Wu Ming-yi spent his summer holiday biking around Taiwan to promote his latest work of fiction
Taipei Times
Date: Sep 08, 2015
By: Tony Coolidge / Contributing reporter
Novelists usually pursue fame and book sales through publicists, book fairs and social media,
Wu Ming-yi rode this antique bicycle across Taiwan this summer to promote his novel. Photo: Tony Coolidge
but Wu Ming-yi’s (吳明益) approach has been far from typical. The novelist and academic spent the summer holiday riding an antique bicycle around Taiwan, meeting fans and giving lectures at small, independent bookstores to promote his book, The Stolen Bicycle (單車失竊記).
“People appreciate the opportunity to connect with me more intimately in these small spaces,” Wu told a standing-room-only audience at Tainan’s Lingo Bookstore (林檎二手書室). He added that he was a marketing major in college, and it was ironic that he chose to go against everything he learned about marketing and promotion.
Wu says he enjoys sharing the knowledge that he learned about Taiwan’s flora and fauna in his research papers, and started building a following that appreciated his message of ecological conservation. Eventually, he began toying with the introduction of creative fiction to enhance his message, and his career as a novelist developed. [FULL STORY]
