Riding to the bestseller list

I'm always happy to see an innovative approach to marketing that makes sense and is good for the environment. David Leach, an author and writing professor at the University of Victoria, is taking just such an approach.

Leach knows that books that sell do so because the author's out there working hard to make it sell. Successful authors do radio shows, readings, school visits, all sorts of things. For his book, Fatal Tide, he's taken an innovative approach. Email him and he'll bike to your house and sell you a signed copy in person. There are a few caveats to that offer. It only applies to people living in or near Victoria, BC, where he lives.

This, admittedly, has little or nothing to do with rental properties. But our lifestyles do dictate our environmental footprint to a great extent. Bicycling instead of driving a car makes a huge difference, and I've got bikes on the mind as I look forward to my first car-free summer here in Toronto.

Leach is also, I expect, not doing this because it's a great, environmentally friendly way of promoting his book. Reading his blog, it's clear that he's doing it because, well, he's looking for an excuse to go for a bike ride. If you live in the Victoria area, I do recommend giving him that excuse. Fatal Tide is a fast-paced read. It's the story of an adventure race in the Bay of Fundy that ended in tragedy, and stems from a story he wrote for explore magazine in March 2003. Leach wrote plenty of articles documenting his often foolhardy misadventures biking across the Andes, kayaking in the Arctic, or, most often, falling down hard. Those stories have made him one of my favourite Canadian writers, and one of the people who remind me regularly that life without a bit of risk just ain't enough fun.