My Dilemma

Eli is off and running and it seems like he has taken on a trajectory of his own, however I am not surprised to see that people are not lining up to purchase my new book.  This negative response to the arrival of my new book brings me to a dilemma making me consider different alternatives for promoting my book.  Do I need to get a new platform, a stage, a podium, a grandstand, a soapbox, a lectern or a pulpit where I can deliver the message about Eli coming soon?  Apparently Facebook and WordPress are not living up to my expectations, but I think that word of mouth will be the best way to get this message out.  Once my book is published and someone buys it and they read it, then they will tell others.  My book is a story book and it includes many folklore and mythology stories.  My book is basically just oral communication between my characters, where one person tells the others a story and this continues throughout my entire book.  This is why I think that Word of Mouth Advertising will work so well for my book, as the readers that do like my book will influence or encourage other to read it, and this should steer dozens of new readers my way.

If a reader tells two of their friends that they enjoyed reading my book and they each go out and purchase it and they also enjoy reading it, then it is possible that they will each tell two of their friends.  The Fibonacci numbers appear everywhere in Nature and I think that it is likely that this same exponential growth pattern could happen with the sales of my book.  The famous Fibonacci sequence is also known as the Golden Ratio and its enchanting beauty has held the interest of artists, designers, mathematicians and scientists since its inception.

Leonardo Fibonacci did not invent the Fibonacci sequence, as he learned this from the Arab world, but he did bring it to Europe and thus it is named after this Italian mathematician.  It consists of a series of numbers in which each number is derived by getting the sum of the two preceding numbers.  Fibonacci was able to make people understand this sequence by posing and solving a problem which involved the growth of a hypothetical population of rabbits based on idealized assumptions.  This interesting exponential population growth problem involved a pair of newly-born rabbits, one male and one female, who were put in a field and allowed to do what comes natural to rabbits (multiplying their numbers).  The rabbits are able to mate at the age of one month, and pregnancy takes one month, so that at the end of the second month a female can produce another pair of rabbits, no more or no less and the population increases by exactly two rabbits.  If these rabbits never die and the female is always able to produce one new pair (one male, one female) every month from the second month on, how many pairs will there be in one year?  The circumstances and restrictions are not realistic, although rabbit pregnancies actually do last roughly about one month and female rabbits can become pregnant again within a few days after giving birth and also rabbits tend to reach their sexual maturity between three and six months of age.  Brothers are mating with sisters, but we will not consider any potential genetic problems.  Rabbits differ from other mammals in that the female ovulates after being mounted by a male, and this means that after a rabbit has given birth, if the male is still present, she can and most likely will become pregnant within 24 hours of giving birth.

The solution for this problem, for generation by generation rabbit reproduction, became the sequence of numbers known as Fibonacci numbers.  This scenario would never happen because the rabbits would eventually deplete their resources of food, water and available living space.  Rabbits can multiply fast, but that does not mean that they are good at math and if a rabbit’s foot is so lucky, then why does it usually end up hanging on a key chain, instead of still being attached to the rabbit?

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