Publish or Perish in Paris

Latest Efforts in Book Promotion

2010-06-24T10:15:00.001+02:00

We held a Father's Day promotion for the Kindle edition for which we sent out an e-mail announcement to people on our Discover Paris! mailing list. The list continues to grow as people sign up to receive our newsletter announcements and to access our "Practical Paris" guide and restaurant reviews.

Recently, I met a person who is on the board of directors of an American organization in Paris. She is interested in my book, and will investigate the possibility of my making a presentation to her organization. If this takes place, it will probably be after summer vacation.

I also became Official Blogger of the 4-14 Festival that will be held in Dijon on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of July. While this activity does not directly lead to book promotion, it does increase my visibility as a writer.

And finally, I was interviewed for two on-line magazines, Prissy Mag and Parisien Salon. The interview for Parisien Salon has not been published yet.

Onward!

Kindle Edition of Paris Insights - An Anthology

2010-05-23T19:40:00.003+02:00

About a year ago, we engaged Joshua Tallent of Kindle Formatting to format our book for Kindle. His price was fair and he persisted to the end of the project in spite of our many questions and queries. Then we put the project aside to work on getting the black-and-white paperback edition published. Just recently, I made some minor edits in the Kindle program, and then uploaded it to Amazon. Now begins the next phase of our adventure, which is promoting the Kindle edition as well as the printed Premium (color) and Travelers' (B&W) editions!

Mothers' Day Promotion

2010-05-10T17:18:00.011+02:00

We launched a Mothers' Day promotion during the weeks leading up to that special day.

The promotion consisted of three parts:

1) The Early Bird Special (announcement sent on April 19) - For each person who purchased a copy of Paris Insights – An Anthology before May 1st, we would send an e-document (complete with color photos) containing our description of three elegant places that the customer's special lady (mother, wife, girlfriend, or partner) would enjoy reading about or visiting in Paris. All the customer had to do was to forward the order confirmation message to us by e-mail within 24 hours after purchase.

2) Last Days of the Early Bird Special (announcement sent on April 26) - This was the same offer as above.

3) For Late Mother’s Day shoppers (announcement sent on May 5) - We sent a new announcement with a different incentive. If the book were purchased before May 9th, we would send an e-document (complete with color photos) of a promenade through a lesser-known garden destination in Paris.

For the promotions #1 and #2, we sent the announcement via Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as to people on our opt-in mailing list.

For promotion #3, we sent the announcement as above, as well as posting it on our Paris Insights blog.

In each promotion, we did not reveal exactly what the e-document contained, in order to maintain an air of mystery around the promotion.

Now that Mother's Day has past, we turn our focus to Father's Day. We have a new edition to promote for this holiday - our recently released Kindle edition!

Success in Salt Lake City!

2010-03-09T16:48:00.007+01:00

On Sunday, Monique gave a PowerPoint presentation to a group at the Alliance Française of Salt Lake City. It was a smashing success!

Janick Barger, director of the Alliance Française, publicized the event in the organization’s newsletter. She also asked a journalist at the local paper, the Salt Lake Tribune, to post an announcement. Over seventy people showed up on a sunny Sunday afternoon to hear Monique speak!

The talk lasted for about an hour, followed by a question and answer period. Monique first presented a photograph of her and me beneath the glass pyramid at the Louvre, and talked about how we came to Paris and began exploring the city. She then talked about the Paris Insights newsletter, which is the origin of our book, Paris Insights - An Anthology. She talked about the inspiration behind each of the book's chapters, and shared several photos with the audience. She ended by telling everyone how they could follow Paris Insights through our blog, Facebook, and Twitter, and invited people to sign up for our mailing list to receive newsletter announcements. Everyone who did received a free e-gift from Discover Paris!

About fifteen minutes of questions and answers followed. Then Monique joined everyone in the lobby for the book sale. She actually sold more newsletter subscriptions than books! She went there with fifteen books and left with only three. She also received two requests for information about our travel planning services, which is Discover Paris!' main business.

Mission accomplished!

Presentation of Paris Insights at the Alliance Française of Salt Lake City

2010-03-04T10:06:00.001+01:00

The Alliance Française of Salt Lake City has invited Monique Wells to present Paris Insights: The Best of History, Culture, and Contemporary Life in Paris on Sunday 7 March at 3 PM.

Location: Gore Auditorium at the Gore School of Business at Westminster College, Salt Lake City.

Admission is free!

More Social Media Efforts

2010-03-02T09:20:00.004+01:00

I've just launched a blog about Paris, which, I hope, will attract more people to my ParisInsights.com Web site. The blog can be found at the following link: http://blog.parisinsights.com. I've also started tweeting at http://twitter.com/TomReevesParis.

My Presentation at Patricia's Paris Soirée

2010-02-15T10:44:00.008+01:00

Patricia Laplante invited me to give my presentation entitled, "Ile Saint-Louis - History, Architecture, and Epicurean Delights" yesterday evening at her Sunday soirée. My presentation was well-received. About thirty people attended and I sold four books!

During the presentation, I circulated a sign-up sheet for our mailing list. I announced that if people would give me their name and e-mail address, I would send them a gift, namely our "Ten Favorites List of the Best Chocolate in Paris." Fourteen persons signed up.

More Efforts, Some Results

2010-02-14T13:03:00.012+01:00

I telephoned an editor of Paris Magazine and asked her if I could forward my press release (For information about this press release, see my blog of November 8). She agreed. I sent it to her by e-mail and later got a "read" receipt.

We got a request for a review copy from the editor of an on-line magazine about Paris, entitled Prissy Mag.

We sent out a special media release to six bloggers about Paris announcing that the book now has eight five-star reviews and received one reply, indicating that her editorial agenda is already complete.

I am now the weekly restaurant reviewer for the on-line magazine Parisien Salon. The author's bio at the end of each review indicates, among other things, that I am author of Paris Insights - An Anthology. Hopefully, this will induce people to buy my book!

Midwest Book Review Rates Paris Insights - An Anthology

2010-02-14T12:44:00.004+01:00

On February 8, Midwest Book Review posted a five-star rating of Paris Insights - An Anthology on Amazon.com. Several weeks ago, we submitted two copies of the book to them, following their guidelines posted here. We now have eight five-star reviews.

Results of Our Media Campaign on January 21

2010-02-09T13:54:00.009+01:00

We sent out a second media release to 139 writers and bloggers on January 21, entitled "A Valentine for Paris - Special Insights for Enjoying the Romance of the City of Light on Valentine's Day." The release was similar to the release that we sent on January 14. In both releases, we touted the insider's knowledge that a traveler would gain from reading our book about Paris. We also provided a link to an essay we wrote about some of the best places to enjoy hot chocolate in the city. We advised the recipients of our media release that they could freely reprint the article if they gave us full credit for it.

After sending the release, we received twenty "failure" notices, fifteen "not read" notices, twenty-nine "delivered" notices, twenty-seven "read" notices, and one request to be removed from our mailing list. We also received a response from a blogger who stated that she would reprint our article on hot chocolate in her blog close to Valentine's Day, as well as a request for a copy of the book from a food blogger. This blogger later stated that the book was not appropriate for her site, but she did express interest in a number of articles that we have written about food. Finally, we received two requests for information about how to purchase the book.

We feel heartened by the overall response, especially the response from the food blogger, who might use a number of our articles on her site.

What We Learned about Travel Writers from Searching for Their E-mail Addresses on the Internet

2010-01-22T17:19:00.004+01:00

Most of the names on Krupin’s list (see our posting on January 18, 2010) are freelance writers (as opposed to staff writers) in the travel-writing field. Most of them do not limit themselves to travel writing. Quite a number of them have their own Web site, where they promote their writing skills and other services, such as editing or teaching the writing craft. Many of them state that they are “award-winning” writers. The ones that appear to be the most successful (in terms of awards, or number of magazines for which they have written, or popularity with a reading public) are the ones that have taken the greatest care to hide their e-mail addresses from the Internet. A good number of those that have Web sites declare a passion for writing, as well as for traveling. A number of writers have Web sites or blogs in which they promote travel. For the most part, those that promote travel on these sites promote travel as amusement (travel as fun). Unfortunately, this is not the type of traveler that I am trying to reach. I hope that the readers of my book enjoy themselves when they travel, no doubt. But I also hope that a traveler to Paris views the trip as an opportunity to learn about the richness of French culture. A different state of mind all together!

Launching Our Own Promotion

2010-01-18T10:42:00.007+01:00

When we engaged Paul Krupin to send out a publicity blast (see our posting of December 3, 2009), he provided us with the list of hundreds of individuals in the media to whom he sent the news release. The list included names, addresses, and telephone numbers, but did not include e-mail addresses. This means that if we want to send out our own releases without engaging his services for a second round, then we will have to find the e-mail addresses on the Web.

Monique spent several hours on the Web researching e-mail addresses and found sixty-two. It is a small list to start with, but it’s a start! We sent out a Valentine’s Day press release to journalists who write about food and travel for daily newspapers and received, in return, four “Read” reports, four “Not read” reports, nine “Mail delivery failed” reports, and three “Delivered” reports, for a total of nineteen reports. But we did not receive any requests for a review copy of the book – yet.

Paul told us that the response rate for press releases is from 0.5% to 1.0%. This means that we’ll need to send out a lot more releases to get even one reply!

Our Latest Activities

2010-01-14T12:02:00.024+01:00

Promoting the book has been keeping us quite busy. Here’s a list of things that we have been doing:

For several weeks, we have been updating the Paris Insights page on Facebook on a daily basis by posting brief comments about Paris and illustrating the comments with photographs. Our daily comments about Paris seem to be attracting the attention of other Facebook users, as the Paris Insights page now has 100 "fans." The number of fans increases daily. As Valentine's Day approaches, we will post more comments about chocolate. We will also post photos of places in Paris that inspire romance, and ask our fans to comment on their favorite romantic spots in the city.

We are promoting the book as a Valentine's Day gift and are preparing and sending press releases for the promotion.

We are using two free press release services: PRLog and PitchEngine. The PRLog release is distributed automatically to Google News and other search engines. Though we could send the Pitch Engine release to as many as 10 people at a time, it is best to send every press contact a personalized release - at least with regard to the title and salutation. So we have elected to send the release out individually to persons in the media for whom we have e-mail addresses.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, we are offering a gift to those who purchase Paris Insights - An Anthology prior to February 14th. We have created a "Ten Favorites List" of our selections of "The Best Chocolate in Paris." The list includes the name of the winner of a chocolate truffle tasting that we held a few days ago. (We will publish an article about this tasting in the February 2010 edition of our newsletter, Paris Insights.) We will send this list to those customers who forward us their order confirmation from Amazon.com or Blurb.com.

Mission Accomplished!

2010-01-07T22:18:00.002+01:00

Joanna Daneman, one of the top reviewers on Amazon, gave my book a great review. Her comments are especially encouraging because she has traveled to Paris a number of times—each time with an eye to seeing the city in a different light and from a non-tourist-oriented perspective. What she appreciates about Paris Insights – An Anthology is exactly what I tried to accomplish: writing about the city in a manner that casts aside common notions about Paris and the people who live there.

Two More Reviews

2010-01-06T21:51:00.005+01:00

Michele Kurlander, who wrote the great review for BonjourParis (see my posting of Friday, December 11), revised the review somewhat and then posted it to Amazon. It’s the most complete review to date. I feel heartened that she took the time to write it and that she found my book so inspiring.

And JohnnyJet.com posted a brief plug for my book in his newsletter, called This Week's Travel News. You have to scroll way down to the bottom to see it, but it's there, the last entry under "Other News." Thank you, Johnny!

Another Great Review

2010-01-05T16:52:00.002+01:00

Pat Marsden, who has a blog called Here and There, was one of the persons in the media who received a review copy of my book. She notified me today that she posted her review on December 21. Thank you, Pat!

Back to Business after the Holidays

2010-01-04T16:51:00.000+01:00

Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to return to the art of book promotion. Today I made a list of the persons in the media to whom I sent a review copy of my book back in early December. As far as I can tell, my PR blitz produced only one review (and a good one!). I’m hoping that a gentle e-mail reminder to the other recipients will produce more. I’ll send out the e-mails tomorrow (a Tuesday), because, according to received wisdom, Mondays are a bad day to contact people in the media, who are just settling in to their desks after the long weekend.

Book Review Posted on Amazon

2009-12-19T11:37:00.003+01:00

Grady Harp, one of the top reviewers on Amazon has posted a review of my book. Thank you, Grady!

Patricia’s Paris Soirée

2009-12-17T12:54:00.008+01:00

I have known Patricia Laplante-Collins for many years, but never have attended any of her soirées. Last night I was her "guest of honor."

