INTERNATIONAL MARKETS & MISCELLANEOUS

Imagine my surprise when I checked my email to find an order from the Netherlands! How in the world that dear person found out about Medicine Rock I'll probably never know, although I emailed her directly!

My first stop to ship the book was the UPS store. Their first price was $81. Then they found a way to do it for $51! Then they told me the Post Office could do a lot better in this instance. Our post office is only a few blocks away, and was quiet yesterday. I was able to mail it for $13. I am hoping the recipient will let me know when she receives it!

So now I realize (after the horses are out of the barn) that my price needs to be a touch higher for out-of-country orders! Another experience of Live and Learn, or in this case Write and Learn Marketing.

I am preparing for the Festival of the Book in Missoula, MT on October 29-30. I have purchased more postcards to hand out with all the information and the cover, and my and Sun Bear's pictures. I've purchased a "baseball" hat with the book on it, just for fun. I have tent signs and one hundred books...how will it go? Chances are a few will sell, but more importantly I will get exposure, be able to chat with other authors and continue to imprint an important concept on my mind: I am a writer and an author. And my second book is beginning to gather some ingredients! It will be pure fiction, set in Montana.

More good news: Quill & Parchment, an on-line journal, published one of my poems and requested I send three more. That was a delightful surprise. I have a trailer coming soon for YouTube about the book to give further exposure. It was a $99 investment. My granddaughter wants to put a video up for me also...that should be fun!

A reader contacted me recently to say she is reading MR for the second time which totally thrilled me.

If you liked the book, please write a quick review, or a long one, on Amazon.com under my advertising. That would help me so much! Thanks, readers, more soon!

THE PRESSES ARE ROLLING

I have a lovely corrected prototype book in my hand, and the electronic data has gone to the printers! This is last step in publishing, prior to the first steps in selling! Well, not really the first, since I've been calling bookstores, trying to imagine book tours, and setting up the website (soon it will be up).

My local bookstore chooses to buy from me, which gives us both a better profit margin. And IU is correcting their technical error to their distributor (Ingrahm), so the world rights itself ever so slightly once again.

In the meantime, check out Quill & Parchment on-line ezine. I submitted two poems to them just for fun, sort of quirky poems, and they loved them! They want three more! I'm told they've been publishing online for a number of years, and I'm excited to flip the pages of my poetry notebook and see what else I can come up with. That was an unexpected surprise. I've also submitted to the local Cutbank magazine out of University of Montana, but I've received no response.

Well, the sun has arrived. I MUST go outside!