Can it be a year gone by already? My beautiful new book was released on this date in 2020: “First We Eat. Food, Life, and More Stories” by Michele Sabad. A cheerful, humorous, second little memoir about my life as an army brat, Air Force wife, hockey mom, and retired IT consultant living in my kids’ hometown of Aylmer, Quebec. I’m fond of this book; it is innocent and fun and will always be reflective of the times in which it was written – before Pandemic. Needless to say, it’s been a tough year since publication, and here’s a little summary of how FWE battled for introduction to the readers of the world.
Book launch? Signings? Events? Not too many. I did get one summer signing at the outdoor Ottawa city Byward Market. I did get my book into a few favourite Ottawa Indigo bookstores, and even into one in far-away Edmonton. But without in-person promotion, (indeed, without much in-person shopping at all) memoirs by little-know army brats and retired hockey moms don’t garner much off-the-shelf sales.
Not discouraged, I did some Amazon and Facebook ads, which cost me as much as I collected in sales royalties. This was expected and appreciated anyway; I will never get rich as an author, but it is comforting that my book is being read, by people I don’t know even! That’s kind of thrilling, to be honest. And I did notice that my first book, “Camp Follower One Army Brat’s Story”, got a bump in sales with the ads also. Again, not huge, but appreciated.
One of the best things about my book sales this year was the wonderful reviews that FWE received from its limited readership. Seems once it got out there, it was enjoyed. And that’s even more thrilling for an author, not just to be read, but to be enjoyed. Please check Amazon reviews yourself, and if they encourage you to give a happy escapism-type storybook-style memoir a read, then thank you, and be sure to let me know! All the best to all of us readers in 2021. Authors will wrestle with our collective aftermath from, you know, that 2020 thing.
Stevie Szabad, Author 