I was impressed by the effort she made to get people to interact with one another by making introductions and giving brief biographical information.

There were nine persons who attended, plus Patricia, myself, and Monique, for a total of twelve. By about 8:15 p.m. everyone had arrived and was comfortably installed in Patricia's large living room. My presentation lasted about half an hour. I traced the history of Paris Insights – An Anthology from its germination as an idea to its physical reality, and talked about my efforts to promote it. I also gave some advice to would-be self-publishers about how they can make the publishing process easier.

Following the presentation, people asked questions and made comments. During this period, I discovered that one of the guests had been a client of my travel planning service Discover Paris! She subscribed to my newsletter and purchased a copy of the Travelers’ edition of the book. I also discovered that another of the guests had recently purchased a copy of the Premium edition of the book, having been influenced by the wonderful Bonjour Paris review written by Michele Kurlander. After purchasing the book, she became a fan of my Paris Insights Facebook page, and, through Facebook, learned that I would be speaking at Patricia’s. As she happened to be in Paris, she came to the event. There, she purchased a second copy of the book for her Paris apartment!

Following the question and answer period, there was a buffet dinner that Patricia had prepared. There was also lots of conversation as people formed little groups to share common interests. A good time was had by all.

I think that the presentation went well, and, as best as I could judge, people were happy with it. I also sold five books, a good indication of satisfaction!

More stuff happening

2009-12-11T18:57:00.003+01:00

After I uploaded the PDF file, it didn’t take long for Amazon to add its “Look Inside” feature to the book. I hope this helps promote it!

I got a great review posted to Bonjour Paris. Written by Michele Kurlander, it sings her praises of my book to the high heavens! Thank you, Michele!

I have been invited to speak on December 16th at Patricia Laplante-Collins’ Paris Soirées, a long-standing salon that has brought French and American people together for evenings of cultural exchange. I will share my experiences in self-publishing Paris Insights – An Anthology, including my efforts to promote it, and take questions from guests afterward. Dinner, including wine, will be served.

Things are moving fast!

2009-12-06T20:29:00.003+01:00

Kitty has sent out books to reviewers who responded to Paul’s press release – six on the first day alone! We’ve also identified other potential reviewers to whom Kitty will send books, including several reviewers on Amazon.com, a travel book club, Midwest Book Review, and MyShelf.com. Paul has already sent the query to the Amazon reviewers, and two responded positively within hours of receiving his message. I queried the book club and MyShelf.com myself this weekend, and await their responses in the coming week. We will send review copies and a press release to Midwest Book Review without a query, per the instructions on their Web site.

Today, I uploaded a PDF file of the book to Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book” program. We have submitted our Web site, Paris Insights, to the major search engines, and are now posting roughly one restaurant review a week there to incite people to return to it – once they learn that it is there.

Next steps

2009-12-03T13:09:00.003+01:00

Lots of things are happening now, and quickly. The problems with the Media Café on our Web site have been resolved, Kitty has received a shipment of books, Paul is ready to send out our press release, and I’m in the process of composing a cover letter to send out with the books. I joined the Amazon Associates Program, which means that I get a text and image link to put on my Web sites that direct customers to my book. Here it is:

Post-Thanksgiving Celebration in Paris

2009-11-30T19:54:00.002+01:00

Last night, Monique and I celebrated Thanksgiving at a restaurant called Le Mesturet. We enjoyed great food and the company of a great group of people. The event was organized by Terrance Gelenter, an aficionado of literature about Paris. He has declared that the dinner will become a Paris tradition.

I wore my Paris Insights badge, which helped elicit conversation about my book. We met some people who are doing remarkable things in Paris, including an American woman who works at a pastry chef at a one-Michelin-star restaurant, and a French man who has relaunched his family’s cognac distillery. We also met an American woman who was once head buyer at Bretano’s, the now-defunct English language bookstore in Paris. She was especially interested in the story of Paris Insights – An Anthology because she is in the process of helping a friend launch two books. I am thinking of asking her to read my book and post a review on Amazon.com.

Our new Web site is up!

2009-11-27T14:36:00.006+01:00

We decided to create a Web site to publicize the book. Called Paris Insights, it contains three principal sections: one that promotes the book, one that promotes our newsletter, and one that provides a free weekly review of Parisian restaurants. This latter section will, we think, attract potential customers to the site. There is also a section called Media Café, where members of the press can find information about me (the author), photographs, suggestions for interview questions, and articles that may be reprinted. The Media Café needs some more programming to get it to display properly, but this should be completed in a few days.

The company that designing our new Web site is Pallasart. They designed our first Web site - Discover Paris! - back in 2004, and we highly recommend their work. We invite you to visit both sites to see why!

Amazon now carries the book!

2009-11-17T17:50:00.003+01:00

We found out today that our book is now listed on Amazon. So, it's time to get Paul Krupin to release the press release and to get a supply of books to Kitty.

Three-In-One Lazer Session

2009-11-12T07:23:00.002+01:00

Time to hone my image as a writer!

Tuesday night I attended a “Lazer Session” organized by Bernadette Martin (Personal Brand Strategist). She provided tips on creating a professional bio (a 150-word summary to use on LinkedIn, Web sites, or blogs). Image consultant Cécile Hasroyan gave each attendee advice on appropriate colors to wear that coordinate with one’s skin tone, photographer Sue Rynski took a professional headshot for publication in print or on the Web, and chef Diane Anthonissen served hors d’oeuvres. The event was attended by ten persons (two men, eight women) from various backgrounds and professions, including one (very) high-placed executive, consultants, an information technology specialist, and a chatelaine (owner and operator of a château). I don’t know why the executive needed advice, as it seemed to me that she had reached the tip-top of a career ascension that most people can only dream about, but she was there.

The event was fun and informative and was, for me, an opportunity to meet people of diverse backgrounds, all with an entrepreneurial spirit!

Publicity Campaign and Creation of a Proof

2009-11-08T14:20:00.007+01:00

Paul Krupin has prepared a press release for us. He used material that we sent him, including a PDF copy of PIAA and the information about the book that is on our Web pages, to create the release. He will send it out to a targeted media group and Kitty will act as a fulfillment agent to forward books to those media personnel who request a copy.

After a final review of the PDF files, we uploaded them to Lightning Source, and then ordered a copy to review. The book arrived by mail about a week later, and to our satisfaction, it looked good! We submitted our approval of the proof to Lightning Source, and then turned our attention to publicity once again.

