I did sell 41 sets of MuseCubes, though! Not bad given that the extent of my marketing including: (1) two weeks of carrying a basket of MuseCubes around with me wherever I go, and (2) one week asking folks on Facebook and Twitter to repost my MuseCube announcements!

There’s something else I’m excited about: whereas last year I sold 126 MuseCubes to people who know me, this year the bulk of the sales came from people who DON’T know me directly, but are loosely connected through social media. This points to the power of neo-marketing, and gets me excited about putting more effort into nurturing relationships around the globe through my blog, twitter, and facebook.

A final pleasure to announce: just yesterday I received Flat Jack in the mail. Flat Jack arrived to me from an elementary classroom in Vermont along with the following note:

Dear friend,

Our class read “Flat Stanley” by Jeff Brown. In this story a boy named Stanley Lambchop is flattened by a bulletin board. He doesn’t get hurt — in fact, he has many fun adventures as a flat boy. …

Enclosed is my very own flat traveler that I made. Please help my flat traveler to have adventures during his visit with you. In January send him back home in the enclosed envelope along with letters, drawings, and photos to tell us about his time with you.

This is primarily a geography project so please also include information about where you live and what it’s like there.

Thank you,
Mr. Leal’s First Grade
Union Elementary School
Montpelier, VT

I had fun bringing Flat Jack with me as I packaged and mailed all my MuseCubes orders this morning. The picture above shows Flat Jack in the MuseCubes basket along with the new MuseCubes brochures as well as a flower that just recently fell off of a tree. (I think it’s a cool geography fact that California actually has flowers in the winter; in Vermont, where Flat Jack is fun, he just has snow!).

Here’s a picture of the basket underneath the flowering tree…

And here’s Flat Jack lying on top of envelopes filled with MuseCubes.

Flat Jack helped me bring the MuseCubes to the post office, and we mailed them off to Texas, Washington DC, Florida, Seattle, and Texas. Soon I’ll actually put a map on the website so that we can watch the MuseCubes fever spread like wildfire across the country (once I launch the iPhone app, I anticipate it stretching across the world as well!

A final note to Mr. Leal: I’d hoped to write a blog entry that’s more first-grade friendly. Sorry that this has ended up being more “grown up” than I expected. Just let your students know — and Jack in particular — that Flat Jack is having a great time. He’s so glad that he doesn’t need his winter coat, since he forgot to put it into the envelope when he got mailed to California.

This post first appeared today on www.gretchenwegner.com