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Never Miss a Beat

Climbing the Charts- The Apple iBookstore Journey

written by Valarie Budayr

Happy December! And what an amazing month November turned out to be too.

This past week we were involved with the Apple iBookstore $2.99 holiday promotion.

This was a BIG Deal AND we felt very honored to have been chosen. We saw the promotion come up on Tuesday, thought it looked really nice, and then we went back to living and working our every day lives.

Apple iBookstore\

Cyber Week was was a busy week for us because we had so many promotions and personal appearances going on. We were just working, head down and focused,  just trying to stick to our calendar and get through our daily to-do list.

THEN..it started to change.

On Thursday I received a text message from our distributor Chintu Parikh saying \”Did you see it?\”

\”No, what?\” I said,

\”Charlie\’s in the top 200 on ITunes/iBookstore for Children\’s and Teens.\”

Holy CATS!

With my heart pounding I ran to my laptop, opened iTunes and there it was #157. From there the book started climbing by the second up the charts until we broke the top 100 books in children\’s and teen\’s at:

 #72 !!!!

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Then we went to # 48

 

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And then to #38

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Then there was more excitement (like that wasn\’t enough:)

Not only was Charlie climbing up the Children\’s and Teens chart, it was also charting on the overall top sold books chart.

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It was an exciting Thursday to say the least. On Friday Charlie just went up and down the chart between #36 and #52. I really thought we had peaked. We were so thankful to have had this amazing experience. We did not anticipate what was about to happen.

Saturday morning I noticed there were all of these text messages on my cell phone, Facebook, and I had a really full inbox. The first message I got to was from Debbie Saviano saying on Facebook \”I\’m so happy for my friend Valarie Budayr for her going to #1 on iTunes.\”

Next I listened to a voicemail message which was placed at 1:43 a.m from friend Marilyn Scott Waters saying, \”Valli your book is #1 , your book is #1 !!!! \”

Running back to my laptop, I saw it …………….

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It was true. On the children\’s and teen\’s non-fiction list we are #1. The only word we kept saying over and over again was,

Amazing !!!!! Completely Amazing !!!

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As I was sitting there for a couple of days watching Charlie go up and down the charts, it became very apparent to me that each book on this chart, whichever chart that might be, has an author and/or illustrator whose family, friends, and whooping and hollering for them and wishing them all the best. I was wondering how many other authors on the charts during these days were doing the same thing all of us at Audrey Press were and that was staring at our screen for 30 second interval updates.

We are filled with so much gratitude for the love and support we felt over the weekend from family, friends, colleagues and fans. It was such a joy to share this time with you.

Roscoe and I would like to send out a big thank-you to Chintu and Aarte Parikh from KiteReaders who formatted and currently distribute The Ultimate Guide to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This brilliant husband and wife team have personally seen to the care and success of our book and for that we are truly grateful.

We\’d also like to send thanks to our fine editor Bernadette Emerson and to the whole Audrey Press Team, Terry Green, Becky Flansburg, Theresa Scholes, Caley Walsh, Diana Ennen, Patty Dost, Sylvia Rankin,Lara Niedberding, Cindy Mertz, David Ewan, and Kitten Adventure Boggs.

Lastly we\’d like to send out a huge thank you to all of you who enjoy our books. Our mission here at Audrey Press isn\’t a \”bottom line\” mentality, but a deep wish to create books and multi-media products which inspire adults and children to play and read together. We remain committed to this purpose and are continuing to create books which enchant and delight the world you and your children share.

Here\’s wishing you many happy moments of reading and play. Thank you for being apart of this incredible journey !!!!