A Tale of Two Memoirs (or, What Exactly is the F*#k You 5,000?)
Congrats to Prince Harry! His memoir, Spare, which came out a year ago–same as mine–sold, according to his publisher, 3.2 million copies in the first week. By contrast, NOT ON ANY MAP: One Virgin Island, Two Catastrophic Hurricanes, and the True Meaning of Paradise has sold, well, not quite 3.2 million copies. Relatively speaking, however, sales have been pretty good! More on that in a moment. (Or feel free to just skip to the end.)
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You
First off, I want to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, bought, sold, or otherwise supported my book, making it an Amazon bestseller. It’s a long list, starting with everyone on St. John, Coral Bay in particular, who agreed to share their stories. My friend Erin Pryor Durrell of Coral Bay Catering is the person who told me to come back to the island following the devastation of hurricanes Irma & Maria. Without her, this book wouldn’t exist.
When I decided to self-publish, I knew I needed a team of pros to help. One of the perks of being an “independent publisher” is getting to choose who you want, and I got the best: William Knoedelseder, my former boss from our Emmy-winning TV days in Philadelphia and a New York Times bestselling author, agreed to edit. Darrin Britting, the sharpest copy editor I know, did the final read. Filmmaker and hurricane survivor William Stelzer designed the beautiful cover with a painting by Billie Denise Wright. St. John artist Bryan McKinney, another survivor, drew the whimsical Coral Bay map.
TOP: The St. John A-Team: Celia Kalousek (left) & Erin Pryor Durrell. MIDDLE: New York Times bestselling author William Knoedelseder. BOTTOM: St. John filmmaker William Stelzer. RIGHT: Map by Bryan McKinney.
I’ve spent part of my career in PR and marketing, promoting the arts and other non-profits, but promoting myself feels weird and distasteful. Thankfully I had business coach (and friend) Celia Kalousek of CEKA Ventures as chief cheerleader, believing (and reminding me literally on a weekly basis in the year before publication) that NOT ON ANY MAP would have an audience, even though dozens of pros in the publishing world predicted otherwise.
She was right. I’m so grateful to bookseller Linda Dickson at Pink Papaya in Cruz Bay, St. John, and Jenn Robinson at Connections East in Coral Bay, St. John, for being the first to agree to sell the book, even before there was a book. (In true island fashion, I had a book launch without books. We had the It’s-Almost-a-Book! book party in Coral Bay in November 2022, again thanks to the sheer will of Celia Kalousek and Erin Pryor Durrell.
Today, NOT ON ANY MAP is on the shelves in over a dozen locations, including St. John Spice, Jolly Dog, Pirate’s Cove, Sloop Jones, Mumbo Jumbo, Mid Way Plaza, Gallows Point Resort, and Bajo el Sol on St. John; ReUse Emporium and Bookstore 340 on St. Thomas; Nook Bookshop and Nutmeg and Co. in Tortola, BVI; Bookateria Two in Ocean City, NJ; The Great Frame Up in Grosse Point, MI; Saltwater Bookstore in Marblehead, MA; and Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica, CA.
“Back home” support comes from too many people to name, but I’m lucky to have Ellen Hutton who hosted my Philadelphia book launch (a book party with books!); Trish Baillargeon and Cynthia & Josh Friedman (of Josh Friedman Photography), who spent cold January & February days taking a million photos of me with my book (including outside bookstores, before the bookstores let me in); my mom, Marge Smith, who gave me the seed money that finally kicked my butt to publish; and my husband (and business partner) Steve Holt, who reads everything and cheerfully serves, as the old salts like to say, as chief cook and bottlewasher.
A (Quick) Year in Review
Critical response to NOT ON ANY MAP has been so positive, from the praise of New York Times bestselling authors Homer Hickam and Judith Kelman to the glowing reviews and stories in the Virgin Islands Daily News, the St. John/St. Thomas Source, KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Caribbean Compass.
I’ve been a guest on several TV and podcast shows, including Deborah Kobylt LIVE, FOX 29 in Philadelphia, Compass with Fernando Mendez on USALA media, Tales from a Luxury Yacht Chef with Lisa Mead, The Philly Factor with Paul Perrello on LaSalle TV, and Her Story with Kathy Romano (thanks to connections via WMMR’s Nick McIlwain and Evelyn Taylor Designs).