We asked our Webmaster to create a new Web site for PIAA, and learned that it would be operational in roughly a week. We also learned that PIAA should be available on Amazon.com in four to six weeks. We called Paul and asked when he thought it would be appropriate to send the press release, based on this information. He indicated that we should wait until the book is actually available. So in about three weeks’ time, we’ll begin looking at the Amazon.com Web site everyday until we see that our title is listed. Then we’ll call Paul and give him the go-ahead to send the release. We’ll also order several review copies of the book for the media and have them sent to Kitty. With any luck, we’ll be able to profit from at least some of the Christmas sales season!

A Book Shepherd

2009-10-14T13:48:00.005+02:00

We contacted one of the two "book shepherds" that Paul recommended. Her name is Kitty Werner, and her Web address is http://rsbpress.com. We sent her a PDF file of the Blurb edition of the book, so that she could see how it looks, and we sent her the DOC file of the book, so that she could insert the text into InDesign, the layout program that she was using. A number of problems emerged, as they always do in this kind of project. One of them was that the words that were italicized in the DOC file did not appear italicized in InDesign. They had to be manually formatted to appear in italics. Another problem was the index function of InDesign, which did not always index the words correctly. Kitty would send us her work as a PDF file, and we would carefully review it for errors, such as words that should be in italics but were not, and words that were not properly indexed. This creation and review process continued for several weeks. It required a lot of communication by e-mail and sometimes by telephone, but Kitty was diligent, and, finally, the layout task was complete. The finished project consists of two PDF files, one for the text and the other for the cover.

Before the book layout and review began, Kitty advised us to look into Lightening Source as a possibility for the printing of our book. The company has a print-to-order program for small publishers. Its Web site is http://www.lightningsource.com/. We went to their Web site, reviewed their program, and then opened an account.

Our next task will be to upload the book to Lightning Source. But before that, we need to get our publicity campaign ready.

A Publicity Agent

2009-08-13T13:44:00.003+02:00

Back in March, Joe Shaw at Cypress House gave us the name of a publicity agent, Paul Krupin. We called Paul a couple of days ago to discuss what we needed to do to create a publicity campaign for the book. The crucial thing that we learned was that we must be prepared to send fifty copies of our book to media professionals who express interest as a result of the publicity campaign. For us, the cost of sending fifty books would be exorbitant, given that the printing cost for each book produced by Blurb.com is quite high. Paul said, then, that we needed to reduce the printing cost of the book, so that the retail cost is around $16.95. He gave us the names of two “book shepherds” who might be able to help us find ways to reduce the cost. He even called one of them on our behalf, and later e-mailed us to let us know that she was waiting for our call.

Paul was quite helpful with the advice that he freely gave over the telephone. It became clear while talking with him that he has a lot of expertise in his field. His Web site address is www.directcontactpr.com.

My "Paris Insights" Badge

2009-07-08T21:41:00.004+02:00

Monique and I designed a handsome badge to promote the book. Measuring 2" x 3", it displays a rust-colored Eiffel Tower next to the words "Paris Insights," all on a pistachio-green background. I submitted the design to a company called Affordable Buttons and ordered their minimum of ten badges. After some initial confusion (the company twice misspelled the title "Paris Insights," making it "Paris Insight"), they shipped the correct batch.

I now wear a badge almost everywhere I go. It makes a good conversation piece at cocktail parties. At two events that I attended, I sold books to people who wanted to give it as a gift to a sister or a wife for their birthdays.

My Presentation at the American Library in Paris

2009-04-15T21:21:00.012+02:00

I was invited by Naida Culshaw, Executive Assistant at the American Library in Paris, to give a presentation on my book at a library event entitled "Evening with an Author." She and Abigail Altman of the communications office prepared a list of questions around which they suggested that I structure my talk. Since I would be sharing the spotlight with another writer, Annabel Simms, author of An Hour from Paris, my presentation would be limited to 20 minutes in length. The event took place on Wednesday evening, April 8, 2009.

Monique helped me create a PowerPoint presentation, and we chose the following photographs to illustrate the topics that I planned to cover:

The book cover

A layout of one of our newsletters, Paris Insights

The municipal library where I do much of my research

Me, carrying a notebook and camera, looking ever so much like a mild-mannered reporter

Notre-Dame Cathedral and an Eastern Orthodox priest for the article entitled "East Meets West at Notre-Dame"

Gariguette and Mara des bois strawberries, and a strawberry tart, for the article entitled "Summer Strawberries"

Mr. Logereau, proprietor of the Brûlerie des Gobelins, for the article entitled "Fresh Roasted Coffee in Paris"

A guillotine, for the article "La Guillotine"

An apiary, for the article "A Taste of Honey"

A screen shot of my blog

Over fifty persons attended the event, which, I think, was a good turnout.

During my presentation, I tried to emphasize how I believe my voice differs from the multitude of voices one finds on the Internet expressing their observations about Paris. Specifically, I told the audience that I perform extensive library research to uncover interesting, yet little-known, aspects about the topic on which I am writing. And, I interview Parisians, both Americans and French, who have a passion for activities as varied as copying the works of the masters at the Louvre, and saving the last remaining Baltard Pavilion from destruction.

Getting Photographed for the Book

2009-02-04T16:49:00.003+01:00

To get my photograph taken for the book, I engaged a professional photographer, Diana Lui. She took me to the rooftop terrace of a restaurant called Les Ombres for the shoot. From there, we had an expansive view of the Chaillot Palace, across the river to the west. And to the south we had a magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower. She positioned me so that my back was to the tower. I find the resulting photograph compelling, because half of my face is in shadow.

After the photo session, Diana gave me original glossies and digital files of the two photos that I selected. I altered the dimensions of the photograph that I preferred so that it would fit into the book. It accompanies the preface. I also uploaded it to my profile for this blog.

Getting the Book Copy-edited

2009-01-19T16:34:00.004+01:00

Having learned back in September that the book contained some spelling and punctuation errors in spite of our careful reviews, we decided to engage a copy editor to review it. Searching the Internet, we found a Web site called EditAvenue.com that listed a number of editors. We chose three, submitted to each the same sample page (as a Word document), and requested that they perform a sample edit according to the Chicago Manual of Style.

The page that we submitted had already received a partial copy review by Cypress House, so we already knew what some of the errors were. The copy editors didn’t take too long to return their samples, and within a few days we were able to compare all three sample edits with the corrections that Cypress House had made. We found that while all three editors caught punctuation errors and made valid suggestions for rewording the material, none of them had caught all of the errors that Joe Shaw of Cypress House had found. So, we thanked the editors for their submissions, but told them that we were going to select someone else. Then we turned to Cypress House for the copy editing.

