I sent the following e-mail to a buddy of mine on the Yahoo Single Moms board:
Thanks so much for the positive feedback Linda! It really helps my
spirits. Sales have been slow, and I am totally ignorant of marketing.
Any help anyone can give me is great.
See link below. It's also due to be on Amazon, in a few days.
www.unitedwriterspress.com/jnf.html
I wrote the book originally to help my son. Later I realized it could be a fundraiser, but I think I am going to hold off any more marketing efforts until the adoption is over. I was thinking about making up little press kits with free copies of the books and sending them to all the major adoption websites. However, then the agency told me to not tell anyone in Kaz that my company gives a $3,000 adoption grant, that it would be perceived negatively. To me $3K isn't a lot of money, especially when I'm on unpaid FMLA leave, but to someone in Kaz it probably seems like a lot. So I got to thinking, I don't want to do anything to jeopardize the adoption. I don't want to somehow think I'm just exploiting the adoption somehow for financial gain. So I'm backing off, temporarily. Hopefully this will just delay further marketing by a month or so. I'm just going to hope word of mouth will boost sales. Anything y'all could do to help me in this regard would be much appreciated.
I understand, too, that humanitarian and missionary aid in Russia is coming under a lot of government scrutiny, and may end in the near future, sadly. So my thoughts of marketing the book to church groups on mission trips are probably not going to be productive.
I also have been talking to the publisher about doing an audio book, letting Alesia record both English and Russian, but it seems out of my league financially. Can be a lucrative market, though. I will have to shelve those plans, it looks like, until my money situation stabilizes. I have money set aside for the adoption but as you all know it always ends up costing more than one thinks.
Happy news today - if you go on the Antares Foundation website you can see photos of my boy, in a cute costume for a New Year's celebration! http://www.antares-orphans.org/a_rbs638.asp should get you there, or go to www.antares-orphans.org, click on activities, then click on New Year's Holiday in the Regional Orphanage Part II. He's in a bright orange onesie looking thing with 2007 across his chest and a little hat.
