This image of the San Francisco skyline that appears on the front cover of Bit Flip was taken by Kehn Hermano and discovered on Pexels.com by my cover designer, David Provolo. I thought it perfectly captured the beauty of the city, with just a hint of an ominous vibe thanks to the long shadows. The U-turn in the road also perfectly symbolizes the “change of heart” that is encapsulated in the book’s title—a “bit flip” is when a bit changes from 0 to 1 or back, and is a metaphor for changing one’s mind 180 degrees.

Photo by KEHN HERMANO: https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-aerial-shot-of-a-road-on-a-mountain-7148543/

Once we decided on that image for the book cover, I immediately became curious, “Where is that?” I knew it was near Twin Peaks, the highest point in the city. But I eventually found the exact spot: Christmas Tree Point overlooking Twin Peaks Drive. I was compelled to visit that location myself, and that’s when inspiration struck: “What if I did a virtual tour of the real-world locations that are featured in the book?”

The product of that idea is what I call the Bit Flip Virtual Book Tour.

I’m now 7 episodes into the tour with 20 total episodes planned. I release a new episode on YouTube every Tuesday, and you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel to be notified when new episodes are available. This series has been a fantastic way to bring the book to life. Each episode is time-consuming to produce, but the response has been incredible—with over 5,000 combined views so far across the series.

They have also been a blast to create! Armed with just my iPhone, a tripod, and a $137 Shure microphone I bought on Amazon, I have shot these videos all over the San Francisco Bay Area. And I just shot an episode in Lima, Ohio, the hometown of my protagonist, Sam Hughes, which will come out next week.

Here’s a summary of the series so far, with links to each episode:

Introduction—Kicking off the series from The Stanford Dish overlooking Silicon Valley.
Twin Peak—The first stop on the tour: the view on the cover from Christmas Tree Point.
The Embarcadero & Moscone Center—This picturesque boulevard appears in Chapter 1, when Sam is summoned to a conference at Moscone.
Richardson Court—Visiting the block in Palo Alto where Sam lives with his family that first appears in Chapter 3.
Four Seasons Silicon Valley—The location of the “avocado scene” where Sam has breakfast with one of their venture investors.
Golden Gate Bridge & Cavallo Point—Sam attends an executive off-site at Cavallo Point Lodge under the Golden Gate Bridge in Chapter 4.
SoMa—Sam spends a day in Chapter 8 interviewing for jobs in SoMa, the heart of the tech district of San Francisco.

I hope you enjoy these and the episodes to come. Don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe!