October 14- 20, 2009

The degree of excitement generated in France by Dracula l’Immortel was both evident, and impressive to Ian and me when we landed in Paris. Our French publisher Michel Lafon went all out, producing a wonderful edition of our book, as well as creating a powerful advertising and promotional campaign.

Two weeks prior to our arrival, the publisher had flown eight Paris based journalists to Romania for two days and a night in Bran Castle, Romania’s only restored castle from Vlad Dracula’s era. The journalists had been given the history of Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula, as well as the connections between the novel and the historical Transylvanian leader Prince Vlad Dracula. They even enjoyed a traditional feast in the castle, with stewed bear as the main dish!

Rather than a castle, Michel Lafon provided us rooms in a wonderful boutique style hotel. Ian and I were quite happy with these accommodations during our five days in Paris- — and the more delicate French cuisine.

Ian and I quickly fell into to what is becoming to us a routine of book launches. This meant two days of back-to-back, hour-long interviews with a variety of journalists, with only short breaks in between.  While in Paris, we worked closely with Michel Lafon’s head of publicity, the lovely Sylvie Gauthier, who had been working with us long distance during the past eight months. Sylvie briefed us each morning, explaining the significance of each interview, and advising us the direction questions may go, based on the readership or audience.

Ian and I lapsed into our own normal routine of dividing the relevant answers based on our areas of expertise. The interviewers provided some welcome deviations with specific and different angles they thought their readers would enjoy. It was evident during interviews that the journalists who had taken the Romanian trip had a far greater degree of interest and insight into our story than some others with whom we met.

The Paris highlight was our Friday night presentation and book signing at the Virgin mega store on the Champs-Elysees. A two story billboard depicting the beautifully designed Michel Lafon cover of  Dracula l’Immortel, dominated the front of the four story building. Inside the bookstore’s main hall, thirty television screens and one large Jumbo Tron screen streamed live video of Ian and me, as we answered questions (which were all translated) from the stage to the one hundred or so spectators.

 French journalists take Saturday off, so Ian and I were free to play tourist during the day. We took a bus tour and saw all the sights, even managing the obligatory souvenir shopping before reaching our saturation point. I was delighted I was able to schedule a Saturday dinner engagement with the Irish Ambassador to France, Paul Murray, who recently wrote a biography of Bram Stoker. Paul is assisting me as I represent the Bram Stoker Estate, in preparing an application to the Dublin City Council to gain their approval for a statue of Bram Stoker to be placed in Dublin.

The early part of Sunday turned out to be a much needed rest day, in anticipation of our reward for good behavior. Sylvie was able to arrange through Michel Lafon Publishing,  tickets to Moulin Rouge. All I can saw is WOW, an amazing dance revue, beautiful ladies, great costumes-or lack thereof, and exquisite set designs. Ian and I had a great time, and have resolved to behave better more often!

Our last full day in Paris revolved around more interviews, followed by a wonderful send off dinner, given in our honor at a local Romanian restaurant. The dinner was attended by the Michel Lafon staff and assorted journalists, some of whom of had been on the Bran Castle trip. They appeared quite relieved not to be served bear again.

Ian and I can’t say enough about our French publisher Michel Lafon, head publicist Sylvie Gauthier, their entire staff, and all of their efforts toward promotion of our book. We are so thankful that back in 2008, Elsa Lafon, a beautiful and energetic lady, fell in love with our manuscript at the Frankfurt book fair, and made the commitment to publish

Dracula l’ Immortel for us.

The Dublin “tour” was much the same as in London, including three days of nonstop interviews, except this time live national TV was included in the schedule. I had a spot on the television morning show, Ireland AM, and about 20 minutes on the very popular Gerry Ryan radio show.

I love Dublin, and enjoyed soaking it all up as I made my way through the city, on foot or in cabs. Taxi rides zipping through Dublin traffic proved to be very entertaining. Dublin taxi drivers have solid opinions about America, the international economy, local politics, and even more about their native son, Bram Stoker and Dracula, and are not afraid to share their thoughts. One of the drivers even took it upon himself to help prepare me to get “up” for the Gerry Ryan show. He felt I was too relaxed and laid back and should be on the edge of my seat to be ready to go toe to toe with Gerry. His work was not in vain. I met several people over the next few days, who had listened to the show and remembered me.

Other than the many radio and newspaper interviews, I did two power point presentations followed by book signings at the Pearse Street and Ballyroan Libraries, and another signing at Chapters, the largest independent book store in Ireland.

Kudos to the Dublin based Harper Collins publicist Moira Reilly. She had all the details of the publicity tour organized well in advance, and was lots of fun to work with. One day we emerged from a quick lunch at our hotel, Buswell’s, to catch a cab to a book signing, and were nearly swallowed up by a peaceful political demonstration as about 10,000 people blocked the street, adjacent to the Irish Senate. Moira joked that she was quite the publicist to arrange such an impressive turnout for me. I replied that if she were a really impressive publicist all those people would show up at the book signing!  

