This is my fourth self published book; All are travelogues. This one is a midquel that covers the omitted middle section of a trip that formed part of the previous book, 50 @ 70. When I did my faux review of 50 @ 70, I joked that it would not be my third strike because the first two, while not at all hits, were not quite whiffs either. 50 @ 70 pretty much was. In looking for things to blame that on other than poor writing and an uninteresting subject, I’ve grasped at two.

One is the lack of a predefined target group. The first two books were about named auto trails, the Lincoln Highway and the Dixie Highway, which had their own fan base who could at least be informed that something new existed related to the subject of their affection. Not a lot of people are fans of being 70 years old, and any that are will most likely move on to some other number or will simply cease being fans — or anything else — completely. As for the 50 states part, I did know of a couple of ” all 50″ clubs but they are basically registries and stores with only one way communication. I recently became aware of a couple of Facebook groups focusing on visiting all fifty states so I’ll probably try dropping notes about 50 @ 70 but I don’t expect much.

The second problem is the name. I’ve long accepted that no one is going to find it by accident, but I recently found out that it can barely be found on purpose. The number one hit today for an Amazon all departments search for “50 @ 70” was an Evinrude carburetor rebuild kit. Lower ranked items included elite dumbbells and Honda foot pegs. Restricting the search to books put a John Deere manual at the top of the list. The list also contained books on mid-century music and a hot dog cookbook with 50 recipes. My book was at the bottom of the second page.

So when I picked a title for this book with gorgeous scenery, semi-exotic wild animals, native settlements, and frontier history I was careful not to chose something that looked like a broken email address or a rejected password. I also made an effort to identify with a predefined group. Canadians have been around for a long time and there’s a bunch of them. I’m not so certain that they’re actually interested in a connection to Alaska but I know there’s a good chance that, if they’re not interested, they might apologize for it.

A Canadian Connection, Denny Gibson, Trip Mouse Publishing, 2019, paperback, 9 x 6 inches, 104 pages, ISBN 978-1719274449.

Signed copies available through eBay. Unsigned copies available through Amazon.

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