the wrong time and the presentation was just finishing. I asked when the next one was and found I had 2 hours to kill. I hit the pavement. I went to 6 locations. Two local pharmacies (I've learned that small towns have pharmacies which carry local books) and sold to both of them. They're in two different towns. I sold to two apple orchard giftshops (the book has an apple recipe in it) and will return on Thursday to two other places when the owners are in. Got back just in time for the presentation, learned a lot and hooked up with another local author team. Good day #2.

Wednesday, April 25th, I made 2 follow-up phone calls to 2 important retailers. It looks like a big NO from both of them. Drat. Not such a good book selling day.

Thursday, April 26th I hit the road again and traveled deeper into the Adirondacks. I was able to get our book into 4 giftshops and 1 bookstore in 5 different towns. After 3 weeks of trying, I decided my book WAS going to get in our local Borders store in Plattsburgh. I had faxed book info to the manager, sent him some info in the mail and followed up with an email. The employees would tell me to stop back in each time I went, as he was always on a conference call. Today, the manager was in the store after being on the road for a bit. When I went in, he was on a conference call. So, this time when the sales clerk asked, "May I give him your name?" I said, "Halle Barry" with a straight face. He eventually got off his conference call and when I met him he said he'd already ordered the book through my distributor. When I asked how many copies, he said, "Dozens". The most I've ever sold at once is 10 copies so I'll find this interesting when I see them in the store.

Well, I've caught things up to speed here. I'll keep learning how to live in blogosphere and plugging away at getting our book in regional stores.