I was not really sure what reactions to expect from local book enthusiasts, after all this was Dublin. Considering Dublin’s rich heritage in Gothic literature, I wondered if I would be “preaching to the choir”. As it turns out, most of them knew very little of the details of Bram’s life and family in Dublin, or his seven year process of writing Dracula while he lived in London, and were quite interested in the information I presented. Dublin’s Douglas Appleyard, a Stoker cousin, has been very helpful to me in regards to Stoker genealogy. He has been able to fill in many blanks in the family history for me, and I appreciate his help.  Everyone I met in Dublin seemed to embrace my effort as a member of the Stoker family to regain some of the family’s literary legacy. I am grateful for their acceptance.

I also had several interesting discussions with my good friend Brian Showers, author and enthusiastic supporter of the Bram Stoker Society, which is based in Dublin. He has agreed to provide material to Ian and me for the script development for our upcoming trailer for a book industry website. Brian and other members of the Bram Stoker Society are also working with the Bram Stoker Estate in our efforts to have a Bram Stoker statue commissioned and placed in Dublin. 

On the weekend, the very gracious and learned John Moore, shared his extensive collection of Bram Stoker papers and books with us. He made Jenne and me feel so welcome, but in four hours we were able to digest only a fraction of his library treasures. Hopefully, we will be able to visit him again, perhaps during our next trip to Dublin, tentatively planned for May 2010.

 Jenne’s agenda/desire was finally able to emerge from underneath the Dracula cloak and take center stage on our last day in Dublin. We rode a city bus out to Enniskerry, County Wicklow to get a glimpse of the Irish countryside, and toured the impressive gardens at Powerscourt.

We took a day to completely relax, unwind, and pack our bags, to head home to South Carolina, where we anticipate the US book launch on October 13.

Jenne and I drove the first leg of our trip to London, hoping to avoid a weather delay similar to our experience in May, when our trip to Dublin was postponed for 24 hours. In May, a thunderstorm in Atlanta, GA prevented our plane’s take-off from Columbia, SC, so we were stuck, and missed our connection to Dublin and our first engagement during the “One City One Book” festival. On this trip to London, we were on a tight schedule and could not afford to miss a day, which would have necessitated rescheduling 15 interviews.

So, we drove white-knuckled, three hours to the Atlanta airport in torrential rain during a thunder and lightening storm, which was without a doubt the most perilous part of our travel to London. A very stressful drive, but we got there in time for our flight.

Jenne and I arrived in London at 11:30 AM, thirty minutes ahead of schedule and only slightly worse for wear. We met the driver provided by HarperCollins and set off to the Soho district of London and our wonderful accommodations at Hazlitt’s Hotel. We were determined to fight off jet lag, so rather than take a nap we went for a walk to get our bearings. We discovered we were only a five minute walk from Piccadilly Circus, which like Times Square in NY, is the pulse of the fine city of London. Ironically, it is also the location our Dracula the Un-Dead where a certain body is found impaled!

Waterstones Piccadilly, the largest bookstore in Europe, where the Dracula the Un-Dead presentation and book signing would be held the next evening was just off the circle. We wandered in to scope it out and after fifteen minutes of searching I was in a bit of a panic. We could not find one copy of Dracula the Un-Dead. We were reluctant to ask at first, but I wondered-had we come to the wrong city- got the date wrong or had any of a hundred other things gone wrong? I got up my courage and made an inquiry to a sales lady, who informed me sales were so good, it was hard to keep restocking the shelf, and the present inventory had just been moved into the lecture hall on the 6^th floor for an appearance by the author and book signing the next night. She asked if I want to buy a ticket?  I did not have the heart to tell her who I was.

The next day was a whirlwind of press interviews and call in radio programs at the very comfortable HarperCollins offices. The routine was a 20-30 minute interview followed by a 5 minute break. I was nursing a bit of a cough, so I consumed plenty of hot tea, resulting in many trips to the men’s room during my breaks. Essentially, I found myself repeating many of the same basic answers during all of the interviews, however interesting variations occurred with some of the journalists’ creative questions, as they strived to pique the interest of their particular readers or listeners. I found the journalists who had read our book, really liked it, or so they said, and presented much more in depth questions than those who had only read the press releases and trade reviews.

The evening “power point” presentation and book signing at Waterstones was very well attended by about 60 people, including some familiar faces; World Champion Court Tennis player, Australian Rob Fahey, and Hampton Court Palace Tennis Club members, John Clark, Richard East, and Robin Mulcahy. It was also really an honor to have in attendance graphic novelist Tony Lee, his lovely wife Tracy, and Tony’s publisher Harry Markos of Markosia Publishing.

The next morning involved a few radio interviews at the BBC studios, followed by a lunch meeting with my cousin Robin McCaw (great grand son of Bram), as we discussed my upcoming audience with a Dublin city official and the procedures to gain approval for a Bram Stoker Statue in Dublin.

Throughout our London visit, the HarperCollins staff could not have been nicer. The three ladies who ushered in our book and organized the promotional events in London affectionately became known as Team Un-Dead. Led by the extraordinarily organized and charming Liz Dawson, everything went off without a hitch, even an impromptu photo shoot in a nearby churchyard.

Join fellow vampire fans in this video featuring several well-known vampire authors and experts, including DtU’s very own Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt!