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Marketing a Book

Theme Park Design is my latest book. It’s based upon the text of my Imagineering class. I published it through createspace.com, which is a division of amazon.com. I decided to publish it because David Green’s and my previous book, Building a Better Mouse, continues to sell well, even after three years.

The margins are excellent on books published through createspace, and it’s great that amazon owns them because they do the fulfillment, and copies are even available through Ingram for distribution to conventional bookstores.

It’s been interesting to do a real book launch; I’ve never tried it before. I began by contacting the various industry blogs and trade magazines, asking if they wanted a copy, and having them drop shipped from createspace. Meanwhile, Loren is doing a press release through PR Newswire on Tuesday, and is contacting newspapers.

I also tried some advertising on google and facebook. Originally the ads linked to the createspace page (because my margin is a bit better), but after a day of poor results I changed it to the amazon page. So far, with only one more day of data, it looks like people are much more willing to buy from amazon. Building a Better Mouse is usually about number 39,000 (out of 6 million) on their site, and yesterday Theme Park Design was number 29,000. Because the ads cost between fifty cents and a dollar per click, I suspect they won’t be cost effective, but I’ll try it for a week and see. The margin on createspace is at least ten times that of conventional publishing, or it would make no sense. Still, it’s amazing how few click there are for hundreds of thousands of impressions. However, I’m limiting my budget to $20 a day, just in case.

I also set up a Theme Perks Press blog through blogspot, because the RSS feed can be connected to my amazon author’s page.

My plan is to time this book release both for IAAPA (where we plan to do a book signing) and also for the holiday shopping season. If some of the blogs release reviews before Thanksgiving that could work out well. I have a suspicion that amazon sales behave as a positive feedback loop, and that if the book could be propelled into the top 1000 it might be self-sustaining for a while.

Anyway, it will be an interesting experiment.

The Eagles

The Eagles played the first big concert at the new Amway Center. The event was actually rescheduled from an earlier date because Don Henley was sick. At nearly the last minute we decided to get tickets and were surprised at being able to get seats right next to the stage, although a side view.

Since it was Martin’s birthday, we took him to Shari Sushi Lounge for dinner before the show. The sushi was quite good, and the place has a nice vibe. And we were there so early that all the sushi items were $3.75. Such a deal.

The new Amway Center is bigger than the old Orena, although the major difference is lots of skyboxes and club space. There are supposed to be restaurants and bars, but these weren’t open. I don’t know if that’s because they are only for Magic games, or if they aren’t ready yet. There’s also a lot of bars on the club level that you can only get to if you have seats in that area, which is weird, since they aren’t really great seats.

For the most part the facility is quite nice, but there are a few things that need to be worked out. There were lines for the restrooms — even the men’s restroom — and the causeway to the parking garage is an obvious bottleneck. For the most part, though, it’s a fine facility.

When we went to our seats we found out why we’d been able to get them at the last minute. One of them didn’t exist! Fortunately, they knew they’d made a mistake, and the usher had replacement tickets for us, even closer. In fact we were in the second row. This was the view from our seats:

Unfortunately, there was a hyper active druggie — a middle aged woman with enormous fake boobs — next to us who continually bounced in her seat, rocking the entire row, even between songs, until we thought we were going to be sick. This was worsened by the fact that our section was a movable scaffold, rather than concrete. So, before the whole thing collapsed or she blew out a boob, for the second half we moved to the empty nose bleed section behind the stage. This was the view from our new seats:

As it turned out, they were pretty good seats, because we could watch the video, and the music wasn’t deafening (mostly). I found that watching everyone play guitar left-handed from behind the rear projection screen didn’t bother me, but the piano playing was a bit weird!

The band is really tight, and they can still hit those high notes, after almost 40(!) years. For some reason, though, they seemed to have no energy during the first half, and things really dragged. But, mysteriously (energy drinks? wink, wink), they came out after intermission completely energized, and the second half was excellent. They have about ten backup players, four different keyboard stations with at least seven keyboards, two drum sets, nine spotlight operators, at least five HD camera operators, and a mixing area that occupied the space for 100 seats. This is not a small operation. The video wall behind the band is one of those RGB LED curtains (I think) about 30 feet high and 40 feet wide. While my favorite songs are by Don Henley, the Joe Walsh numbers really got the audience excited. The country songs, performed by Glenn Frey and Tim Schmidt, seem light years away from the newer material.

The band was very generous with their time, and played for 3-1/2 hours. Definitely an excellent concert.  And yet… it’s funny. I go to concerts to get to know a band. It’s the stories and interaction that make them interesting. If I want to listen to the music I have an iPhone. While they expended a great deal of effort and were generous with their time, I never really felt like they were there onstage. I suppose I’d have trouble with that, too, if I had to play the same song and go through the same patter every night for forty years.

