Thank you for nomination, Madeline Sloane!

Elena Ornig

For Week 18^th of ‘THE NEXT BIG THING’ BLOG HOP 

Special thanks to Eri Nelson for asking me to participate.

Big thanks to Madeline Sloane who nominated me for week 18th. 

Below you will be able to learn a little about myself, my latest work and the authors who will follow me in week 19th. 

Their interviews due to be published on 31st of October. Be sure to check them all out !

Q: What is the working title of your book?

Actually, the title was chosen straight away and hasn’t changed since I began writing “The Perfect Smile from Bangkok”. I believe this title truly reflects my personal feelings, the endless benefits that this book offers to readers, and the desire of many people to have a perfect smile.

Q: Where did the idea for this book come from?

The idea came from my personal experience after many years of restricting myself to not smiling. How could I smile when my teeth’s condition during that period was simply dreadful? For more than 20 years I didn’t smile as I was ashamed of my teeth. When opportunity presented itself in a mysterious way, I took advice from a wonderful woman and followed her steps, and as a result I learned everything that helped me achieve my desire to smile, and more importantly, to have healthy teeth.

One of the biggest problems for me wasn’t access to good dental care, it was financial. In Australia, dental care is high quality but very expensive. For many years, I simply couldn’t afford it. However, less than two years ago I discovered how to get world best quality dental treatment for a fraction of the price I would pay in Australia. I had found the Silom Dental Building clinic in Bangkok that has become the favourite destination for countless patients from well developed countries around the world.

During three trips to Bangkok over a period of less than two years, I acquired a considerable amount of information regarding medical dental treatment and travel information, together with a sound knowledge of where to eat, entertain and shop, plus accommodation experience. Right from the beginning, during my first trip, I decided to write about my experiences, and the first draft for the book commenced. I have been writing this book since January 2011 and it is coming out in November 2012. It will be a digital book, published by Julia Sophistique Pty Ltd and will be sold on Hot Digital Books for only $2.99.

 Q: What genre does your book fall under?

Oh, that question is really valuable for others to dwell upon. As the Australian Publishers are relying on the guide-lines of ISBN Agency, like THORPE-Bowker for example, – they are facing a rather difficult choice of many categories and sub-categories that can be given to describe the book’s content; but I see a real lack in introducing the new terms used by social media for the last few years.

For example, they have a category called Travel and Tourism but do not have a category Medical Travel that would perfectly describe the actual content of my book; however, they have another choice under sub-category in Medicine – Dentistry. So by combining the two, the book is categorised as Travel and Tourism; Dentistry and we add in brackets (Medical Travel). I think it is a time for the Agency to review their categories and apply new terms that are widely used through the Internet. If you type into Google search the term Medical Travel it will give you about 1,450,000,000 results. That tells you a lot of how popular this term is, and believe me, after months of intensive research I can definitely say that this specific term has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of blogs and websites dedicated to it as a specific topic.

So, I went further and placed the subtitle: Complete dental travel guide from personal experience. My book, as I previously mentioned, covers all the traditional topics as most other travel guides do. However, my book is very specific, and describes step-by-step what, where, who, how, when and how much. It is a great factual guide based on my own personal experience. It identifies everything with meticulous precision, thereby giving readers the comfort of knowing everything they need to know if they are contemplating similar travel.

ISBN 978-0-9870488-2-0 AND ONLY $2.99

 Q: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Well, this book is rather a “how to” guide and therefore I do not think it can be made as a movie. However, it is a great choice for making a documentary, and to tell you the truth, I have the idea of making it myself. Will it be possible? I wonder, but who knows, maybe it will be possible one day.

 Q: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Why is geography no longer an issue for dentistry? Read the Complete dental travel guide from personal experience and find the answers.

 Q: Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

My book will be published as an eBook by Julia Sophistique Pty Ltd as I previously mentioned.

 Q: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I started to write the first draft in January 2011. I added more and more facts and pictures during my following two trips to Bangkok. In June 2012 I hired a researcher to add many interesting facts about Thailand, Bangkok and Dentistry. During all three visits to Bangkok, I conducted numerous interviews:  with three doctors, one interview with the owner of a famous French restaurant in Bangkok, one with the owner of a Fashion shop, one with the Manager of a Hotel and an interview with the owner of an Orchid business in Thailand. I included many tips from other travellers and locals that had been shared with me; and I even added a full chapter of a short history of Thailand. As you can see, I do believe my book will offer many benefits and valuable factual information to readers. I asked myself, if I were to be presented with the opportunity to have such a complete guide, would I hesitate to buy it? The answer is simple – I would grab it as soon as I came across such a comprehensive guide.

 Q: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I have no idea what books can be compared to mine. Honestly, I have never come across anything so specific. I can only compare this book to documentaries I have previously seen. However, you cannot take a documentary and follow it during your travel, whereas you can take my book with you by having it on your laptop or iPod to refer to anytime you want or need to. It obviates the need to also carry around a heavy printed travel guide while trying to find some unfamiliar places. My book makes many places easy to find and see by the many pictures and maps that are illustrated in it. You will be surprised to find how many places in Bangkok are named differently on various travellers’ maps. I personally went through many maps and explained it thoroughly.

 Q: Who or What inspired you to write this book?

That was rather a matter of my personal inspiration. As soon as I realised that my desire to have healthy and aesthetically beautiful teeth on a very tight budget had become a matter of fact – I felt the need to share it as a legacy with others. Legacy maybe sounds like a big word in this context, but when readers have read the book they will understand what it means, as I described the mysterious ways that life sometime presents us with. There is a person, a wonderful woman, whom I met accidentally or rather through a chain of events that I described in my book; the woman who showed me the perfect passage to fulfill my desire; I wrote this book as a legacy to her involvement in my life, as well.

 Q: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The benefits of saving money and time would be the major pique for the reader’s interest. The benefits of knowing factual information from practicing dentists – very beneficial! I personally see it as valuable reading. In combination, the tips from the locals and other tourists, the facts from the authorities, and my personal experiences are priceless knowledge. The answers about the rules that every patient/traveller needs to know before going to Bangkok are very helpful as well.  What is undervalued here is the actual price of the book ($2.99), but on the other hand it makes the beneficial content very accessible to many and that is a great thing. I wish readers to take advantage of this offer and more importantly to achieve their desire to have a healthy teeth and a perfect smile.

 Here’s a list of my tagged blog hop authors for next week. Check out their blogs next Wednesday, October 31st, to read about their new releases or current projects:

 David Byerlee – novelist.

Rosina Owen – writer.

Dimity Powell – Children’s Author.

Rachel Shore – writer, member of Helensvale Writers Group.