Exciting news – all four of my titles will be available in the UK - listed through Amazon www.amazon.co.uk / Waterstones www.waterstones.com / WH Smith www.whsmith.co.uk / Foyles www.foyles.co.uk / Blackwell’s www.blackwells.co.uk etc. Independent bookshops can also order the books.
Getting to this point has already been an interesting and exciting publishing journey and it’s only just beginning. My next task is to spread the word to readers in the UK that four compelling new books await their reading pleasure. Daunting – I’ve been wondering how that might best be accomplished.
My dear British friends – you know me well, don’t you – you can already guess where this is going. Please feel free – really unfettered – with complete abandonment – throw all your proper decorum and caution to the winds – take a chance – and ask a friend or more – like all your friends maybe – to consider adding a new author to their reading repertoire.
A potential itinerary of my UK book tour in April 2024 is posted on my website www.kimletson.ca – check it out – it’s a work in progress and at this point is quite flexible. I welcome – encourage – your ideas and contributions. I’d be honoured to visit your book club, writers’ group, rambling group, WI, service club, local bookshop – anywhere where readers might gather in large numbers or small.
Oh – wait. What’s this then? Goodness, a contribution just in from my friend Paul Kendrick. Apparently, he’s at one of those atmospheric English pubs that I’m so fond of visiting. Let’s listen in while he chats up some of the patrons there:
“Not read this new book from Kim Letson? She’s coming all the way from Canada, you know, this coming April. Had her book published here she did. Just for you to read. A pity I say, a pity if you don’t take a peek.”
Paul takes a long lip smacking pull on his pint.
“Ever lost a boot in Bayer’s Bog? Well, neither did Kim. Started out with two boots and ended up with two boots at the other end. Now, not everyone can say they’ve done that can they?
“All that way. Just kept putting one foot in front of the other, day after day, week after week, until she got to the end. You see a lot more when you move at that speed. A LOT more! Now that’s doing something, something real. AND she wrote a book about it all.”
Paul takes another slurp as more folks gather round to hear his tale.
“Not a book about some bus tour like you took, mate. No sitting in a comfy seat staring out the window at the scenery whizzing past. What was it you think you saw? Nine countries in eight days? Oh no, not like that at all. Why stay warm and dry and comfortable when you can be outside slogging along getting cold, hot, sore, wet and miserable all in one day! Now that’s living to the full.
“Not my cup of tea mind, but I like pouring myself a wee dram, sitting in my cozy armchair, and reading all about it. Real traveling, vicariously like. With my slippers on!”
Paul drains the last of his pint.
“She’s actually written four books you know, imagine that? Writing even one book must be a miserable, endless, thankless sufferfest – but FOUR books! This Kim Letson, well she must be from the ‘Planet for Slow Learners’ or some such place to go to all that trouble.
“Have to warn you though, it’s kind a like eating potato crisps, if you read just one of her books, pretty soon you’re going to end up reaching for another one. Addictive they are. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
With this revelation, Paul orders another pint.
Thank you, Paul, for a terrific endorsement and contribution to this blog post. Order a pint for me too, will you?
He’s got a point about writing a book – or four – being a solitary sufferfest as Paul so eloquently puts it. But once that’s done – once the book is birthed so to speak – it can only thrive within a community of readers. It is the readers who nurture the stories we authors create. So, the books are written, now – with great anticipation – they await readers to pluck them from a shelf and discover the stories within their pages.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
Paul McCartney, “Paperback Writer,” 1966
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