Flashback

Last week Linda’s wallet was stolen, which started the process of replacing her credit cards and IDs.

To get a new Driver’s License you now need all kinds of documentation (never mind that you’re right there in the system, picture and all).

The snag she hit was that her Social Security name was still Linda McBride, which didn’t match her license. (Remember when they assured us that Social Security numbers weren’t required, and wouldn’t be used for identification?)

So to get her name changed she needed our marriage certificate.

In looking for it, she unearthed a box of mementos from the 70s, that proved to be quite a time capsule of our college years.

Speaking of IDs, here are ours from our college days.

One of the things I found most striking was the absence of anything to do with computers. Even the tickets and itineraries for our honeymoon were hand written or typed, because travel agents and airlines worked by telephone, with pen and paper.

The only sure sign of computers were the UCLA quarterly registration cards, which were IBM punch cards generated by the university’s sole IBM 360/90 computer. These were folded up to fit in your wallet.

Remember BioRhythms? They were a popular gimmick in the 70s, and there were machines that would print yours for any date you wanted. But even the biorhythm cards would have been generated by a kiosk with dedicated electronics (or perhaps even mechanics) to generate the graphs. Here are Linda’s and my biorhythms for our wedding day. The prospects for sex look pretty bleak.

The saddest thing I found was this page from my 1973 senior yearbook. Each senior got to design his own page (actually, as editor, I had to design the whole book, but that’s another story). I decided to do a collage of things that were meaningful to me. There in the center is my mint copy of Spiderman Number 1, which is worth over a quarter million dollars. Unfortunately, the next year I sold it for about ten bucks.

Anyway, the walk down memory lane was fun. I can’t say youth is wasted on the young; those were good times, too.

Chateau France

Today we went to St. Petersburg for a book fair, to hear a presentation by Michael Connelly, whose latest book, Reversal, is number one on the bestseller lists this week. He signed my copy, and also a small chapbook he’d sent me for a picture I posted on his Facebook site. His presentation was well attended with at least 500 people there. After browsing the fair we took a scenic drive down to Sarasota and then returned to St. Pete for dinner at a restaurant we hadn’t been to before, Chateau France.

It was really delightful, and we felt bad that we were the only ones in the place for most of the meal. Eventually, two other tables were seated. The restaurant is in a charming house built in 1905. In many ways it reminded us of Linda’s mother’s house. They’ve been in business for fourteen years, and the chef is from Nice. He is particularly adept at souffles, and the ones we had were easily the best we’ve encountered, even including the one we reminisce about from Marrakesh, twenty five-years years ago.

But the highlight of the meal was the wine. When the one I ordered wasn’t available, they offered us one that wasn’t on the list, at about 30% of the normal price: a pristine bottle of 1959 Gevrey-Chambertin from Louis Trapet Pere & Fils. It was the finest Burgundy we’ve had from a restaurant wine list in several years. It’s also the first bottle I’ve had that came packed in an individual wooden case lined in straw. It was one of those magical bottles of Burgundy that evolved for two hours: fruity and earthy, with pronounced favors of red berries, flowers, leather, tar, coffee and much more.

All in all, a delightful evening, and I’m sure we’ll return.

Winter Garden Noises Off

Tonight we had dinner at Thai Blossom in Winter Garden, a restaurant in the Edgewater Hotel around the corner from The Chef’s Table. The Thai food was mostly quite good, and the place was packed by the time we left. Our wine was opened by the owner, who then left to get ready to be in the show playing across the street at the Garden Theatre.

After dinner we listened to the jazz band that plays on the fourth Friday of every month, then strolled to the theatre and chatted with Becky Stafford, its president, who is the mother of a boy Dani performed with at Trinity.

Then we went in to see the play, a farce called Noises Off. It was entertaining, at times frenetic, but never quite the uproarious comedy intended. It’s divided into three acts, each of which contains the same play-within-a-play. In the first act it is being rehearsed by a band of fairly inept actors. In the second act the set is reversed, and we watch them fight backstage during a performance. In the final act things are flipped back around, but the production comes completely unglued. Good fun.

Hamburger Mary’s

Since it won Scott Joseph’s readers’ poll of best hamburger in Orlando, Tommy and I decided to check out Hamburger Mary’s downtown on Church Street. While the rest of Church Street is still in the early stages of recovering from its demise in the 1990s, Hamburger Mary’s was certainly doing a brisk business. We both had the Barbra-Q Bacon Cheeseburger, and I have to say it probably is the best burger in town: perfectly cooked, with a tasty balance of sauce and a good bun. I would have preferred my bun toasted and the bacon a bit less durable, but I’d give it a 9 out of 10.