We were quite pleased with the editing that Joe performed. His work was careful and thorough. After receiving his document, I used the "compare and merge" function of Word to make his corrections stand out. Then, we carefully transferred the corrections to the Blurb.com document, printed it out, and reviewed it again ... and then again! We think that the book now sparkles and will soon upload it to the Blurb Web site.

Status of Book Project

2008-11-25T12:59:00.003+01:00

We have come to the point where we have determined not to proceed with the publication of a trade edition of our book. Using cost estimates that Cypress House provided, I created an Excel spreadsheet listing prepublication and publication expenses (but not promotional expenses because I do not know what they might be) for 3000 books. I was able to estimate the price at which we would roughly recuperate expenses if we sold all of the books. That price is $24.95. This price would allow us to give a 55% discount to programs such as Amazon Advantage. But breaking even is a meager outcome for the investment of so much time and money!

I believe that $24.95 is too high for the travel book market. I was hoping to be able to price the book at $19.95, but given the outlay of expenses, this is impossible.

So, we must abandon our efforts to publish a trade edition of the book.

Our next step is to focus on the promotion of the Blurb.com edition of the book for the Christmas holiday season. Following that, our medium term focus is to explore publishing a version that is compatible with Amazon’s Kindle. But is Kindle's screen an appropriate medium for the display of our pages with photographs? This is one of the questions we must investigate.

Manuscript Evaluation

2008-09-13T18:31:00.004+02:00

We have received the evaluation of our book from Cypress House (see Thursday, August 7, 2008). Whereas I had anticipated that parts of it might need to be rewritten, the editor who reviewed it noted only that punctuation, spelling, and similar errors needed to be corrected. (His job was not to spot all errors, however. We will need to engage a copy editor to do a thorough review of the manuscript to correct these. It is somewhat dismaying to learn that after we had reviewed the manuscript several times for errors that we had overlooked a number of them.) As for the content of the book, he stated that it is "very well organized, elegant in appearance, reasonably well written, and laden with well-chosen photographs".

We have, then, decided to proceed with the publication of a trade edition of the book. I have filled out a comprehensive "Author Questionnaire" supplied by Cypress House, written a short (180-word) biography, written a 380-word description of the book, and indicated on their bid proposal which of the services that I want them to perform.

A Chance Encounter with a Bookstore Manager

2008-09-06T10:59:00.005+02:00

Sal Horowitz advised us to develop a relationship with managers at local bookstores, so that we would have a better chance of placing our book there at the appropriate time. It was, then, an unanticipated encounter that brought us into contact with a manager of an English-language bookstore in Paris. In July, we participated in a gastronomy festival. While we were talking to someone about our book a marketing manager at one of the local bookstores overheard our conversation and expressed interest. We showed her a copy of the Blurb edition that we had produced. She told us that she would like to see the book when it is ready for mass distribution. Serendipitous!

Some Basic Market Research

2008-08-29T17:16:00.002+02:00

Both Sal Horowitz and Cynthia Frank advised us to do some market research, which consists of visiting bookstores and seeking out books that might compare with ours.

In Paris we went into Brentano’s and W.H. Smith and looked in their display section devoted to books about the city. We found a number of books about French culture and Paris, but none that compared to ours in format, style or content. For one thing, most of the books contain only text. And those that have illustrations contain few in color, unless they are the lavish coffee table books. For another thing, many of the books about Paris are narratives about the authors’ personal experiences in the city, romantic or otherwise. Our book is not a narrative.

In San Francisco we went into Barnes and Noble. We could not immediately find the section on travel writing, so we asked a clerk to help us. We told him that we were doing some elementary market research for our book, and he took us over to the travel writing section. There we found one book that somewhat resembled our own in format and style, but not in content. It is called Café Life in Paris by Christine and Dennis Graf, selling for $20.00.

The clerk told us that he had self-published a book on Marilyn Monroe and, although it was not a great best-seller, he said that he was satisfied with the level of sales that it had attained.

The conclusion that we draw from our admittedly limited market research is that there are presently no books on the market that compare to ours. We see this as an advantage. Presumably a carefully crafted marketing program can be developed to exploit this unique position in the travel writing niche.

Our First Radio Interview

2008-08-23T16:25:00.014+02:00

The day before we caught our plane to San Francisco, Stephanie sent an e-mail asking if we would care to appear on a local radio program. "Would we call the broadcaster when we arrived to confirm?" she asked.

Shortly after we arrived, we were in a taxi taking us to the University of San Francisco for our interview on KUSF. Although this is a campus radio station with a short broadcast radius, we hoped that even limited publicity might induce a few more people to attend our lectures. Plus, the experience of getting interviewed might be fun!

Our interviewer was Farinaz Agharabi. She welcomed us to the studio and informed us that the program would be taped for later broadcast. This was certainly an advantage because it meant that she could edit any gaffes that we might make.

The interview went well. Farinaz asked us to give a brief overview of each of the topics that we would be presenting at the Alliance Française. She also asked about my book, giving me the opportunity to promote it.

We tuned in to the station to listen to the interview the next day. Farinaz had done a good job editing and had inserted some musical interludes into the program.

With this experience under our belts, we are ready for more interviews!

Our First Book Promotion

2008-08-14T12:41:00.002+02:00

In June, we traveled to San Francisco on business not related to our book. Several weeks before we made the trip I contacted Stephanie Wells, the director of cultural affaires at the Alliance Française, and asked her if she would like us to give a PowerPoint presentation before the group about some aspect of Paris. I told her that I would like to use the occasion to promote the book. She agreed to this, and we settled on two topics: "Ile Saint-Louis: History, Architecture and Epicurean Delights" to be given by me on a Tuesday night, and "Black Paris and the Myth of a Colorblind France" to be given by Monique on a Thursday night.

I was initially tempted to propose a lecture that would be, in essence, a presentation of my book. However, since it would be unknown to anyone in San Francisco, I thought that few persons would care to attend a lecture about a book that they had never heard of. I reasoned that the topic "Ile Saint-Louis" would attract a number of persons, and that I would then have an audience to whom I could pitch the book during the opening and closing remarks.

The two lectures went well. In fact, Stephanie told me that for the "Ile Saint-Louis" presentation there was a record number of persons (about fifty) who showed up. However, we were disappointed that few showed any interest in the book, even though we had mentioned it, displayed copies on a side table, and shown a slide of the cover at the end of the presentation.

I was also disappointed that only one or two persons signed up to be placed on a mailing list for our newsletter announcements. I had imagined that persons attending the lecture would be eager to learn more about Paris and that they would realize that our newsletter "Paris Insights" would be a good source of information.

Getting Our Book Evaluated

2008-08-07T22:52:00.002+02:00

After reflecting on the cost of the book publishing project, we have decided to proceed first by having our book reviewed by Cypress House for style, content and marketability. We initially resisted this step because the book has already received positive reviews from a number of travel writers. However, the cost of an evaluation is only a fraction of the total cost of the entire project. It is better to learn now whether or not the book can find an audience without revision, rather than after having launched the project and learning later that some changes would have improved marketability.

In the meantime, we have received a query from an on-line bookseller that specializes in travel books. The editor asked us if her company could purchase our book wholesale. The answer is, of course, that for the time being we cannot sell wholesale. But it is heartening to have received this query, especially since it came as a referral from a company that has recently engaged us to provide guided tours in Paris.

A Daunting Project Proposal

2008-07-30T18:47:00.003+02:00

We received the draft bid proposal from Cypress House. This is the bid that I requested Cynthia Frank to submit to outline the Cypress House services that would help us put the book into mass distribution channels and to identify the costs associated with each service.

The proposal she sent is a 12-page document, containing over 40 points that require action. I will not go into all of the details, but will mention a few of the important ones.

First of all, a marketing plan must be developed, consisting of identifying at least three consumer audiences and how best to reach them; planning a distribution network; and preparing press kits, postcards, flyers, press releases, and e-mail "blasts".

Next, there is coaching to help us set up procedures, including invoicing, discount policies, shipping and so forth.

There is also typesetting, as the book must be prepared properly before it is sent to a printer.

An index must be prepared. This requires the work of a professional.

Then there is permissions gathering. Since we briefly quoted at least one author in the book, we might have to request permission to use his words.

Although we have already reviewed and proofread the book at least three or four times, we should nonetheless submit the manuscript to a professional proofreader.

Cynthia has identified a printer and we must make a decision as to how many copies we want to have printed.

We must also find a warehouse and fulfillment center. (This point was overlooked in the bid proposal.)

Part of the marketing proposal may involve mailings to newspapers and book buyers as well as bookings for radio shows.

We set up an Excel spreadsheet to prepare an estimated total cost of all of these services. It adds up to a lot of money. Daunting!

We prepared a list of 14 questions to Cynthia, asking her to clarify some of the points. In the meantime, we realize that we are approaching the go / no go decision point as to whether to launch this big project.

Getting Testimonials

2008-07-16T22:07:00.003+02:00

Getting testimonials for the book did not prove too difficult because we already had professional and personal relationships with the individuals who supplied them.

Monique had been invited to appear on Peter Greenberg’s worldwide radio show when he came to Paris (broadcasting from Fouquet’s). We sent him a thank-you note afterwards for giving her the opportunity to appear on his show. Later, when we were ready to start requesting testimonials, we thought of asking him. And he consented! We sent him a pre-publication copy of the book to the address that he furnished, and he responded within two or three weeks.

We asked Jim Calio, whom we had met in Paris a couple of years ago. Jim is an accomplished travel writer who contributes to publications such as The New Yorker, CNN Traveller and Bon Appetit. He readily consented and also gave us advice on how he thought we could market the book.

We asked David Burke, whom we have known for a number of years. He is a writer and documentary film maker and has recently published Writers in Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light. Incidentally, we purchased his book and find it a pleasure to read because it fleshes out information about how Paris has played a central role in the lives of many writers of American, French and other origins.

We asked Shelley Bradford-Bell, who publishes a cultural magazine entitled Dialogues in Culture. When she’s in Paris she throws some great parties at her place, inviting writers, musicians and film makers.

All four of these writers gave us positive testimonials, which we placed on the back cover of the book. We have received other testimonials and have a complete listing of them on the order page for the book.

In the next entry I’ll comment on a draft bid proposal that we received for the production and distribution of the book.

Cypress House

2008-07-09T21:25:00.002+02:00

Looking for a company that could help us develop a strategy to produce, distribute and market a trade edition of the book, we first contacted the Aeonix Publishing Group. Shel Horowitz had given us their contact information in our conversation with him.

Pete Masterson of the Aeonix group responded to our e-mail. He told us that they were not accepting new clients, but gave us a list of individuals and companies that might be interested in our project. One of the contacts was Cypress House.

Cypress House proposes a number of services to the self-published author, including evaluation, editing, page and cover design, type setting, printing, marketing, and sales promotion. We contacted them by e-mail indicating that we were seeking help on setting up a marketing strategy, producing the book in mass quantity (in order to reduce the cost per unit) and distributing it.

Stephanie Rosencrans of Cypress House responded to our message, inviting us to fill out a worksheet and give detailed information about the book. She also requested that we send a copy of the book, upon receipt of which we could set up a free 15-minute telephone consultation with the president, Cynthia Frank. After we sent the material and received confirmation that it had been delivered, a specific time for the telephone conversation was set.

Our telephone conversation with Cynthia ran over a half an hour and we ended by asking her to prepare a price proposal for the services that we required. A month later we had not received her proposal, so we telephoned to request status. Cynthia told us that she had been in contact with a number of different domestic and foreign printers and that she could get the proposal out to us within a few days. She also asked us about the photographs that we had used in the book, stating that the printers expressed concern about the resolution of the smaller photos and needed to know whether or not all photos were in RGB (red, green and blue) or CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) format. She said that neither low-resolution photographs nor RGB format could be used for the offset printing (although they worked just fine for the digital printing edition that we had published with Blurb). We were getting our first inkling of the many technicalities that would need to be resolved to create a trade edition.

In the next entry, I’ll jump to a different topic and explain how we got a number of fairly well-known travel writers to give testimonials for the book.

A Disappointing Telephone Consultation

2008-07-03T13:21:00.002+02:00

I contacted Shel Horowitz by e-mail, outlining what I had done up to that point to publish and market the book. I asked him if he could craft a marketing proposal. He responded by sending a "Book Marketing Checklist" and requested that I fill it out and send it and a copy of the book to him.

A few days later he sent an e-mail to let me know that he had received the material and invited me to call him. It became clear, however, during the first few minutes of conversation that he had only glanced at my completed “Book Marketing Checklist” and the book. He said that the book, at the price that I had set, could not compete with guide books on Paris. Had he allotted a few minutes to study the material, he would have realized that Paris Insights – An Anthology is not a guide book – it is a travel book containing essays and color photographs destined to inform readers as to why Paris holds a compelling, almost magical, interest for people.

Shel advised that I find a printer who could run off a large number of copies in order to reduce the unit cost of the book. Without reducing the unit cost, my book could never be sold in book stores or on Amazon.com, a major disadvantage. This advice about reducing the unit cost was well-taken. Yet, without a comprehensive marketing plan, it is pointless to print up a batch of books. I was left with an inconclusive plan of action – "reduce the unit cost" – without the necessary strategy for selling those units.

During our conversation, Shel admitted that he had not carefully reviewed the material that I sent him. When he sent his invoice for the consultation, I reminded him of this and told him that he had not fulfilled our expectations for service – particularly after having read his books and having received a referral from an independent consultant to contact him. Shel responded by apologizing, reducing our bill by $50 and sending us a free copy of yet another of his e-books. We considered this an appropriate gesture.

Still in need of a marketing plan, I turned to another consultant. It is called Cypress House. I will talk about it in my next entry.

Getting Information from another Source

2008-06-30T09:46:00.005+02:00

I can no longer find the specific Internet forum in which Shel Horowitz answered someone’s inquiry about the merits of Peggy and Randy’s marketing scheme. I remember that he stated something to the effect that they were charging way too much money for the service. And so, I concluded that perhaps he could advise us on better, less expensive ways of marketing a book. Shel is a consultant in the book marketing business and has published a number of books on the subject, including Principled Profit, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, and Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, all three of which I eventually purchased from his web site. In making the purchase, I immediately learned one of the "secrets" of promoting books on the Internet. That technique is to give away something to induce the customer to buy. In his case, he gave away a slew of downloadable e-books and e-articles, more than I had time to read. Since I was going to buy his books anyway, I didn’t need further inducement. But his point that one should offer a gift to customers to induce them to purchase was well taken.

Applying his technique to our case, we decided to give away reviews of ten Parisian restaurants to anyone who notified us within 24 hours that they had purchased our book and forwarded us their order confirmation. I don't know whether this offer has increased interest in the book, but a number of people have taken us up on it. The details of the offer are posted on the book’s purchase page at Blog.com.

After reading Shel’s book Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, I thought that perhaps he was a person whom I could hire to help me develop a comprehensive marketing plan. I believed that I needed help, because my book, with its high unit cost, didn’t quite fit into any marketing plans that I had come across. I’ll go into the details of my conversation with Shel Horowitz in the next entry…

Why We Decided against the Marketing Scheme

2008-06-26T06:38:00.004+02:00

We were intrigued by the idea that we could turn our book – any book – into a bestseller, simply by paying for and following Peggy and Randy’s counsel. But there were at least two reasons why we decided against this plan. First, the plan – if it succeeds – does indeed turn one's book into a bestseller, but it is an ephemeral bestseller, for perhaps a day at best. We decided that we didn’t want or need to revel in the “glory” of being a one-day bestselling author (even if we could use this status for further publicity). We are in this for the long term. The other reason is the high unit cost of producing our book. Companies such as Amazon.com demand a very deep discount for listing a book on their web site. Since our profit margin is narrow to begin with, we simply could not afford to give any discount. Indeed, as we were to come to realize, there were other disadvantages to publishing a print on demand book, and we began to see that – in our case at least – the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.

But before we made our decision not to engage Peggy and Randy for their services, I searched the Internet under their names to see if I could find an independent opinion about their marketing scheme. And that is when I came across the name of Shel Horowitz. I’ll talk about what I learned from him my next entry…

A Fabulous Marketing Proposal

2008-06-22T15:41:00.006+02:00

An associate told us about a program that promised what seemed to be a fabulous way to turn a book into a bestseller in 38 days – or our money back! Keeping in mind the adage that says if something seems too good to be true then it probably is, we set out to learn about this program. The information is available on the web site http://www.freepublicity.com/bestseller/?10909, but I’ll outline the promises here:

Peggy [McColl] & Randy [Gilbert] propose an ingenious yet simple, five-step Bestseller Blueprint that any author can use to make a book a bestseller in only 38 days at almost no cost.

They explain how they've used the formula to make numerous books bestsellers and how one author used their method to sell 6,828 copies for $27 each without spending a dime on advertising (yes, that's $184,256.00 in sales!).

They indicate why they believe that their formula works for all types of books, fiction or non-fiction, regardless of subject -- whether they're self-published, POD, ebooks; newly-published or even out print for years.

You need absolutely no marketing expertise or experience to implement their Bestseller Blueprint.

We signed up for the telephone seminar and listened carefully to the pitch. From what we understood, for this technique to work the book had to be distributed through Amazon.com (or Barnes & Noble.com or another large e-mail source for books). The sponsors of this technique help the author get his or her book promoted through a massive e-mail campaign. People receiving these e-mails are induced to go to Amazon.com on a certain day to purchase the book. When a great number of people purchase the book on a single day (perhaps around a certain hour, I don’t know), their purchases drive the book’s sales into the "bestseller" category, if only for a few hours. The result? A bestselling book!

Could this technique work for our book? We wondered… In the next entry I’ll give my reasons why we decided against it.

Uploading the File

2008-06-18T11:05:00.006+02:00

After creating our book in Book Smart, we were ready to upload it to Blurb.com. The instructions on how to do this are clear and the upload proceeded with no problem. At this point, we had a book, ready for sale on the Internet! We selected a price, giving ourselves a $6 profit margin. That’s not much, but the reason that the margin is so narrow is because of the elevated cost of printing each book on demand. In standard book production, a large batch of books – several hundred or several thousand – is printed. The process of printing in large batches reduces the unit cost of each book. But Blurb.com does not operate that way. Instead, it prints a book only when a customer orders it. The advantage to this is that there are no warehouse charges for storing an inventory of books. But the disadvantage – and this is a major one – is that the unit cost of each book is high. We had not given much thought about this until later, when we started studying ways to market the book. How we began our efforts to market the book follow in the next entry…

The Cover

2008-06-14T20:57:00.006+02:00

The final touch, and, we later learned, a very important one from a marketing standpoint, was the cover of the book. Monique looked carefully at the cover formats that Blurb provided and decided that she wasn’t satisfied with them. Searching in Blurb’s help forum, she found templates that a fellow Blurb user had uploaded to aid those who wanted greater freedom in page and cover design. She was able to use these templates along with the program InDesign (by Adobe) to create the cover.

