What is “Park City Explorer”? It’s a guidebook to the Park City lifestyle written by a 20+ year local (me!).
If you are planning to spend a weekend or a lifetime in our mountain town, this book provides insider tips on the best the area offers. It is organized by season, but don’t expect each season to be neatly divided into 3-month periods. This book is organized by Park City’s actual seasons! For example, winter is long, and fall is short. There is a description of what to expect each season, and how to prepare for it, along with the best indoor activities, outdoor activities, kid’s activities, dining, special events, and day trips for every month of the year.
Personal stories from my years of living in Park City are sprinkled throughout the book. Although the title of the book is “Park City Explorer,” I’ve included all the towns located in the Wasatch Back because, over time, the Park City area has expanded to the Heber Valley, Kamas Valley, and Coalville.
This book was a labor of love for me and an expression of my gratitude for all that Park City has given to me and my family. I hope it will be a valuable companion to my readers. I’ve made it an affordable paperback for $19.95. It will make a great holiday gift!
The Inside Story Behind Park City Explorer
Why would a busy real estate agent publish a book about the town where she sells real estate? Here is the backstory.
I started writing a real estate blog on my website, InsideParkCityRealEstate.com in 2008. The blog is posted on the website and emailed to my database every Wednesday. That’s right — I’ve been writing a blog once a week for 16 years. Blog topics rotate between the Park City lifestyle and real estate information.
Three years ago, one of my clients told me that she saved all my blogs as a resource for things to do in the area. She looked for a guidebook about Park City but couldn’t find one – and she suggested I use my blogs to create a book about Park City.
This was not as easy as it sounds. I wasted 9 months organizing my blogs and slapping them together. It was a total failure. I wasn’t really sure what to do next, as I didn’t know anything about writing a book. Then serendipity struck.
In the fall of 2022, I went on vacation to a spa in Arizona. My girlfriend traveled from the airport to the spa in a shared van with that week’s author-in-residence. We ended up becoming friendly with the author and I asked her about the process she used to write her book. After all, she was not someone who had studied to be a writer. She was a therapist. She immediately shared the name of Julie, the person she used who helps authors go from idea to finished product. A few months later, I flew to North Carolina to meet with Julie in person.
Julie and I brainstormed the structure of the book at a hotel in Ashville, North Carolina. That was in December of 2022. It took me over a year and a half to fill in that outline and write the first draft. Julie did the first round of edits. Back to the drawing board. Remember, during this time, I was running a busy real estate business. In 2023, I was one of the top-selling agents in the entire state of Utah! I wrote my book Monday through Friday from 7 am to 9 am after I returned home from the gym.
Finally, in the spring of 2024, the book was sent to a professional editor. By early summer, I sent the book to a formatter. I received my first hard copy of the book in October, and on October 29, 2024, my book was live on Amazon.
One concept I strongly believe in, and practice, is that you should pay for the best help you can find and afford. Once I engaged professionals who knew what they were doing, I was able to focus on writing the book and taking care of my real estate clients. It made more sense for me to concentrate on my real estate business than to learn how to self-publish a book. I would strongly recommend this process to anyone else thinking of writing a book.
When I hold the book in my hands, I am amazed to see how it all came together. My purpose in writing Park City Explorer was to help as many people as possible enjoy the Park City lifestyle as much as I do.