Local trail guide becomes next indie bestseller beating out ‘Harry Potter’

A new trail guide titled “Waterloo, Wellington & Guelph Hikes” has become the next indie bestseller at Waterloo's Words Worth Books.

The success of the guide which was self published by author Nicola Ross was an unexpected surprise as Ross said she didn't expect it to take off but, the response has been overwhelming, “…they immediately referred to them [the guide] as their book, in their area, and what's better for an author than have people take the book as their own …”

Ross said she was initially hesitant to create the hiking guide out of fear that there wouldn't be enough trails to hike but, said she was very wrong, “I mean in addition to the Bruce Trail which is, amazing, I mean it's almost 900 kilometres long with 400 kilometres of side trails, it's phenomenal. Then we have conservation areas, we have parks, we have the Grand River Trail, we have the Oak Ridges Moraine Trail. It's just such a rich network of trails …” 

Ross said that in the guide you can expect to find the length of trails and roughly the time it will take to hike them. 

“There's everything from hikes that are pretty challenging, through to ones that are pretty short. They stay on really good surfaces, and I guess more important than anything else [in] the guide, I spent a lot of time on the directions, like really detailed directions, good maps, so they'll take you around. It's like walking with me in a sense …” said Ross, noting that people that are experienced with hiking will find new routes to keep themselves occupied. 

In regards to her decision to self-publish Ross explained, “I decided to self publish because I'd learned from some other books I had written that, when you have a book that is local in nature, it's pretty easy to find places to sell it. [it's] Different if you have a novel that anybody in the country or anybody in the world could buy but when you have a book that has a real local feel to it like this one, it's not so difficult to find places to sell the books. So that is a determining factor.”

Ross added that her next writing venture will be a book about something other than hiking. 

To get your own copy of the guide visit their website.