We did it! Now there's less than 24 hours for the final stretch goal...

Ok, this is it guys. Thank you all so very much for your support!

Now, we're into our last 24 hours. For those of you who haven't heard, we both made our goal AND we're setting one final stretch goal. If we make this, you ALL get something! Take a look at this video and see for yourself:

Enjoy a taste of the book today - watch it or read the first chapter of 'How to love San Francisco - One year in the City by the Bay!

Dear Readers,

we hope you are enjoying the long weekend and maybe even explore new parts of San Francisco! We are now half-way through the campaign and want to say 'Thank you very much' for your previous support!!

Please share the news about the book with your friends and spread the word - it means the world to us!! Just click one (or both!) of the buttons below to make a real difference in just moments!

Now you can even provide your friends with a reading from the book. And if you yourself didn't have the chance to listen in to the story, go ahead! The long weekend is a great chance to do so. You can find the link to the first chapter here. You prefer a shorter version? Just click the video below and watch Johanna reading from the book!


            


Have a wonderful weekend!

Johanna and the campaign team

We just launched 'How to love San Francisco - One year in the City by the Bay" on Indiegogo

Dear Readers,

Finally the wait is over! A couple of minutes ago we launched our popular book “How to love San Francisco - One year in the City by the Bay” on Indiegogo. You can visit the campaign website here.


Or just click onto the book cover:

http://igg.me/at/SF/x/2530712

Please, like it, share it, and back us for some great rewards. A special offer to all early backers who support us in the first 48 hours with more than $100: you will be featured on the "Wall of Fame of early backers" on an extra page in the book!! 

We can’t wait to have you visit our campaign website!

Thanks soo much for supporting us,

Yours,
Johanna

"How to love San Francisco - One year in the City by the Bay" - Our softlaunch event at Rocketspace

Dear San Francisco Fans!

Great things happened recently - last week we soft launched the indiegogo crowdfunding campaign at Rocketspace in San Francisco. What I mean by soft launching? We showed the video to everyone at the event and I gave an exclusive reading of chapter 1 and chapter 2.

That's what my friend Sophia from Rocketspace wrote about the event on their blog:

"The reception at RocketLabs, our 225 Bush St coworking location in San Francisco, was bustling with book lovers Wednesday evening, April 9th, as our very own Johanna Lehmann announced the soft launch of her very popular book, “How to Love San Francisco: One Year in the City by the Bay.” Johanna, aka author Hanni Bayers, regaled the crowd with her Indiegogo fundraising campaign video (featured below) as well as an exclusive live reading of the novel’s second chapter, introducing us to main character Hanni and explaining her book’s very unique structure. This hybrid travel guide and romantic novel follows Hanni’s adventures discovering San Francisco, its startup culture, and the intricacies of dating in America, each chapter followed by excursion details to special places and hidden spots in San Francisco.

This romantic novel meets travel guide, originally written in German, has been lauded far and wide: it’s one of the top 3 books on Amazon in Germany, a Top 3 at the Continuing Studies of Wisconsin, and was a semi-finalist at the Tucson Festival of Books. The author, Johanna Lehmann, was even selected one of the Top 50 non-fiction authors by LovelyBooks, Germany’s largest reading community!

You can support the English language translation through Johanna’s Indiegogo campaign, and download a chapter of the book for free on the Hanni Bayers website!"

Enjoy the full post here!

Let me know what you think!

Love,
Johanna

How To Love San Francisco, a travel novel, to launch on Indiegogo

Folks here you find the original press release for our soft launch event: 

Johanna Lehmann, author of German book Ein Jahr in San Francisco, to launch an Indiegogo campaign to support the publication of its English title, How To Love San Francisco: One Year in the City by the Bay. 

San Francisco, CA, April 2014 – How To Love San Francisco, a successful travel novel originally written
in German, is making its way to English readers. The author, Johanna Lehmann, and her team is set to launch their Indiegogo book campaign on 23rd of April 2014.

How To Love San Francisco: One Year in the City by the Bay is a “marriage of a novel and a travel guide, like a Lonely Planet with a love story. A story taking place in San Francisco and following the story of Hanni, a girl crossing both oceans and cultures to live her dream in The City That Knows How,” quips author and a Bay Area locale. “This book is written for everybody who wishes to learn about the life, culture, and the ins and outs of San Francisco and be entertained with the story of Hanni,” she adds.

The German language version of How To Love San Francisco has already been a Top 3 best seller on Amazon Germany, a semi-finalist at the Tuscon Festival of Books, Top 3 at the Continuing Studies of Wisconsin, and LovelyBooks' Top 50 non-fiction author.

Given the recognitions and positive reviews it has received from various literary communities, the IndieGogo campaign will bring the book to English readership all over the world.

“This book sets up a fresh, somewhat frisky and unusual "take" on San Francisco. The author teases us with questions that ask us to look at our stereotypes. And she presents an answer about San Francisco not being what we think it is. It's an "island nation" not just a city. We liked this fresh voice, which is very hard to attain with travel articles about popular cities that have been written about so many times before. We wanted to turn the page to see what other nuggets the author brought forth," adds Jury of Writer's Institute Madison University.

The IndieGogo campaign was soft launched also in mark of the author’s 30th birthday celebration held at RocketSpace and sponsored by Trumer Pils, a German style Pilsner, and EFACTOR, the world's largest entrepreneurial community.


About Johanna Lehmann

Johanna Lehmann is a San Francisco-based writer. Her previous work on San Francisco won the '2013 Writer's Institute' and was a semi-finalist at the Tuscon Festival of Books in Arizona. Lovelybooks, Germany's biggest reading community, selected her as a Top 50 non-fiction author. The German version of How to love San Francisco is the highest rated book in its category on Amazon. She holds an MBA from Ingolstadt School of Management & INSEAD and took Creative Writing at Stanford University.

For further information about How To Love San Francisco, please visit www.JohannaLehmann.com or contact Johanna Lehmann at JohannaLehmannbooks@gmail.com. Press kit is available here: Bit.ly/howtoloveSF-collateral.

My Soft Launch Reception tonight ...very special day!!!

Dear Readers, 

tonight is a very special day:

•  Soft Launch: Indiegogo Campaign for my new book "How to love San Francisco" 
•   Hard launch: My big 30 is coming up 

And for this special day we even have been able to get some great sponsors on board: 

I am sooo very excited about this event and hope to tell you more about the official launch in a couple of days!

Our Sponsors:

RocketSpace is a technology campus that connects tech startups, innovative brands, accelerator programs, and entrepreneurs to bring the future to market. Thanks for supporting this cause!

                                 

A German style Pilsner, Trumer Pils is characterized by a distinct hops flavor, high carbonation and light body. Trumer Pils is a great beer and since the characters in the book love to drink Trumer Pils, Trumer will be sponsoring some delicious beer for the event. 

A big 'Thank You' to Trumer Pils in Berkeley for supporting us!

                                  

EFACTOR is the entrepreneur's Wingman. EFACTOR is the world’s largest entrepreneurial community. EFactor provides online and offline resources that every small business owner needs: knowledge, funding, gain revenue and save cost. At EFactor, entrepreneurs can exchange ideas with experts, receive exclusive discounts on business tools, interact with potential partners or clients, find employment, healthcare and discover funding for their startups.

EFACTOR, thank you very much to for supporting us!

Weekend fun - my favorite brunch places in San Francisco?

Brunch - that is our way of life in San Francisco.  Why is that? 

First of all, as San Francisco doesn't offer mild warm evenings where you can sit outside and sip a beer. Therefore we rather choose the mornings for this. Since San Franciscans are up pretty early anyway it's not a big deal to get to a brunch place around 9 am - to then wait for another approx. 45 minutes to get seated (YES - San Franciscans love waiting as much as they love brunch:)) . Other locations, like Park Tavern for instance, allow reservations - no waiting required! 

So what are my favourite places? 

1. Outerlands on 4001  Judah Street

This place is temporarily closed and scheduled to reopen in April 2014. 

Although the Sunset doesn't see a lot of love in the culinary world,  Outerlands gives me a reason to make the trek. A few reasons: a rustic, calming space; the smell of fresh-baked levain; and a short menu of simple, delightful brunch dishes. Since you always have a wait here during the weekends: use those 40 minutes and go for a walk with your friends along Ocean Beach - I bet you will be even more hungry afterwards!

2. Mission Beach Cafe on  198 Guerrero Street

This place is in the mission which makes it usually a sun-filled place. They offer Blue Bottle coffee and  artisanal pastry along with farmers' market-inspired brunch. If you haven't had enough drinks the night before you can try some of their mimosas and fill your hungry stomach with scrambles, Benedicts and tasty breakfast sandwiches. And they have green tea chai latte, which I really love. 

3. Tartine Bakery on 561 Valencia Street 

Bart Tartine is a San Francisco highlight - for their fresh bread and their delicious plates to share. I love to order their Potato flatbread with rhubarb, fennel and poppy seeds - it's for a your sweet tooth. For the fans of more hearty brunches my all-time favorite are their open-faced sprouted rye bread sandwiches with beef tartare with green horseradish and fried onion. Come and enjoy!

4. NOPA on 560 Divisadero Street

Ok, it is a little decadent but totally worth it. My favourite dish:  farm eggs pair with sweet-tart caponata, and chicken-sweetbread sausage comes on a base of nutty farro. If I a really hungry I order Custard French Toast along with it (and feel bad about it right away :)) 

Enjoy!!!

Want some travel advice on best geeky sights in San Francisco & Silicon Valley?

If you always wanted to have a guide book which gives you an overview of the most geeky & techie sights of the Bay Area, you will enjoy my latest publication "The Tech Lover's 48-Hour Travel Guide to Silicon Valley & San Francisco" - published with Unanchor.com.

This itinerary to the geeky sights of San Francisco and Silicon Valley offers 48 hours of sights and tips specifically designed for tech-interested people who are interested in the startup and tech world of the Bay Area and might even consider moving to the Valley or Downtown San Francisco.

