Books and Grapevines
Summary: Establishing the cycles of your business can bring
multiple benefits, including strengthening your connections with your community
and the natural world that supports and often shapes its direction.
We operate a tour company and write books, including tour
books about wine country. People often comment that we seem to get a lot done, and
part of our secret is how we have our time organized. During the year when we
are touring with clients we gather information and take photos. In our spare
time we enter the info into the computer, and then when the tour season winds
down in December we begin the serious work of putting our books together.
Putting the books together is actually more complicated than
it might sound because we not only write, edit and proof the text, but also
take and edit the photos, create the maps and tours, and design and typeset the
books. Here is where we are different from most publishing companies, we time our
work with the growing season. We start working on the books when harvest is
over, and continuing through cane pruning season when last year’s woody vineyard
growth is trimmed away by crews in the fields. Near the first day of Spring, just
about bud break, is when we set out on the road to show our books to our
retailers and new potential retailers, and take orders. We’ve noticed that
wineries, which are essentially farms, find it easier to commit to buying books
and other products when they see the new flowers forming on their vines. When
the leaves are filling out in May and the fruit is getting ready to set, we
deliver our books to our customers, just in time for the arrival of visitors to
Napa and Sonoma. After that we’re on the road touring with clients, or speaking
to groups and too busy to do much selling or book designing, although we get a
little of that done.
This year is the third edition of our tour books and we
think that we’ll start to see the fruit of our labors, because this is wine
country and it takes three years for a vine to produce grapes. It may seem
strange to match our publishing cycle to the vineyard growing season, but
experience has shown us that it’s the best way. Where most publishing is geared
to the holiday season when retailers sell forty percent of their products, the busy
season in wine country is from bud break to harvest time. That’s when most of
the customers show up, and that’s when we need to have our products ready for
them.
Honestly, we find something very comforting about being in
synch with the seasons and our neighbors. It has helped us to disengage from
the retailing rush that consumes so much of society. When most people are
attacking the malls looking for holiday gifts, we’re settling into the process
of creating our books and Smart Phone Apps. It’s a very homey pursuit, and it
makes cuddling on the couch and shopping by catalog for our very extended
family much more attractive.
So many people see the beauty of wine country and imagine
that living amidst it must be wonderful, and it is. But living with its
rhythms, like riding waves of time, instills a sense of continuity and faith,
and a realization that beauty is more than just a surface adornment, in truth
it can be a sign of the deep connections between the natural world and the
divine.
Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors of the Amicis Winery
Guides, and owners of Amicis Tours and Cuore Libre Publishing. They are authors
of over twenty books on health, design and travel. Their products can be found
on the sites http://wwwamicistours.com
and http://www.spaceandtime.com
Napa,Sonoma,Travel,Books,Tours
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