I had the good fortune to chat with Justin Baker on his podcast ‘Just in Conversation’ about how he stumbled across my olive farming memoir. We also talked about important things: creativity, fear, pursuing your dreams, and heaps more. In...
Category: Olive farming memoir
Posts about my book ‘An Olive Grove at the Edge of the Word’
Cover reveal for ‘An Olive Grove at the Edge of the World’
I have finally found a new cover for ‘An Olive Grove at the Edge of the World’ – the international edition of ‘Moon Over Martinborough.’ And it’s fantastic. The tools I used to find it were 99designs and PickFu. First, I...
‘Moon’ goes international – under a new title
Wisteria after the rain Four years ago, Random House New Zealand published my book, ‘Moon Over Martinborough: How an American city boy became a Kiwi farmer.’ Time flies! The print and ebook rights have now reverted back to me, and...
This town is on TV
The TV crew was about to show up, and I was nervous. It’s an act of trust to put yourself in front of a camera. I didn’t know these people. What if they made me look like a fool? (more…)
The making of a book trailer
Sometimes the right people land on your front door at just the right time. That’s what happened when I was thinking about a book trailer and two fabulous HelpX volunteers came to stay with us: Emilie and Jeremie. I didn’t...
TVNZ’s Breakfast visits
“We think we need to fly you to Auckland,” Jennifer said on the phone. She’s my publicist at Random House New Zealand. “What for?” I asked. “To be on TVNZ’s Breakfast. They want to talk to you.” (more…)
Book launch media roundup
Today I’m listing all the incredible things that have happened since I launched my book with Random House New Zealand on 7 June 2013. It all started a couple days before the big launch when I heard someone walk in...
Publisher comes to visit
My publisher was coming to lunch, and I was nervous. She wanted to see the property and meet CJ and me, but she wanted something else as well. She wanted to talk to CJ about changing his name. What if...
Author photos in the olive grove
The man on my front deck looked like he had teleported through a time machine, straight out of the 1960s. He was wearing dark sunglasses with octagonal, gold wire frames. His sideburns were long. “You must be Jared,” he said,...
Never give up: From blog to book
“I’m giving up,” I said. “‘Moon over Martinborough’ is never going to be a book.” Ever since I’d started this blog I’d wanted to turn it into a book, but I was losing hope. “Maybe you shouldn’t give up just...