I’ve avoided blogging non-stop about my book, so it seems safe to talk about it again (go buy a copy!). There are a few cool things to report:

• First and foremost, we’ve officially raised $784 for charity: water. That’s clean water for 39 people. Only $4,216 to go. But unofficially another $96 has been raised by books sold that I haven’t been paid for yet, which brings us to…
• My jaw dropped the other night when I saw this tweet: “I LOVE your book. I just ordered 40 copies 4 gifts in my adoption classes.” Wow. That’s just incredible. (Speaking of which, if you’re interested in multiple copies of my book, let’s talk—I can make you a deal.)
• That massive order, plus the other books sold and our pre-order, puts us at 114 copies of Addition by Adoption sold. I’m now in the top 21% of the publishing industry (if you like facts that don’t mean much). Not too shabby for a self-published collection of Twitter posts.
• I’ve also signed up to have a booth at the annual Ethiopian picnic in the Twin Cities, the Summer Mehaber. It’s put on by the Ethiopian Kids Community, an organization that serves families with Ethiopian American children, so it’s a lot of adoptive families. I’m hoping it will be an ideal audience for the book, but I’m also a little freaked out about what to do with a 10′ x 20′ booth. I’m also hoping to hire some people to run the booth for me, both because sitting in a booth all day and hocking my book is something I’d be terrible at, plus I’d rather be at the picnic with my family all day. It also means diving deep into the real world of marketing—spending money to make money. It sounds ridiculous, but I don’t have a lot of first hand experience with marketing and direct sales (i.e., how many books do I need to sell at the event to cover all my expenses and make it worthwhile?). I’m just a writer!

At any rate, the book project keeps marching on.