What happens when you combine unorthodox thinking with road trips, a hair brained idea for sharing the limelight, and a forty year quest to be a writer when I grow up? Please, let me explain.
See, I am the fellow that puts the bicycle together on Christmas Eve, but only consults the instructions after coming to the distinct realization the handlebars shouldn’t be where the seat goes. After all of these years, I have come to accept this as a glitch that can be lived with, and most likely corrected. However, there is the distinct feeling that life would be a lot less interesting if I did my homework, and did things the right way.
On more than one occasion the results of not doing things the right way or the wrong way, but doing them my way, have had some interesting and surprising results that could never have been achieved if I had followed the directions. On rare occasions ignorance really is bliss.
The cornerstone of my endeavors to become a writer when I grow up are a manifestation of this. I didn’t do my homework and instead simply called the editor of my favorite magazine, found myself with an assignment, and, six weeks later, notification of pending publication followed by a check. Then I did my homework and began doing things according to the instructions with the end result being 12 months of steady rejection notices.
Well, I have now decided to apply the type of thinking that has become my trademark to the promotion of the latest book, Ghost Towns of Route 66. This is what happens when my publicist has to take an early retirement (it wasn’t my fault). So, even though we will be stopping often, I am asking businesses and museums along the route to send a note if they would like me to stop by to sign books in their inventory, or to schedule a more formal signing with some discussion time.

In a nutshell, the idea is to use the promotion of the book to shine the spotlight on the mom and pop shops that make this legendary highway something really special.
This will allow me to structure the trip a bit more productively. In addition, it should help in regards to ensuring media coverage for these places as well as promote the book.
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=1968adventurer&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0738560308&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrAt this point the media coverage is in the process of being worked out as a joint venture with the publisher. So, all I can promise at this time is regular updates on the blog, when possible, and a plug or two in interviews.
If nothing else, dropping a note and asking me to stop by would be a great excuse to visit, to put names with faces, and to catch up with old friends. And a good time will be had by one and all.
The first scheduled signing is a joint venture with Joe Sonderman, a very talented author with several books to his credit, at Connie’s Shoppe in the Wagon Wheel Motel complex in Cuba, Missouri. Connie is working out details for an exciting evening on October 7. As these details become available, they will be posted.
In a couple of somewhat unrelated notes, be sure to check out the latest issue of 66 The Mother Road. John Springs, the publisher, as well as Dale Butel, the Australian tour operator who has become a fixture on the road, “Croc Lile, Kumar Patel of the Wigwam Motel in Rialto, as well as a few others, will also be on the road in the first week of October. If you happen to see them as they journey east from California to Chicago, be sure to strike up a conversation about the magazine, it might be worth a piece of pie but you didn’t hear that from me.
Last but not least, here is the first press release for the forthcoming trip –

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Nichole Schiele

Senior Marketing Manager, Quayside Publishing Group

nschiele@quaysidepub.com

612-344-8161

Jim Hinckley, award winning author of Route 66 Backroads, Backroads of Arizona, The Big Book of Car Culture, Ghost Towns of the Southwest, Greetings from Route 66, and Ghost Towns of Route 66 takes to the road –
For more than twenty years Jim Hinckley, award winning author and photographer has served as America’s travel guide to the wonders only found on the back roads and lost highways through his books, feature articles, a daily blog, and in interviews with Jay Leno, on AM Arizona, and on other nationally televised television and radio programs. Now Jim turns his talents toward the most ambitious project to date – a Route 66 encyclopedia and atlas that will chronicle the 85 year history of America’s most famous highway and the people who wrote that history.
To ensure the time capsule quality of this work about America’s most famous highway, Jim is again taking to the road in early October to capture images of its faded glory. Along the way he will extol its virtues through speaking engagements and at book signings.
With Ghost Towns of Route 66 the reader rides along on an odyssey of discovery to places where the neon hasn’t cast a glow in more than a half century and only the wind stirs the dust on Route 66. Filled with the colorful prose expected of Jim, and stunning photography by Kerrick James and Jim Hinckley, Ghost Towns of Route 66 the book is a delight for armchair travelers and adventurers alike.
In Backroads of Route 66 iconic Route 66 was portrayed as a portal to a wide array of adventures, historic sites, and scenic wonders only found with short detours from the world’s most famous highway. Photographs by Kerrick James, Shellee Graham, Jim Ross, and Rick and Nora Bowers, as well as historic photos from the author’s collection, enliven the concise, informative text with colorful vibrancy.
A previous book in the back roads series, Backroads of Arizona, introduced readers to singularly unique and often missed Arizona attractions such as Crown King, the Senator Highway, and Hualapai Mountain Park.
The Big Book of Car Culture is an award winning, fun filled, illustrated encyclopedic work on all things automotive from the evolution of crash test dummies and tow trucks to the development of the Ford Mustang and the history of road striping that was the subject of a recent interview with Jay Leno.
Greetings from Route 66, a compilation for which Jim wrote the chapter introductions, is a time capsule and post card chronicling almost 85 years of memories on America’s most famous highway.
In Ghost Towns of the Southwest, Jim took readers along for a ride to some of the most fascinating and colorful ghost towns in the southwest from Native American metropolises and Spanish colonial outposts to legendary Tombstone and historic Hillsboro.

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