Just Peachy
Everything is juuuussstt peachyIt has been about a month since I released my memoir about working in radio, Adventures in the Radio Trade, into the wild, the day after I retired from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the day I became a full time writer.
“How’s all that working our for you?” someone asked me the other day.
“Just peachy,” I told them.
“What do you mean by just peachy?” they wanted to know.
“My wife bought a whole bunch of peaches and we had to eat them all up before they went bad,” I explained. “They were some good though.”
It’s also been kind of corny. I was at the supermarket the other day intending to buy ingredients for a Shepherd’s Pie that I intended to make for some company we had over when I spied some fresh corn on the cob. Thick, enormous cobs straight from the farmer’s field. I bought a bunch and barbecued it along with some hamburgers for our guests (you have to soak the corn for half an hour and cut off the silky bits at the top first). It was also some good. Thick and juicy niblets that actually tasted like corn. Probably the best corn I’ve had since my parents used to do up the corn they grew in our own backyard when I was a kid. I swear the produce is better, tastier, down here in the maritimes. Corn actually tastes like corn, carrots taste like carrots, peaches taste like peaches, and potatoes taste like potatoes, only they all taste better than I remember them having tasted since I was a kid.
Anyway, the book is selling well and the critical response has been uniformly positive. Three reviews from readers have been published on Amazon so far and there’s that all-important review from Kirkus. I’ve received several emails and texts from readers telling me that they’ve enjoyed the book, feedback I deeply appreciate. (Some discerning readers have pointed out the occasional typo as well, which I also appreciate, and will fix as soon as I’m reasonably confident we’ve caught them all.)
I was slightly dismayed to learn that the book is not available at Chapters/Indigo because Draft2Digital does not distribute to them, nor can Donovan Street Press distribute directly to them. This is because they don’t do business with indies (except in person, at extortionist rates), which is unfortunate as some people (understandably) refuse to business with Amazon. However, the memoir is available via a wide variety of other venues and I’m also happy to ship people copies directly; you have but to ask (joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com, $30 shipping included).
I honestly thought Adventures in the Radio Trade would generate at least a tiny bit of interest from the CBC, which it is largely about, but so far not a peep, though it has only been a month, and we are in the waning days of summer when a lot of editorial folk are on vacation. It is also possible that the requisite people don’t know about it, or haven’t read it yet, or consider it navel gazing/insufficiently newsworthy (I never was any good at pitching stories).
I haven’t done much to market it other than a single press release and one week of advertising on Facebook. This is because I’ve experimented with ads on Amazon in the past and, unless you really know what you’re doing (which I don’t), that sort of thing is just a money pit. At this point I’m mainly relying on word of mouth, Linked In, and this website. Anything you, Dear Reader, can do to help would be most appreciated.
As for the full-time writing, well, let’s just say I’m getting to that. When the visitors have all gone, and I’m done visiting others myself, and the deck is stained and the light in the bathroom is fixed, and so on.
“Don’t worry,” my sister (and fellow author) Susan tells me. “You’ll get lots of writing done when the weather turns cold.”
And that is certainly the plan.