This is a two-day pilgrimage for the inner geek in you. It was made for two types of visitors:

1. You are visiting the Bay Area and want to get an overview of interesting tech-sights (i.e. see HP Garage, visit Stanford Campus, drive by the Google campus) as well as restaurants and coffee shops where the startup-crowd hangs out.
2. You are planning to work in the Bay Area and want to understand the culture of the valley by discovering the most relevant tech-sights (i.e. visit the Computer History Museum and get an overview of the most relevant incubators or local networking events).

The term Silicon Valley dates back to its large number of silicon chip producing companies. It can be considered the technology hub of the United States. But, recently a trend emerged: startup-companies like Airbnb, Dropbox and Yelp are choosing San Francisco over Silicon Valley. The numbers support this trend: while startups in Silicon Valley raised $1.17 billion between January and March 2013, San Francisco startups raised $1.04 billion. And while 107 deals have been counted in the Valley, there were 104 deals in San Francisco. It still sounds that Silicon Valley leads the game, but if you consider that Silicon Valley is made up of various cities (e.g. Palo Alto, Mountain View, ...) pulling in money and deals, one can see that San Francisco has been ahead of the game this year.

For this reason we are going to cover both Silicon Valley and San Francisco in this guide - along with the two best universities around: Stanford in Palo Alto and the University of California in Berkeley.

Enjoy reading it!

Yours Johanna 

Read the first chapters from the upcoming San Francisco Novel for free!

Yes, for free!

How that works. You just exchange an hour of reading entertainment by a simple tweet with Pay by tweet or with a Facebook Post:




Enjoy reading!

Yours,

Johanna 

The challenge of being a writer: to write everyday & never give up

Yesterday I read a facebook post (How to write for a living) from James Altucher. I consider him a role model for anyone serious in writing and for anyone serious in trying out new forms of publishing. He mentioned that one of the most important aspects of being a serious writer is to never stop writing and to develop a daily practice of a few thousands words. 

People might think that's a lot. But that is what it takes and there are lots of people who are pretty successful doing that: Theresa Ragan or romance author Maya Banks for instance. 

Writing everyday is the best practice you could get. It can be a blog post or an article, a book chapter or just a letter to yourself. The challenge I personally see is that I write a lot of emails every day and a lot of social media entries. And I caught myself trying to cheat by telling me that this counts towards my minimum of 100o words. It doesn't! 

Why? Because it isn't a practice of just being with yourself, focusing on one single topic and trying to get some writing done. It's rather conversational and won't improve your writing skills. 

Still, I have this inner battle everyday! And there is another challenge I have: which is to never give up! Especially if you are living in San Francisco, it feels as if there are overnight successes every single day. People sell their companies for millions and they publish books which instantly become bestsellers. Let me tell you: even in the glorified States of America there isn't really such a thing as overnight success. It is all hard work and many times those people have been putting lots of hours (probably more than 10.000 hours to become very well at what they do) into what finally becomes really good. Taking James Altucher as an example again: he has written lots of books before he finally landed a big success with "Chooseyourself". So really, you just have to work hard, and fall many many times to finally get up and succeed.

I'd like to give up many times: on finishing the next book, on starting my Indiegogo Campaign or on getting myself out there. I entered writing contests - many! And in January I felt that I won't need to do it anymore. Because nothing is coming out of it anyway. But then the unexpected happened: I received an email that I was selected as a winner for the upcoming writers workshop of selected semi-finalists at the Tuscon Festival of Books. Wohoo!! So, somehow my submission was considered good in comparison to another 550 submissions or so. And although it's still not the honeypot at the end of the rainbow, it makes me really happy and it gives me the energy to apply for another ten creative contests :)!

What are your experiences with never giving up and daily practice? Maybe for you it isn't the writing but another discipline!! I'd like to hear and learn from you!!

News on my upcoming Indiegogo Campaign and English book cover

Dear readers,

happy New Year to all of you!!

Having been in Germany over Christmas and New Year with rain and grey skies most of the time, I had quite some time to reflect on 2013, prepare for 2014 and get lots of writing done!

2013 was exciting: with "How to love San Francisco" being published and marketed in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as winning the Writer's Institute of Madison University and finding an awesome translator from Stanford University for the English version of "How to love San Francisco".
2014 will be all about the launch of the San Francisco novel in the English speaking markets. I really can't wait to get your feedback and comments on the book. And with quite a few of you I have already been in active discussions via Twitter, Facebook and email.

Therefore: Thanks a lot to all of you to visiting my blog frequently and following the story of Hanni Bayers in San Francisco.

I have good news for you: over Christmas I had some time to prepare my upcoming Indiegogo Campaign and work on the book. More news on that in the next few days! My Indiegogo Campaign will be launched in the next two weeks and I am planning to launch the book in Q1 2014. The wait is finally over :)!

In addition to that the English book cover is finished as well - I tried to keep it close to the German style. How do you like it?

I you want to read an excerpt from the upcoming novel, visit me here.

Happy Tuesday,

Johanna