On Thanksgiving morning, I received a LinkedIn message from one of my contacts. It read as follows:

“Good morning Daisy,

My name is ______ and I work for _____ College. I was the coordinator for the Immigrant Language Training programs at [the college] and also taught the Newcomer Career Exploration course. I read your book a couple of years ago and thought it was a one of a kind resource for professional newcomers. I have since purchased four class sets and each one of my students has commented on how beneficial it has been through their transition here in Canada.

Our program assists professional newcomers transition to the Canadian workplace – each student must complete a work placement to gain experience. Our team has had a great success rate. Out of 15 students that enroll in our full-time program each year, an average of 7 students find full-time employment in their respective fields. This is not including our part-time student success!

I also would like to let you know that the first year I only purchased a set – hoping that students would return them at the end of the year…but, of course they valued your book and asked to keep it. This is the reason why I have purchased 4 sets – each semester. I give them away to the students, to keep learning and so that they can go back to those chapters in your textbook that are most important to them.

I would like to thank you for writing this textbook. I created my new hybrid course around your textbook and would love to share it with you some time.”

For obvious reasons I have not included her name nor the name of the college, but what a Thanksgiving gift! And I responded to her to tell her just that.

That news spurred me to do the Math and find out how many copies of this book that have been printed. It came up to 4,219. This number includes what has been sold, given away, as well as the ebook version.

Now, why is it a bestseller? During one of my researches when writing the book, I found out that if a self-published book sold 500 copies and more, it was considered a bestseller. Well…? No Canadian Experience, Eh? is one!

There are so many people to thank for this achievement, but my gratitude continues to go out to the 16 contributors of the second edition. You know who you are and this couldn’t have happened without you. What started as an idea, evolved into a book that has been making a difference to the lives of many people. Isn’t that a BIG announcement? In addition, this woman took it a step further and used the book to create a hybrid course for her students.

Never underestimate the rippling effects of one book.