18/11/2016
A LETTER TO THE BOOKSHOP
*****
Dear Shane,
Thank you very much for your email.
We agree when you say “people generally tend to buy Guide Book Brands that they are already familiar with. I guess people are “conservative.” However, we think our book is a companion guide providing cultural information on the country they are visiting.
My experience as a tour guide for many years showed me there are also many people who want to learn much more about Slovenia. Please let me tell you about these experiences.
In June 2016, we self published and printed only 200 copies to see how the market would accept the book. The response among tourists visiting Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia) was above all expectations. Besides selling 25 books to the main Ljubljana library and 35 books to the tourist hotels, I personally sold 130 books in the Ljubljana Old Town in less than a month.
My “selling strategy” was to ask questions: would you like to learn how much money teachers, professors, doctors, clerks, politicians, workers and tradesmen make and what income tax they pay? How much apartments, ready built houses and condominiums cost to buy or rent? What are the monthly costs if you own a house or a 3 bedroom condo and how did Slovenes become a nation of apartment owners?
Would you like to learn about employment, our school system, health care, cost for living in a retirement home? What about summer and winter vacations, holiday homes and apartments, weekend homes and camping trailers? All these answers are in our book on pages 111- 138. Last but not least who are the richest Slovenes, how they got rich and what are their assets, (page170-171). Also about the city of Ljubljana and its Mayor who earned the town “The European Green Capital 2016 Award.”
There are many other chapters tourists were interested in as well. Slovene political and social history: WW1, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, WW 2 and the Slovene Partisan Army, Marshal Tito’s Socialist Yugoslavia and its political system then and the Slovene political system today as well as everyday life in the past and today.
The buyers were predominantly college educated – both men and women, young and older people from all over the world but the majority were from the U.S.A. Among them a retired heart surgeon from San Francisco, a school principal from San Diego, and a university teacher from North Carolina.
In closing, although we do not live in Washington, our good friend Geri Critchley lives there and has many political friends, acquaintances and a wide circle of contacts both internationally and in Washington. She is very interested in helping us promote
“Slovenia a la Carte”. She visited the Slovenian Embassy in Washington who showed an interest in the book.
We are attaching a PDF version of the entire book and hope you will enjoy it.
Best regards,
Joze
