Archive for the ‘Starting Anew’ Category

Bring Growing Up Global to Your Community

Friday, August 7th, 2009
(This was posted as a note on my Facebook Fan page)
Dear Friends of Growing Up Global,
I’d love to visit your community – wherever you are. Parents, educators and friends get excited about the possibilities for their communities when they hear about the unique toolkit and concepts that are contained in the book. PTO’s, school book fairs, libraries, local media, book groups and like-minded organizations are a great beginning for an event around the release of Growing Up Global. My schedule is still flexible and these events can make a huge difference for larger visibility of the book. My publicist and I can help you with the organization. www.growingupglobal.net contains contact info, questions for Book Groups, ideas for presentations, and more.

Please contact me with suggestions or questions: homa@growingupglobal.net, through this FB page, or at www.growingupglobal.net.

Thank you so much for any efforts you can make and I hope to see you soon!

This is a photo with me in center with Somaly Mam on the right and her friend Sophie, during Somaly’s booktour to my area.  Her heroic book is: “The Road of Lost Innocence.”

Friends and the Marketplace

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

I’ve been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from all corners of the world for this book. By reading this, you know  www.growingupglobal.net is up, though there are still some sections to be completed on the site (stay tuned – the best is yet to come!). Thank you to those who have pre-ordered books on amazon.com. I have seen sales rank numbers fluctuate from #550,000 to a mysterious 7,600 ranking, then hover around 250,000.  Yesterday, Saturday, I was happy the ranking was at 104,000. As several friends texted, told, and posted to me that they ordered the book, we watched the amazon.com sales ranking begin improving dramatically:  at 28,000+ on Sunday morning, and steadily climbing to the current #9590.  It even broke through as #80 among top Child Development books (this is a huge category, led by “What to Expect …” and more titles you probably relied on if you have kids).

These huge fluctuations in the rankings over the weekend mean that each of your advance purchases are REALLY making a difference! It’s very clear that pre-purchases get attention for the book: they indicate to the publisher that it’s got momentum so resources can be put behind marketing, bookstores will make room to stack them on a front table instead of relegate a lone copy to a stack in the back of the store, and it will come up on many more searches among amazon customers. So, for just $10.88, the SALE price of the book, you can help get attention for an idea (plus fun activities!) that you probably already really believe in.

Thanks to all of you - I feel that we are really building a special community here.  (And I promise this blog won’t be all about selling the book.  This is a topic currently in my thoughts and my learning curve is steep, so I wanted to share some of the early process with those of you who will read the blog!)

Hello World!

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Welcome to the companion website and blog for Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World.  I’m so excited to roll out this beautiful site designed by my friend, Azita Shahidi of Tuti Design and share the book with the world.  The blog will share more great global ideas tried by families all over, news and trends that affect us and our kids, personal experiences that relate to Growing Up Global, and more.

 I can’t wait to get this blog up and running.  Two-plus years ago I thought I was quite technologically advanced with my blog At Home in the World, which was linked with the Philadelphia Inquirer and found now at http://www.athomeinworld.blogspot.com/.  But today I have much to learn: syncing with Twitter and Facebook, adding multi-media, using tinyurls, linking to lots of other great blogs, and more.  I will update this site regularly, beginning in August, before the book’s official on-sale date of August 25 (you can pre-order on amazon.com NOW!!).