Illinois Stories and the Bob Edwards Show

The Mark Twain: Words & Music CD has been out a little more than a month now, and we are enjoying all of the phone calls, emails, and conversations about how much people are enjoying it.  Yes, we're partial, so hearing your compliments is truly heartwarming.

We've been gifted by two media events that have helped put the CD in front of folks.  First of all, Mark McDonald from Illinois Stories arrived in Hannibal the day of the CD's release and interviewed Carl Jackson and Val Storey.  Carl and Val performed five of the songs from the CD, and Mark filmed them for this broadcast on Illinois's PBS stations.  We saw an immediate spike in sales.

Mark McDonald from Illinois Stories interviewed

Carl Jackson and Val Storey about Mark Twain: Words & Music

Last week, the Bob Edwards Show aired an interview Bob conducted with yours truly (Cindy Lovell) about the CD.  Bob allowed me to share some of the behind-the-scenes stories about the project, but best of all he included several excerpts from the CD, both spoken word and song.  I'm glad he didn't ask me to name my favorite song, because that would not have been possible.  I love them all.  If you'd like to hear Bob's interview, here it is: Part 1 and Part 2.

Bob's audience is vast, and as the broadcast aired we saw our online sales begin to climb, both in our online store and on Amazon.  Yes, we do make a better profit from our own online sales, but watching the sales rankings climb on Amazon was exciting.  Yesterday we were ranked #1 in Bluegrass, #1 in Spoken Word, #6 in Country, #26 in Pop and #28 in Music overall.  Such is the reach of Bob Edwards's audience.   

Ranked #1 in Bluegrass Music sales on Amazon

Watching the sales rankings move up was exciting, especially
when we made it into the category of Pop Music.  Who knew?

We are in the early days of CD sales, and our marketing budget is limited.  We're hopeful that word of mouth and similar media coverage will help us share the project.  Twitter and Facebook can only do so much.  So, if you've heard the CD and like it, please let others know.  And if you haven't heard it yet and are curious, Amazon has posted clips from every track.  Each clip is 30 seconds in length.  If you listen to them in order from the beginning, you'll have a pretty good idea of the story sequence.

Every little event excites and encourages us.  Let us hear from you!