Hop In My Chrysler, It's As Big As A Whale

Yesterday my publisher told me that someone had purchased the rights to publish Totally Wired in Chinese! I have no idea how my personal anecdotes will translate or how my U.S. perspective can be applied to what's happening in China, but hey, it's still pretty cool. I also learned that my book is in its fourth printing and is inching close to selling 10K copies (they do small print runs).

For any authors or anyone considering writing a book, you should know that blood, sweat and tears or really just a ton of time and effort has gone into selling every one of those books. I'm on the road now driving a huge red Chrysler Bentley knock-off (it's the only car they had with GPS!) all over the state of Massachusetts speaking to parents and educators at schools and libraries. Sometimes 5 people show up to a speaking gig and sometimes 200 people show up. Most first-time authors have jobs where they can't do what I'm doing to promote my book. And, without the sponsorship from Beinggirl.com, I would not have been able to travel like this. Still it's exhausting.

I know my message isn't as important as Al Gore's wake-up call about climate change, but I like to think of my former employer, and how he went from speaking gig to speaking gig with his slide show (before the movie became a phenomenon). I'm sure he probably never stayed at a LaQuinta Inn & Suites, but I keep him in the back of my mind as I take my "don't panic" message to 2-3 gigs a day over the next several days.

When this tour wraps up later this fall, I'll still do local or paid gigs here and there and continue to speak to the press on issues I covered in the book, but I've decided to stop actively promoting the book in '08. This means I'll leave the Totally Wired blog up as a resource but won't be updating it any more. I need to put all of my energy into building Ypulse as a business (and possibly start working on book number 2). Thanks again to everyone who bought the book and helped me to get the word out.

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