In September of 2011 my adoptive mother’s book, about my adoption, called [Missing Mila, Finding Family: An International Adoption in the Shadow of the Salvadoran Civil War] was published. She had been working on the book for eight years, so it was an exciting time for her. As she got ready to share her work with various reading groups and forums, I suggested that she ask her publisher to develop a website for the book. From my work on A Kickstarter’s Guide, I knew that having a site was important because it served as a place for potential readers to learn more about the book and hopefully purchase it. My mom liked the idea and said that she would ask her publisher about it.

It turned out that the small academic press did not have the resources to develop a website specifically for my mother’s book. They explained that their marketing focus was more geared toward academic institutions than individual readers. Missing Mila would be listed in their fall print catalog and would be available for purchase on their site, but that was all they would do. However, they said it would be thrilled if we wanted to create a website for the book to help promote it. So with the press’s blessing, we began developing a site.

Fortunately for us, I had recently been connected with a talented web designer, name Cedric Victor. He had been a backer of my Kickstarter Guide campaign and had participated in letter writing campaigns to El Salvador with Amnesty International. I reached out to him to see if he would be interested in helping us out. He was, and he quickly built a beautiful website. I worked with Cedric to develop the site and setup a web server to host it. My mother loved our work and began to mentioning missingmila.com during her talks.

While on the road my mother noticed that people either forgot the address of her website or were having a hard time finding it. She wanted to know if I could create some “take away” material that she could give to people who were interested. I used the site moo.com and created a set of business cards for her to hand out. Drawing on the videography skills I had been learning, while working on my documentary film, I also created a promotional video for her site. The video was a sit-down interview with my mother where she gave an overview of the book and talked about the work that went into it.

Over the course of two years, my mother presented at many different colleges and reading groups. The website, video, and business cards were a vital part of the promotion of her book. Missing Mila has been available for several years now and is still available through print on demand. MissingMila.com continues to serve as a starting point for people who are interested in her work.

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