Skopje City Walk on the front page

skopje city walk news

Besides being the first of its kind, the fact that two Dutch women created the Skopje City Walk is news in itself. Already in the first round of media attention in August reporters wrote about the Dutch women who gave Skopje a city walk. In September, the columnist of a national newspaper called Skopje City Walk the walking tour ‘of two Dutch daughters-in-law’.

The (online) magazine for international volunteers in Macedonia approached us for an interview as well. But the icing on the cake came when a reporter from the same national newspaper dedicated almost a whole page to the Skopje City Walk. With even a link to the article on the front page! The pictures of the article in the newspaper can be found on Facebook. The links to the online articles can be found on our Media page.

Skopje City Walk for sale at the best locations of the city

buy skopje city walk

Another milestone: since this week, the Skopje City Walk is also available at all four souvenir shops in the city center! These small, glass kiosks were build last summer and are owned by the National Museum. The walk through the old town leads along this museum, so this is a good deal for both parties. Of course, the Skopje City Walk is also available in the museum gift shop, and in the Porta Makedonija as well, another sight along the route. Let the late season begin!

Skopje City Walk now also available as e-book!

epub skopje city walk

It is party time! After a few weeks of hard work, Skopje City Walk is finally available as a digital version as well. Not only in pdf and rtf, for easy printing, but also as epub to read on your tablet or iPad and as mobi for your Kindle e-reader. Hooray!

All these online versions of Skopje City Walk can be downloaded at the website of Smashwords. We have chosen for this website because Smashwords allows everyone to publish their e-books for free. We only pay a percentage to Smashwords when our e-book is actually sold. This is a fair concept. And not only that, Smashwords also ensures that Skopje City Walk will soon be directly available in the Apple iBookstore and the webshops of Barnes & Noble, Diesel, Kobo, Sony and Baker & Taylor. So that means several birds with only one stone.

UPDATE MAY 2014: We no longer sell our city walks through Smashwords. Because even though this website is really great, it didn’t do our guide justice. We want to show off our design, which is now possible through E-junkie.

Cup of coffee before the city walk

porta makedonija skopje

To pay some attention to the printed version of the Skopje City Walk in a playful way, we started weekly coffee morning meetings. We host these meetings through CouchSurfing, a platform for and by travelers.

Not only can travelers who are on a holiday in Skopje, start the day with a nice cup of coffee on the main square (the starting point of the two walks), but they can also buy the city walk, ask us questions and get in touch with other travelers. This is a perfect solution until the brochures are available for sale in the kiosks. And we might even continue the meetings after that, because it is also very nice!

Walking Macedonia step by step

art kursumli an skopje

The summer season slows things down a bit. We take turns in going on a holiday, and managers and directors are not always available either. Fortunately, things keep rolling forward nonetheless. We are active on Facebook and Twitter, but also think about a promotional event and a plan to find more points of sale. There is a lot of brain-work going on, but luckily we get lots of pointers from the people around us.

In addition, we dive further into the digital world. We learn the difference between an ebook and an epub and we do some research on how we can publish these through various channels. (Hint: this is a complicated and lengthy process.) Tangible products are fun, but digital books are gaining more and more importance nowadays. We are getting very excited by the idea that we will finally be able to offer a digital version of the Skopje City Walk. All over the world!

The first 1.000 brochures

skopje city walk 1

***DRUM ROLL***

This morning we received the first 1.000 copies of our brochure. Four full boxes. We toasted with a big glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. A healthy city walker does not drink champagne during the day! Tomorrow we will revisit all the hotels and other potential selling points that were interested in purchasing the Skopje City Walk. Just a little bit longer and our brochures are really lying on the shelves!

Dotting i’s and crossing t’s

statue prometheus skopje

We make a few last minute changes to the text (both new pedestrian bridges are now open to the public) and we put the finishing touches to the map (we place numbers next to the sights and we add the street names). Then we take a red pen and start to pick apart the test print of the final design. There are still quite some more changes to make.

After that, we rush to the Dutch Embassy, where we have an appointment to brainstorm about promotion opportunities and possible help with that. The conversation is very inspirational. (But how much there is still to do!) In the late afternoon we send all our comments and two belated ads to the designer. In the evening he sends us an updated version of the Skopje City Walk. Ooooh, it’s looking so great!

And then some business things

kapan an skopje

In the mean time, we have started with the actual publishing and selling process of the city walk brochure.

We have also decided that we want to include a few ads. But that decision raises quite a bit of questions. Fortunately, we also have answers.
• What kind of ads do we want? → Only services, products and locations that we can associate with.
• How do we approach advertisers? → With a combination of personal visits, phone calls and e-mails, depending on each person.
• What kind of deals do we make? → We do not place ads in exchange for coupons.

We also realize that it is important for advertisers to know where tourists will be able to buy the Skopje City Walk. So we do a first round along potential points of sale. Fortunately, almost everyone we get a chance to talk to, is immediately interested.

In this project, there are a lot of things we could have planned differently, but we enjoy each lesson as it comes. We stand 100% behind our product and we are proud of everything we’ve done so far! Just a little while longer, and everyone will be able to enjoy our city tour! To be continued.

Walking with a slight delay

statues skopje

Due to personal circumstances we failed to publish our walk guide according to our original deadline. That Macedonia doesn’t have the option for sole proprietorship, doesn’t help either. It seems a bit over the top to start a business (with a mandatory deposit of €5000,- on the company account) to be able to offer our brochure to the tourist office. We already found a solution, but the publication has been somewhat delayed. Please be patient!

City walks in style

statues skopje

The layout of our designer is beyond our expectations. What a difference compared with the plain text we have seen so far! We’re experiencing a real WOW-moment when we admire our walks in full regalia. They are really coming to life. Of course there are always some things that can be discussed, but we are very content. We’ve only a few more corners to turn.