A Friendship Tour, Thanks to a Book

friendship, A Friendship Tour, Thanks to a BookPromoting a book is almost as hard as writing one. Especially the first time, especially for an indie author without access to the big marketing machines behind books published by the big five.

In anticipation of my May 2 pub date, sometime last winter, I began scheduling a book tour that would stretch throughout the summer months and touch a variety of New England summer communities. EDEN has universal themes and a storyline that stretches well beyond the typical “summer read” genre, but because it is set in a New England summer enclave and the meat of the drama occurs over the Fourth of July weekend, my promotion strategy was to hit the New England coastline during the summer months.

Now, this might have seemed logical and obvious during the dreary months of March and April, but now that I am in the midst of summer, and my tour, I have had many personal realizations. Never before would I have imagined being happy about not being in Watch Hill 100% of the time. Like some of the characters in EDEN, I’ve been loathe in summers past to ever leave my bubble. My children came home and filled the house with activity and I nurtured and nested and enjoyed our routine, our “special place.”  In summers past, in fact, I have declined many invitations to visit friends because of all the engagements at home.

I’m reminded of the years I spent converting to Judaism. One of the steps in the process that my rabbi prescribed was making a trip to Israel. I was fine with the other dozen requirements, but how could he expect me to go to Israel?  It’s far, it would be expensive, and in reality I thought it seemed a little bit scary. Fast forward to the weekend of my final conversion step – on Friday afternoon I immersed at the mikvah, and on Saturday morning I made my first aliyah. Then on Sunday evening I received a call from the captain of the US Maccabiah squash team asking if I would represent the US at the games in Tel Aviv that summer. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance, brought my family and enjoyed my time in Israel immensely.

Similarly,  the unintended benefit of promoting EDEN is that it’s gotten me out of town. I’m visiting  beautiful places and friends in their beautiful places, their “Edens.” Between 2009 and 2012 our family lived in Switzerland where we traveled extensively. Not only to other countries, but we’d often get in the car and just drive to small towns in Germany or France. We would wander, maybe following a map, maybe inspired by an article or suggestion, but we’d usually get lost or totally miss the place suggested in the guide book and end up finding our own destination. I loved it. And I vowed to continue that spirit of wanderlust when I returned to the states. There were, I reasoned, so many beautiful places in my own country, even in New England, that I’d never seen. Well, easier said than done.

For example, I have skied a lot in Maine, but had never visited its beautiful coastline during the summer. I had spent the early summers of my marriage on the Cape, but in recent years had written it off as too crowded. There was always something, some reason I couldn’t leave Watch Hill in the summer – Martha’s Vineyard? Nantucket? The Hamptons?  New Jersey? Good for you, but not for me….

So this summer, I’m leaving my comfort zone and seeing more of our beautiful coastline, and islands! But more importantly,  I’m seeing friends and making new friends, sharing stories and laughing. I’m receiving the wonderful generosity and support of the people in my life. They are attending my readings and hosting events for me in their homes. It’s beyond anything I could have imagined during the planning stages. People have been asking me if  it’s exhausting, and the answer is “no”: this trip is just the charge I needed.

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