InDesign allows anyone to download its program for a 30-day trial period, so Monique decided to try it. Not being a graphic designer and never having used the program before, it took her a few hours to get the cover to look exactly how she wanted it. To illustrate the front cover, she used a photograph that we had taken of Pont Alexandre III. To set the title, she used a font (Shelly Allegro) that we use for titles on our web site. After she was satisfied with the appearance of the front and back covers, she made four copies of the back cover (pictured), using a different ISBN for each file, so that we would have representations for the original soft cover and the anticipated hard cover, and for the e-book and CD/DVD versions of the book. She made pdf and jpg files to give us the maximum flexibility for future possibilities. For the jpg files, she made low resolution, high resolution and print quality copies for each anticipated version of the book. Though not difficult, it was still quite a bit of work!

The next step was to upload the file to Blurb…

The ISBN

2008-06-11T14:51:00.004+02:00

After Monique set the book into the Book Smart program, we began to think about what else we would need to publish it. That’s when we realized that we would need to purchase a set of ISBNs.

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. If one is going to sell a book of any kind in bookstores, wholesalers or other traditional distribution venues, this number is required. An ISBN is also needed to get a book into libraries or to sell it on line. In the U.S., a company called Bowker has a monopoly on selling ISBNs and so we purchased a set of ten 13-digit numbers from the Bowker website.We planned use four of the numbers for hardback, paperback, electronic and CD/DVD versions of our book. That would leave six ISBNs for whatever other editions we could think of.

The ISBN is displayed on the copyright page and on the back cover of a book. That led us to our next step, creating the cover, front and back…

Book Smart

2008-06-07T21:03:00.005+02:00

One day I found Monique busy at the computer making entries into a new program that she had downloaded. The program is called Book Smart by Blurb.com. It is designed to provide a relatively easy way to create and publish your own book. It works like this: you copy and paste text from your Word file into the Book Smart program. Then you load your pictures onto each page that you want to illustrate, and voila! – you have a book! Well, it’s really not that easy. The program is balky. It has bugs and sometimes introduces errors into your text, but with patience and effort you can create a handsome book.

Monique selected a number of my essays and organized them into chapters: La Vie Parisienne (Life in Paris), Americans in Paris, Churches and Cathedrals, Tasty Treats, and Paris, Past and Present. We then imported images from our comprehensive file of photographs that we have taken of Paris over the years. Then – the hard part – she created an index and inserted this into the last pages of the book. By using Book Smart’s print function, we obtained a PDF copy of the book, printed it out and went over it carefully, page by page, looking for errors. After the third or fourth print-out and edit we believed that we had a perfect book. I’ll talk about the following step in my next entry.

Prior Experience

2008-06-03T12:14:00.004+02:00

My brother in the U.S. mentioned to me more than once that since I had done so much research about Paris for my newsletter I should start thinking about writing a book. From previous experience, however, I knew that writing a book is the easy part. The hard part is promoting it. Monique and I had already gone through the travails of promoting her cookbook, Food for the Soul. It is a great book – photographs by renowned French food photographer Daniel Czap, a preface by famous chef Alain Ducasse, as well as Monique’s mouth-watering recipes – but all this was not enough to sell all of the copies that we had printed. Even now, some years after we abandoned our efforts and sold off our remaining inventory to a liquidator, we still get requests for copies. Obviously, then, we had a great product, but did not know how to market it properly. What is the formula for getting a good book to sell?

Our Newsletter, "Paris Insights"

2008-05-31T17:00:00.012+02:00

Our newsletter covers a wide variety of topics related to life in Paris: cuisine, culture, history, contemporary life, Americans in Paris, architecture, art… I like to think that it documents the reasons why so many people find the city so fascinating and why they feel compelled to travel there.

We have posted the newsletter on our web site for several years and received many positive comments from readers. By 2006, I had become quite involved in doing research at the Paris municipal library on the history and culture of the city. I would carry home stacks of books, many of which I carefully read and studied before I wrote the newsletter. I also compared what I was writing to other newsletters about Paris and noticed that the majority of them seemed to be records of the authors' fleeting impressions rather than carefully constructed essays about the topics that I was researching. I began to ask myself, "With all of the time and effort that I am putting into research to give substance to my newsletters, why am I giving this information away for free?" And so, we decided to make the newsletter available only by paid subscription in July 2006. And people signed up! I like to think that our readers have chosen to take out a paid subscription because they find information in "Paris Insights" that goes deeper than the pedestrian material that they find for free on most web sites about Paris. But enough about the newsletter… I'll talk more about the book in the next entry.

The Book...

2008-05-28T11:50:00.010+02:00

Paris Insights – An Anthology is a selection of essays that I (and a couple of other contributors) have written for my newsletter "Paris Insights" since the year 2000. Back then, my wife suggested that we write a monthly newsletter about history, culture and contemporary life in Paris to attract potential clients to our web site, www.Discover Paris.net. Discover Paris! is a travel planning service for independent travelers – independent in the sense that they want someone to help organize their visit, but they don’t want to be part of a tour group when they get to Paris. So we plan a personalized itinerary for them based upon their responses to a travel planning questionnaire that is posted on our web site. In creating a newsletter, my wife's idea was that we would display our intimate knowledge about Paris, giving us greater credibility in the eyes of potential clients. I'll talk about the newsletter in the next entry…

The Beginning...

2008-05-26T15:10:00.001+02:00

My inspiration for starting this blog comes from Daniel Rose, who started a blog about his efforts to open a restaurant in Paris. A lot of hard work! Opening and running the restaurant, that is. Writing the blog may not be so difficult. But when Daniel started it, he didn’t know whether his restaurant would be a success or a failure. In my mind, starting the blog under this cloud of uncertainty was a brave act. Especially when one considers how difficult running a restaurant is and how easily it could fail for reasons beyond his control. Anyway, soon after opening, his restaurant got rave reviews from the local and international press. Congratulations, Daniel! My wife Monique and I were able to take advantage of a reservation cancellation to dine there a few weeks ago.The food was great and the ambiance wonderful!

My blog will be about my efforts to promote my book about Paris. I should have started it sooner. David had the same regret – that he didn’t start his blog from the very beginning of his project. His project turned out to be a success. Will mine?

The name of my book is Paris Insights – An Anthology. I’ll have more to say about it in the next entry.