Tag Archives: cats

Big in Korea

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book cover KoreaApparently, I’m big in Korea just now.

HyoungEun is the nice lady who translated my book for a Korean publishing company (whose name in English, as near as I can tell, would be “Aladdin Books.”) She emailed me some questions a few weeks ago and we had a good time laughing about the idiosyncrasies of language. (See blog post “Found in Translation” if you’re interested.)

Apparently, things move fast in the Asian book market. About two weeks ago my agent Pamela tweeted the cover on the left, with a link to the publisher’s website, saying the book was out. That was fun (and fast!). I must say that, of all the translations so far, this cover is the most adorable.

Then late last week HyoungEun sent me a frantic email saying basically, “Can we use the pictures on your shop’s Facebook page to promote the book because a really big national newspaper here has shown interest in it?”

Umm, yes, that would be acceptable. Thanks.

**Wendy and Jack do happy dance around the bookshop front room, cats streaking away in terror as books jounce off shelves** Okay, we now return you to British decorum, already in progress. No wait… *a few more happy dance steps*

So now I have a bunch of Facebook friends whose posts I can’t read (Korean alphabet) and a small red dot forming in the middle of the night on my WordPress Stats site’s Asia map, tracking where people are reading my blog. Every day the Korean dot and its corresponding number grow.

I’m big in Korea? Oh, this is fun. And then this morning a woman married to a Korean engineer stopped by and said, “You’ll never guess. Peter was reading his hometown newspaper online last night, and what pops up but a photo of Jack? He called me out of bed, so excited! ‘Look, it’s the Little Bookstore!’ ”

This is what our friends Peter and Sandy – and the Korean public – saw. One can only wonder what people are thinking now.

crazy bookstoreSo my book has found some fun people to hang with in Korea? I’m down with that. But personally, I think it’s all due to HyoungEun’s excellent translation, plus that cover the Korean publisher designed. Did you ever see anything cuter?

Who? Me??

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Jack’s Wednesday guest post –

As Wendy has posted in the past, we’ve been having lots of folk dropping into the shop who’ve read ‘The Little Bookstore’ – some from quite a distance (hhmmm – that sounds odd). They range from fairly large book-clubs to family groups and individuals and from Michigan to Florida. We’ve even got someone coming from Oregon in a month or two!

IMG_3640beulahAlmost without exception they take photographs, and these usually include pictures of our cats. The cats react to this attention in a variety of ways. Val-Kittie ignores everyone and continues working on her 5 year plan, while Beulah poses on the front porch – her domain – with great pride.

But the newest bookstore staff cat, Owen Meany, is just coming to grips with stardom. We didn’t have him while Wendy was writing; he came just at the end, and is named for the book Wendy was not supposed to hate. Owen is still too kittenish to carry off ‘aloof,’ and doesn’t have a personal domain to be proud of, or a story from the book for people to react to, so he does – – – kittenish things.owen meany 026

His favorite thing right now is to try to swing Tarzan-like from the tassel on the end of the fan pull-cord, although when he is discovered doing this he will quickly pretend to be working hard at something very important. Poor Owen; perhaps when Wendy writes her next book, he’ll be in it. That will make it easier for him to find his place in the bookstore world.

Owen sizing up the distance.

Owen sizing up the distance.

I'm working - really I am!

I’m working – really I am!