The Fool on the Hill

Since June, to beat the summer heat, I’ve been trying to stay at high elevation in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and now in North Carolina. You might say that I’m “The Fool on the Hill.”

In 1967, the Beatles released a song about a man on a hill who is considered, presumably by many, to be a fool. Yet, he knows that the world goes round and he watches the sun go down – not a fool at all.

Sergio Mendes had a great album cover for Fool on the Hill

So - am I a fool? Instead of staying in my campervan at over 3,000 feet of elevation, I could get an air-conditioned room in a hotel and turn the thermostat down to about 65 F at night. But up here in the mountains, that is the average nightly temperature. I don’t have to use an AC to cool the night air.

When I started the 48-state book tour a year ago in June, a lot of people probably thought that I was a fool, and they may be right. Certainly some of my family and friends must have thought that I was crazy. Who would do such a thing? It’s not normal. Did I know what I was doing? Would I be safe out there?

These are all fair questions. I knew that people were thinking along these lines, but I also knew that I had done my research, planned an itinerary, and outfitted myself adequately to undertake the trip. I also had gone to a shelter in Denver and got myself a dog to keep me company – perhaps the most vital link.

In my opinion, the single greatest risk of traveling to 48 states over six months was not the physical effort or the potential danger but the effect of constant loneliness on a man over an extended period of time. I did not know people in every state. I knew people in perhaps a third of the 48 states, mostly on the two coasts and in the Midwest, where I’m from. Most places I went, I was a complete and total stranger.

Having a companion along for the ride – even if it was just a dog – meant that I would wake up every day with a friend next to me, and that faithful friend would be by my side every night as I went to sleep. I cannot begin to explain how essential it was to my state of mind and also to my personal security. A dog hears better than we do and smells things that we don’t. I knew that he would raise the alarm at night.

Dogs are always alert for danger - and possibly just a little bit paranoid

I knew that I would meet people along the way, but it was impossible to predict how often, or how open they would be to engaging in a conversation, or whether the communication would continue thereafter.

I also knew I would be going into hundreds of bookstores along the way. I thought they might be nice to authors. I quickly learned that they are inundated with first-time authors (idiots!?) walking through the front door. Many of the booksellers, often young people presumably paid a modest hourly wage, did not see it as part of their job to roll out the red carpet. In fact, they tended to put up walls of ice quickly.

I think we’ve all met the employee who doesn’t know we exist

This meant that, more often than not, going into a bookstore, I would face rejection, almost instantly. So, I learned to make my pitch as quickly as possible, give them my card, and get out of there pronto. The faster I made the pitch, the better. I also learned to speak their language. They did not want to know a lot about the book, other than: 1) if it was available from a wholesaler; and 2) if it was refundable. And they would take a look to see if it was well organized and had a professional cover design.

The first bookstore I visited informed me that they do not buy from Amazon, a retailer, because then they would not be able to mark up the book and make money on it. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? They only buy books from retailers at a significant discount and mark them up to make a profit.

And, especially with new authors, they do not want to be stuck with a book that does not sell. Why, of course! The book has to be fully refundable, so they can send it back after 30 or 60 or even 90 days. And they don’t want to pay for the return postage. The wholesaler charges that to the author or publisher.

Bookstores want books that are refundable if they don’t sell

When I learned of these two realities, the whole national book tour flipped on its head. Did I stop? No, I continued. I knew the book would not sell, but I would meet the bookstore staff and learn a bit about their location and the layout of the store. I would know if they had a large travel book section or no travel books at all. I would know if the booksellers were bored and rude or were genuinely interested.

There is something to be said for walking through the front door and seeing for yourself. I learned that if the owner is there, and is directly involved, it is almost always a good bookstore. If the owner is never there, which is the case more often than not, the hourly employees are often rude or bored.

As hourly employees, why should they care if the owner does not care enough to show up in person? I could see their point of view. But if the owner was there in person, s/he set an example and the hourly staff tended to follow suit. Unfortunately, the owner is only there in about one out of ten bookstores. I don’t know why except that perhaps they see it as an investment and it’s not worth wasting their time.

So, was I a fool? Some people will say “yes” because I persisted in conducting a national book tour that did not result in significant sales. But I saw the entire country. Most people I met said that I should write a book about the tour. In fact, people were more excited about the tour than the first book I wrote.

People told me to write the new book!

To quote Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” I didn’t like him much, but I had to admit that quote made sense. If we don’t know what we don’t know, then we have to go find out what we need to know, so that we know what to do.

I needed to know what people wanted to read. People will tell you what they want if you just listen.

It turns out a lot of people wanted me to write a book about a man traveling to the 48 states in a campervan with his dog. Unless they were all lying, the book about the tour should be popular. More popular than my memoir about spending my adult life in Africa, which most people seemed to find uninteresting. People did not ask me about Africa; maybe they were embarrassed to admit ignorance.

So, like the fool on the hill, I saw the sun going down and the world turning round. Some people may still think I’m a fool for doing a national tour, but it was an incredible adventure and I had a wonderful time, except when people were trying to kill me, which I did not like very much.

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is trying to kill you?

But I survived. So, no problem.

I hope that the book about the tour will be good and that people will enjoy reading it. It should be ready in draft about this time next year. Then I’ll probably have to do a rewrite. Maybe by Christmastime 2024?