Tommy couldn’t resist the deep fried Twinkie for dessert, which actually wasn’t as strange as I was expecting — basically a creme-filled donut.

I wouldn’t say we’re thick, but even though the place’s slogan is “Eat, drink and be Mary,” it wasn’t until the check showed up in a high heeled shoe that we figured out the transvestite theme.

Wine Bottles

We loaded up three cases of empty wine bottles and took them up to one of our favorite restaurants, The Chef’s Table at the Edgewater Hotel in Winter Garden. They’re going to use them to decorate their new dining room. These bottles ranged from the 1950s through 1970s, and included a lot of wines I wish I could drink again! Even with the donation, we’ve still got a full shelf of collectible old ones, dating back to the 1920s. I wish those two 1947 Cheval Blancs still had wine in them!

While we were up there we had a very tasty lunch at the Winter Garden Pizza Company, a place we hadn’t tried before. They definitely have some of the better pizza in town, and their buffalo chicken strips were good, too. The place was much larger than I thought, and was packed.

Afterward, we hurried home so Linda could take delivery of her new treadmill, which has much higher torture settings than the old one.

Del Frisco’s 39 Steps

It’s been more than a couple of years since we’ve been to Del Frisco’s, and it was near the Shakespeare Center, so we decided to have an early dinner there on Friday. Since our last visit they’ve completed the seamless connection of two different buildings, and created a new, large entry hall between them.

I still think Del Frisco’s is the best  steakhouse in Orlando, even with the explosion of competitors in recent years. The difference is that red-hot metal plate that lets you finish cooking your sliced prime strip steak any way you like (and the butter all over it doesn’t hurt, either). The spinach, sauteed onions, and house salad are really better than the other steakhouses’ also. It’s not a low-cal place, and it’s even more expensive than Morton’s, but when you want the best steak, it’s the place to go.

The 39 Steps is a comedic version of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film. It combines the original (fairly inane) plot with zany action made even zanier by the fact that four people have to play all the roles. It becomes increasingly manic, and by the end some of the characters are having conversations with themselves. Monty Python meets Alfred Hitchcock is a fairly good description. One fun aspect of the play was trying to find all the references to Hitchcock’s other films (in the scene at right, he’s about to climb through the “Rear Window”). It was quite amusing, although perhaps not quite as gut-bustingly hysterical as claimed.

Book Purge

Turn your back for just a minute and the library is overrun with books again. Whilst looking for a couple of misplaced ones I purged a hundred or so from the cupboards (I think they reproduce faster in the dark). Most of these will go to Windermere Prep, I guess.

Epcot First Bites

This is the first year for a new event at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. It’s called First Bites, and it gives you the opportunity to sample some of the food and wine that will be on the promenade, but in the air conditioned comfort of the seldom-used Wonders of Life pavilion.

I can’t say I really recommend this event. At $200 a head (thank God we didn’t pay that) it’s very overpriced. There were a dozen foods, a few of which were very good, a few of which were impossible to eat, even with table seating. Particularly indestructible were the grilled bread served with several dishes, and the Korean beef. There were also a dozen wines, but the only truly good one was the Chateau Ste. Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon that was only poured as part of a seminar.

Probably the single best food item was the tiny white chocolate pumpkin truffle, which was served during the cooking seminar. So the two best items won’t even be available to Food and Wine Festival guests.

The “ambiance” of Wonders of Life is also questionable. It’s basically an abandoned attraction that has been repurposed with tables and chairs, but the bright spotlights pointed this way and that don’t really create a pleasant environment.

I felt sorry for the four piece jazz combo that played to an empty seating area for an hour. The event came to a sudden end at 8:45, when we were driven from the building by the deafening and talentless Taylor Dayne.

Noteworthy Dishes:

Korea – Lettuce Wraps with Roast Pork and Kimchi Slaw

Tasty but not at all spicy. The Korean beef dish had a wonderful spicy sauce, but the beef was inedible.

Singapore – Shrimp Cake with Singapore Noodle Salad

Like several of the hot dishes, it was a bit startling that the underlying noodles were chilled, but I really liked them. Some said the fish sauce they were made with was too salty.

Puerto Rico -Asopao de Pollo

That’s chicken soup to the rest of us. The green olives in it were delicious, not overpowering.

Ireland – Lobster & Scallop Fisherman’s Pie

Basically mashed potatoes on top of mixed seafood. This is a large, filling dish, and is probably the smartest buy out on the promenade.

South Africa – Seared Beef Tenderloin with Sweet Potato Puree & Mango Barbecue Sauce

This had way too much sauce, but the elements were very tasty. The Australian lamb served at the same table was okay, but another of those hot dishes served on top of jarringly cold starches.