Hello from a published, best-selling author
checking in with my devoted fans following the release of my #1 ranked book
Hello! It has been a while since my last post. I have been quite busy getting my book ready for release. This turned out to be quite a laborious process. I hope to write about it once I have regained my energy and once it’s properly behind me, because there are so many aspects of the process that felt like a social experiment with me as the lone subject. Nevertheless, it has, finally, been released. If you haven’t got yourself a copy yet, please do so, which you can do here 🇺🇸 or 🇬🇧. And make sure to leave a [glowing] review. It helps a ton with the algorithm and all that. 5 stars ideally, but if you feel like 4 is the best you can do, I’ll take it.
To clear my head from all the suffocating admin and boring behind-the-scenes nonsense, I have been doing some walking and exploring. This included a trip to Cape Town a few weeks ago, which is always good value for seeing interesting stuff, for better or worse. But on this occasion most of it was pretty cool.
One of the most memorable sights I came across was… my book. My sister and I set out to scale Table Mountain, the plateau of which looms over the city. There’s a cable car that you can take to go up, but that’s cheating (although we still took it down, which in my view, is different since you’ve earned it. If you disagree, let me know in the comments below (👇( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 👇)
At the summit, enjoying a well-earned beer (there is a food court and a cocktail bar and a couple of gift shops and even a wine bar to service all the cable car-riders), I saw something remarkable: my book, How the Rhino Lost His Horn(©)! Two hikers were reading it. I did not want to disturb them, as they were so engrossed. They were taking it in turns to read various passages aloud to each other: they laughed ‘til they cried at the funny parts, they wept at the poignant parts, and literally mouthed “wow”s and/or raised their eyebrows at the insightful/thought-provoking parts. It’s always nice to see your work resonating with people. At a break between readings, I snuck over and introduced myself and generously signed their copy before excusing myself to let them continue.1 I did sneak a picture, just for my own personal records.
Later, one of the guys reached out to me (through my people) to let me know that he was a pilot and would love to take my book for a spin around the Cape the next time he went up.
Obviously, one cannot decline such an offer. When you’re in Africa, you must go along with the various tribal welcome gifts and rituals, as unusual or as discomfiting as they might appear to your western sensibilities.
So, yeah, not only have I seen some cool things lately, but the book itself has, too.
More next time. Remember to share/subscribe here:
If you want, you can follow me on instagram for hilarious/high-quality content, and also, again, please grab a copy of the book if you haven’t already (I made the ebook dirt cheap so you have no excuse) and leave a review. Here’s the US link 🇺🇸, and here’s the UK one 🇬🇧. (You can also find it through the other big book retailers if you prefer; Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, etc., but only amazon has the [DIRT CHEAP FOR A LIMITED TIME] ebook.)We’ve got to try and keep the #1 spot….
What may have actually happened was that I met them on the trail and gave them the copy of my book that I’d brought along to photograph in the wild. But the subsequent bit, where the fellow took the book on a private photo op flight around the Cape, is 100% true.