It’s been an honor to be a volunteer mentor in the Visible Ink writing program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for the past 10 years and a special shout-out goes to my mentee, writer Daphne Gregory-Thomas, who introduced me to all things at Zibby Media. I was the first guest writer of the fall season with Darcey Doyle Gohring and the Zibby Mag Online Writing Community; my essay “I Learned a Big Life Lesson on a Very Small Boat” was voted one of Zibby Mag’s best essays of the year; and NOT ON ANY MAP won two Zibby Awards: Best Book for the Traveler and Books that Made You Escape.
I also wrote this essay, “Finding Paradise–or Something–on the Upper West Side,” for my current source of local NYC news (and sometime-employer) the West Side Rag.
My first two book club appearances were, fittingly, on a beach and a boat! I’m loving talking to book clubs and am happy to talk to yours. Thanks to the Ocean City Free Public Library at the Jersey Shore for being an amazing supporter. NOT ON ANY MAP is also on the shelves in the libraries in the USVI. Have a favorite local library? You can ask them to order it.
On June 1, the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season, I did a reading and talk at Penn State University with meteorologist and professor Anthony Didlake. Thank you to friend and educator Lisa Firing Lenze for organizing “Paradise in an Era of Climate Change.”
I also got to reunite with some old news colleagues. Brandon Brooks, KYW Newsradio hall-of-famer, along with broadcast veterans Bob Wick & Frank Foley from NJN TV, produced a fantastic promo video for me. WPHL’s Jennifer Lewis-Hall, who recently published a children’s book about the Caribbean, was a crucial editor.
A Word (or 5,000) about Rejection
And now to the numbers.
Forgetting for a moment the blockbuster bestsellers (Danielle Steel, Stephen King, Prince Harry) on one end, and the average self-published book (selling fewer than 250 copies) on the other, what I’ve cobbled together from my research (of an industry that does not like to reveal numbers), is that most traditionally published books sell fewer than 3-5,000 copies. So I set that as my goal.
I had decided to self-publish after getting nowhere trying the traditional route. I got so many rejections from agents and small press publishers, I had to keep a spreadsheet. I got a lot of hard passes. Many of my pitches disappeared into a black hole of non-response. Of the few people in the business kind enough to provide feedback, almost everyone said the writing was good but the book wouldn’t sell, except for the one who said she thought the story was highly marketable but the writing wasn’t good.
When you publish independently (that’s the nice euphemism for “self-publish”) you’re author, publisher, and marketer. As a writer, I still believed I had a story worth telling. As a publisher, I knew I had the creative team to make the finished product look good.
My marketing plan was, basically: “I’ll show them.” My marketing team (i.e. me and a few friends) dubbed it the F*#k You 5,000 or, as one supporter liked to write it, the FU5K. (My original goal was 3,000, but we were feeling bold that day. Also, alliteration.)
Five thousand copies of a self-published book would be impressive as a lifetime goal. Now, thanks to readers like you, it looks like I will hit that number in my first year. And while nobody’s getting rich, I have been able to pay the professionals who worked on the book, buy some meals for the ones who donated their time, and raise over $3,000 for Kids and the Sea (KATS), the non-profit volunteer program on St. John that teaches young people to sail.
As of this writing, I’ve sold 4,901 books, and I’ve got two weeks to go until my publication anniversary of January 31.
So.
If you liked NOT ON ANY MAP, please leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or at Barnes & Noble. Independent authors rely on good reviews and word of mouth to survive! Thank you to all the readers who have taken time to leave such wonderful reviews.
If you’ve been thinking about buying the book and haven’t yet, or already read it and know a friend who might like it, or maybe you want a Kindle copy …this is a great time to buy! Kindle copies are just $2.99 until the end of January. Paperbacks are currently on sale at Amazon for 35% off.
(Queasy about Amazon? So was I. I went into this enterprise wanting to hate the behemoth and also published through Ingram, the company that sells to libraries and independent bookstores. If you have a favorite indie book shop, please support them and ask them to order. But the bottom line is, Amazon pays me a higher royalty, at least 30 days faster, and with more transparency.)
Finally, once I hit this goal, I plan to back off on the marketing. (Shameless self-promotion is annoying but … it works.) I’m anxious to get back to more creative pursuits so I’ll have a better to answer the question I get asked the most now:
When’s your next book coming out?
Thanks again for all the support.
