Book Launch Day!

A celebration here in Bali!

 Today the e-book went live; everyone who had pre-ordered it received their e-books, and from now on, it's an instant purchase.  As well, yesterday the paperback became available (although only in Canada, the US, the UK and most of western Europe; Japan is delayed, and paperbacks aren't available in the rest of the world). So Terri and I celebrated, with a wonderful sea kayak outing in the morning, and a bottle of Australian bubbly wine in the evening.

My proud partner and map-maker

The author enjoying a glass while contemplating his book

It was a surprisingly emotional moment to download the book onto my Kindle and see it there as a fully-fledged book, out there in the world competing for attention and readers with thousands of other books.  

Anyway, I hope that many of you decide to buy the book, and that you enjoy it and tell your friends and family about it so that they get excited and buy it as well. I think it's a fun story, and definitely an enjoyable read for any armchair traveller.

The Kindle version is available by clicking here, and the paperback version is available here.

Enjoy!!

Moving up the leaderboard

 Feb. 26

After a few days of frantic preparation and book cover design and re-design, I was able to take it a bit easier today.  Terri and I got out for a morning paddle in our sea kayak along the shore of northeastern Bali, and then worked on various projects around the house.  Meanwhile, out in cyberspace, my book was starting to get noticed.  Yesterday it was rated as the #1 best-seller among New Releases in the Indian Subcontinent Travel category.  I'm not sure if this is impressive or not, or whether it's like being the best downhill skier in Egypt.  Still, it was a nice feeling.

Best downhill skier in Egypt?  No, best-selling New Release in Indian Travel on Amazon

So this evening I checked again, and the book was now listed as #7 in Indian Travel (not just New Releases, but all books in that category).  I was rubbing shoulders with two of my idols, the travel writer William Dalrymple and the late mountain climbing legend Doug Scott.

Nestled between William Dalrymple and Doug Scott; not a bad place to be!

So then I had a look at the China Travel best-sellers (the other category my book falls under), and I found I was jostling for position with Peter Frankopan, the eminent Oxford historian and author of the magisterial The Silk Roads.  I really feel as though I'm flying a bit too high and that gravity will soon reassert itself, but for right now, I'll take being seen in this elevated travel writing company!

Hanging out on the best-seller list with Peter Frankopan

Then, just as I was writing this, I checked the Indian travel best-seller list again (it's updated hourly, apparently, so it can be an addictive dopamine-dispenser) and found that I had leapfrogged Mr. Dalrymple into the #3 position on the list.  I took a screenshot since it seems unlikely that this will last very long, but still, it's fun to dream.

We're number 3!

The paperback manuscript got returned to revise a single mistake, which I corrected a few hours ago, so I hope it will also be ready for sale on Feb. 28th.  Very exciting times!

And we're live!

 Yesterday was an exciting day for me in my budding writing career.  The Kindle e-book version of my book, Pedalling to Kailash, went live on Amazon for pre-orders.  I uploaded the manuscript, full of last-minute revisions, put in my lovingly crafted and recrafted front cover, did some pricing and bureaucratic form-filling, and ...voila!  

It's now for sale as a pre-order; the first e-books will be sent out on Feb. 28th.  A number of my friends have already pre-ordered the book, so it's off and running.  In fact, according to the screenshot, it's currently the #1 new release in Indian travel writing (not sure how big a field that is on Amazon, but it's a good thing)!

I'm currently working on getting the paperback version released ASAP; I want to have it for sale on the same day (Feb. 28th) as the e-book gets released.

Very exciting!

One week to publication!

There is exactly one week to go before (if everything goes according to plan which, as the past year has proven, is not a sure thing!) my book Pedalling to Kailash is released out into the wild.  It has been a busy few weeks, designing book covers, trying to figure out how to include images in my book and trying to do some social media marketing.  Terri has spent a great deal of time and effort to create 4 beautiful hand-drawn maps for the book, which were a labour of love and have added a lot to the feel of the book.

I hope to have details on how to buy the book within two days.  

Which of the two possible cover designs do you think I should go for?

