Road Trip #1

I’m back home in Indiana after a one-week promotional trip to Seattle and the Puget Sound Area. You can believe my tax accountant will have fun with all of these receipts come February 2011. It was a great week for a new author: two book signings, with many books sold and an invigorating discussion after a reading.

I’ve been back in the work force for most of a year now, but out in Seattle my weaver friend Lucinda has been having a struggle. So, knowing she is an avid distance driver, I hired her to pilot two road trips around the Puget Sound region posting flyers for my signing events and leaving postcards at libraries, bookstores and cafés. This was a triple-win situation: Lucinda and I got to spend quality time together, she made cash, and I made big strides marketing YU to a book-loving part of the country.

There were many highlights worth a mention, especially on Trip 1.

My low-carb lifestyle commitment kindasorta went out the window on this day, since our first stop was the Blackbird Bakery in Winslow, WA on Bainbridge Island. Lucinda and I needed breakfast, so we savored two tarts: chanterelles with caramelized onions and gruyére for me, figs with the onions and gruyére for Lucinda. She got a double-chocolate cookie for the road (which we split later as dessert for our in-car lunch), and I took a “Downtowner” pastry -- sort of a croissant rolled differently and baked in vanilla sugar, making a hard glaze. Apparently this is the commuter rush’s choice every morning, hence the name.

Poulsbo, WA is much cuter than I had imagined. It is a small fishing village that loves its Scandie-Viking heritage. Port Townsend, while much larger, was more dour, since on a cool, overcast, late October Monday the summer tourist trade was seriously winding down. A hot dog shack on a corner – Dogs Afoot-- with shabby but colorful wooden picnic seating, was celebrating its last day of the season by giving away all of its food, chips and drinks included. Lucinda and I had the best, spiciest andouille hot dogs I have ever tasted. Toasted bun and quality condiments, including homemade sauerkraut.

Whidbey Island is a long, narrow landmass with several small communities tapping the water table. As we neared the town of Langley, we began seeing signs advertising a wine tasting in Bayview Corner, whatever that was. Turns out Bayview Corner was once an agricultural crossroads with a big general store. It is now a complex of stores and galleries around a food co-op, which includes a tasting room for three local wineries (three on one island?!). It had already been a long day on the road, so Lucinda and I went in for a sip or three. The Red Mystique and Chardonnay of Ott & Murphy Winery were startling in their goodness. Further startling us was that in our chatting with the two ladies in the tasting room (one of them being Diane Kaufman Ott of said winery), it turned out they and I had mutual friends in Bloomington! Small world, it is.

I had introduced myself to booksellers and librarians all along the way, but in the venerable Moonraker bookstore in Langley, the longtime proprietress shocked me by putting in a purchase order for YU as I stood there. I nearly burst into tears.

More on the marketing week in the next post.