Farewell to Smithers

I’m in my final few days in Smithers, my summer retreat.  I hadn’t planned on leaving quite so early BUT my niece is arriving from Montreal on August 22nd for a conference in downtown Vancouver and I want to be home for the gathering.

I have had a wonderful summer starting at the 13th Annual RV Owners Lifestyle Conference at Okanagan College in Kelowna and I’ve been handing out brochures for the 14th annual and I have been invited back for next year.  My Solo RVing class had sufficient participants but the Travel Writing class was almost empty – 5 signed up and 3 showed up.  The other 2 were stuck in Alberta with vehicle trouble and did apologize.  Perhaps I can think of another class to replace it for next year.  My after dinner lecture on Morocco went very well and I had a huge turnout for that.  Al Cohoe who organizes the entire event also came up with a new word that should make the dictionary sometime soon…..he got confused while introducing me at the banquet and couldn’t figure out the word to use – either documentary or talk and it came out talkumentary.  I’ll go for that.

The signing at Save On Foods in Kamloops went well considering it was a Tuesday.  I sold 10 books and then discovered that it was a holiday weekend and stores were having hot dog/hamburger sales and in Williams Lake I couldn’t find a campground so I stayed overnight at the Tourist Info Center before moving on.

I organized a book signing in Smithers for July 31 and no one realized until it was too late that it was a holiday weekend.  I had one radio interview (the 2nd radio/television person never showed up) and the local newspaper did a wonderful job on a story.  I ended up selling 15 books (9 to the public and 6 to the store) and EVERYONE was delighted.  The book manager said that only one other author did better than I did and she was a local celebrity and worked for the CBC.  A librarian from Telkwa purchased 3 books for her reading room. I gave her a brochure and I told her I will DEFINITELY be back in Smithers next summer. She would be interested in a talk for your group.

Book sales have been a little slower than last year but I think everything that has anything to do with money is slower than last year.  On this little 5 week trek I have sold a total of 96 books so far.

My new mini read on Morocco is (mostly) finished.  Of course I’ll be going over it another 1,000 times to check for mistakes but that’s normal for me.  The cover has been approved and, as I’ve always said about my cover designer/website creator Brion at www.bookcreatives.com HE IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC.  There I screamed it out at the world.  This new cover for Morocco Without a Pit to Hiss In is his best work to date…..but I say that about every one of his covers.  Will definitely be ready for shipping within the next few weeks.  I want to do that job from home.

I’ve also decided on my next mini which will be about my trip to Greece.

I am now organizing my signings for my trip home.  I leave Smithers on Saturday, August 7th and will be signing in Prince George on Sunday the 8th and Monday the 9th.  On Tuesday the 10th I’m signing in Quesnel.  That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far.  There are still stores in Williams Lake and 100 Mile House but I’m told that fires in the area are making it hard to breath so I’ll be checking it out.

In the meantime.  It’s all good and I’m hoping for an easy trip home.  Thanks for listening.  Joei