                                       

         

Publication Date Coming Up!

 Lipah, Bali

The team near Passu

Crossing the Khunjerab Pass into China

It's a blustery evening here in northeast Bali, with a backdrop of dramatic lightning far offshore and distant rumbles of thunder.  The sea is rough, and it's been a while since we went diving.  It's been a good time of year to work on projects, and the big project is finally coming to fruition.

I've been working on polishing up a manuscript I first wrote back in 2002, about my 1998 bicycle trip through northern Pakistan, Xinjiang and Tibet.  It's been a long, drawn-out process, but it's finally all coming together.  I have finished editing the manuscript, picked out photos to illustrate the story, set up a website and a Facebook page to publicize the book once it's published, and started the process of putting the book into Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing software.  All that's really left is to produce a few maps, which will be my project over the next two weeks.  

Dropping down the Lowarai Pass

Crossing some serious snowmelt

Since the end of the process is in sight, I've decided to set myself a (rather arbitrary) deadline.  I want to have the book published and ready to buy on Amazon.com by February 28th.  That gives me 26 days to dot all the i's and cross all the t's.  It's finally becoming real that I will have a real, honest-to-God published book out there in the world in less than one month.  After all these years (a bit more than 18 years since I finished the first draft of the manuscript, and over 22 years since I finished the bicycle trip).  

I am both excited and apprehensive about this.  I think I've written a good book, and two writers whom I greatly admire, Bruce Kirkby and John Keay, agree with me.  Bruce, a fellow Canadian adventurer and author of the books Sand Dance and Blue Sky Kingdom, had the following to say:

On the road to Tashkurgan

"Graydon may have missed his calling as Dos Equis' 'Most Interesting Man in the World.' A polyglot and polymath, who is as well-read and widely-traveled as anyone I know, in Pedalling to Kailash, Graydon takes us along with the Xtreme Dorks on an ambitious and wild-hearted bicycle tour through the Karakoram and Himalaya, and then onwards across the gruelling Tibetan Plateau. Along the way, he casually fills in delightful details about the land, people and history. The result is a poignant reminder of how curiosity, good hearts, iron wills and perhaps most critically self-deprecating humour are the keys to opening new landscapes--both foreign and within."

Heading up the Chiragsaldi Pass

Camped on the Aksai Chin plateau

John Keay has written a series of wonderful books about Asia, including When Men and Mountains Meet and its companion volume Gilgit Game; these two books provided some of the main background reading for planning our bicycle trip.  He read my manuscript and said the following:

"I was sorry to read that Graydon Hazenberg's Pedalling to Kailash has still not found a publisher. It certainly deserves one, and perhaps the passage of time has actually added to its interest. It describes a family expedition across Roof of the Word made in 1998, a time when the chances of unaccredited travellers not being arrested may have been slightly better than today but when the facilities were fewer and the roads considerably worse.

Tibetan pilgrim at Tirthapuri

Mount Kailash

"This last was a matter of concern because Graydon, his twin sisters and their two boyfriends had chosen to tackle the most formidable terrain in Asia on push-bikes. A century earlier the Americans Fanny Bullock and William Workman had warmed up for the Himalayas by cycling from the tip of India to Kashmir, where they switched to walking boots for the Karakorams. The Hazenbergs flew into Islamabad, pedalled out of the airport and kept on pedalling - and pushing - up through northern Pakistan, round the Karakorams, across the sands of Xinjiang, over the Kun Lun passes, out onto the Aksai Chin and down through western Tibet to the great pilgrimage sites of Kailas-Manasarovar. 

"It was a brutal marathon but it makes for an engrossing read. Punctuating the punctures, the author's reflections on the history and culture of the region betray extensive research and good judgement. Not many will be tempted to follow in the Hazenbergs' tyre-tracks, but someone who has slipped across so many dodgy frontiers and blagged his way past so many Chinese security guards will surely find a route to get this fine narrative to a wider readership."

The team entering TIBET

I will keep you, my faithful readers, posted on the progress of the book towards publication. Mark those calendars! I hope that you all end up enjoying the book as much as Bruce and John did.