Greetings from Uruguay. I hope this mail finds you really well.
I normally write in email stuff I don’t share elsewhere. Would you indulge me as I share a few frustrations that I have as an independent guidebook writer/publisher? 😩
You may or may not know that I have written three guide books 📚 to Uruguay—one about the entire country with a focus on beaches, ranches and wine country (the three areas that in my 12 years working in tourism primarily with people like myself, from North America or Europe, I learned we’re all intrigued by) and two editions of a Montevideo guide, the only English-language city guide on Amazon.
I published the first edition of the guide to Montevideo in 2016. When did the second edition come out? In November 2019. Right. Right before the pandemic hit and Uruguay closed its borders to international travel for 19 months 😒
To add insult to injury, the second edition was to be available in audiobook, besides the regular paperback and Kindle versions. It was really exciting because it would be (and still is) the first and only “long play” audiobook on any subject related to Uruguay.
So the pandemic came, and I decided to continue the audiobook production anyway. It came out in July 2020. The book title doesn’t include the word ‘Uruguay’. I tried contacting Audible to see if we could tweak the title to ‘Montevideo Uruguay’. But I’ve never been able to speak to a human being.
And how many people search audiobook platforms looking for a book about ‘Montevideo’? Believe me, not many. If I’m brutally honest, not much more than a few handfuls. It makes me sad. Not only that but it’s been a really tough few years for an independent publisher who was primarily working in the travel industry at the time here in Uruguay with the borders closed. Yep, not great times.
So you can’t imagine how delighted I was to read a new review— finally!—on Audible by Philip J. 🥰
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