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RE: Seven Reasons Why Books Are the Best Christmas Gift
May be you should try to get into the Icelandic book market. I lately heard that Icelanders still love to read books, and especially love books as gifts for christmas. Look here:
On the downside, Iceland only has a population of 350,000...
Well, they have long nights.
If 10 percent of Icelanders bought one of my books, it would be a best seller by modern standards!
35,000 sold copies is a bestseller already? It seems the standard has dropped a lot since Hemmingway, Agatha Christie or Steven King.
The good thing is: nearly all Icelanders speak English. Or, lets say understand English. Speaking it is a different story, as you see in the video. They literally have to, because nobody else in the world can speak Icelandic. Not even the other Scandinavians understand much of it. Its more like the old Nordic language from 1000 years ago.
You convinced me, I'm planning a trip! Actually, I'd go there in summer, I think.
I did some checking, and what makes a best seller depends on who you ask. But apparently it's more about speed than total volume: Sell 5,000 or more books in one week, and you're on some lists. Sell 5,000 in six months, and you got nothin'.
Really? It must be a really amazing country, from what I heard. And of course you should go in summer. Then its daylight almost 24 hours a day - while it almost entirely dark around this time of the year. And don't forget to bring warm jumpers - even in summer its rarely very warm there. But don't forget to take some swimming trunks either - they have these amazing public hot bath facilities, heated by volcanic water. But if they tell you not to bathe in some pond or go to some place, you should better listen. Else you may end up as a boiled egg. :)
Well, if the time is a factor for having a best seller, it relatives things. Looking at it like that, even the Bible is not selling so great. They have sold a large number - but it took 1500 years... :)
Well, I'm still working on seeing more of this country first! But I do like the idea of a place where it's daylight most of the time ... at least, I would until I crashed.
In the southern region of Iceland they have a few weeks in summer when its only kind of dawn for an hoer or so, as the sun just dips behind the horizon. In the north it stays above the horizon 24 hours. Iceland is pretty big, its a bit deceiving on maps.
It can throw off your bio rythm a bit, I guess. But on vacation its not so critical - just take a nap whenever you want.
And of course its the exact opposite around this time of the year, its dark almost all day long. Which I find rather depressing. I mean, its bad enough here in Germany, with about 7 hours daylight (and often not very bright, due to crappy weather) now. But darkness all day... yuck. Well, the Icelanders got used to it, I guess.
Yeah, right now the sun has gone down before I go to work, and it hasn't risen yet when I get off work--it's pretty miserable.
We were watching the third season of Star Trek: Discovery last night and I told my wife, "That looks like Iceland." She looked it up and sure enough--they filmed scenes around the volcanic areas and sea shores there.
Oh yes, they had real NASA astronauts there, too, when they were training for the moon missions. And they are planning to do the same again for coming Mars missions, from what I heard.
Some regions there are pretty close to Moon and Mars surfaces. If you ignore a occasional tiny moss - and the snow in winter. But its also a very good test terrain for vehicles or autonomous exploration robots.