HEIDI RUBY MILLER

NEWS Perseus Books Group is planning to take on our travel guide publisher Avalon Travel Publishing. Here's part of the press release they sent us: "Perseus and Avalon share a similar history, both being built through a series of acquisitions and having strengths in general fiction and non-fiction, and the wellness category. Avalon is also the largest independent travel publisher based in the U.S., with the Moon and Rick Steves series of travel guides." Because Jason and I have a contract with Avalon which calls for us to revise our guidebook Moon Pennsylvania Camping for redistribution every three years, we're watching this closely to see what happens.

Jason and I made a stop at the REI in the Southside Works in Pittsburgh, PA, today to finish up some shopping and there were four copies of MOON Pennsylvania Camping on the shelf. The manager had been trying to get these copies since May when Avalon first put the guide out, but had some difficulties with their (REI's) corporate office. We signed all their copies, met Ron Rodriguez, the store manager, and Peter Greninger, the outreach specialist, and discussed doing two clinics at the store during 2007. The first will be this spring and be devoted to family camping. The one in the fall will be about travel writing. Then J left so I could get his present and on the way out I had the gift wrapped by the wonderful volunteers from the Regional Environmental Education Center in Boyce Mayview Park . As a related aside, we stopped by the Barnes and Noble in Monroeville and found to our delight that they had sold eleven signed copies of our book since May. For a niche market guid...