Something Cool Happened the Other Day.

Maternity Abroad Book
Written By Jessica Gabrielzyk

I want to be upfront that I'm not entirely sure the two things I'm about to tell you are directly connected. You know the famous statistics example — the increase in drowning on beaches correlates perfectly with the increase in ice cream purchases. Correlation, not causation. Same energy here. Possibly. But hear me out anyway, because the story ends very well.

📖 A QUICK BACKSTORY

When I launched Maternity Abroad, I did not have a website for the book. I know. I know. I have a marketing degree. I was in the "launch it and figure out the rest later" era of my life and honestly, that era served me fine. The domain existed somewhere in the universe, cost more than I wanted to think about, and so I moved on. The book launched. Life continued.

Fast forward to the other day (over a year later) I was working on the website for Parenting Unpacked when something — instinct, curiosity, a small voice, call it what you want — told me to go and check the domain for Maternity Abroad. Just to look. Just to see.

It was €4.99.

Four euros and ninety-nine cents. I showed my husband. We looked at each other. We bought it immediately. You don't think about it, you just buy it.

🤨 THE PART THAT DIDN'T SIT RIGHT

And then the questions started. Because something felt off. Not bad-off. Suspicious-off. Maternity Abroad is a great name. Clear, direct, exactly what it says. And — my marketing brain would like a moment here — genuinely good for SEO. Straightforward search term. Easy to remember. No weird spelling.

So why was nobody sitting on it? Why had no domain squatter swooped in and listed it for €300? Why was this name just sitting there for under a fiver, unbothered, like an abandoned sandwich?

A good domain, cheap and unclaimed, is either a great opportunity or a sign that something has already changed. My husband decided to find out which. He asked ChatGPT.

Domain price screenshot

🤖 MY HUSBAND, CHATGPT, AND THE REVELATION

MY HUSBAND (SUSPICIOUS, THOROUGH, DOING HIS DUE DILIGENCE)

Why would the domain "maternity abroad" suddenly be cheap and still available? It seems like a strong, specific name.

CHATGPT (ZERO DRAMA, MAXIMUM IMPACT)

Domain names can drop in price when the search term becomes less unique. In this case, "maternity abroad" may be less exclusively associated with a single brand because books with that title or theme are already well established in the market — making the phrase more generic and therefore less premium to hold as a speculative asset.

My husband started laughing. The kind of laugh where you have to call someone over. So I went over. I read it. And I stood there for a second.

The domain was cheap because "maternity abroad"was no longer a unique phrase. Because a book called Maternity Abroad was already well known. Because my book was already well known. Because I had, without a single strategy meeting, made the phrase too established to be worth speculating on.

😂 WHAT WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING

The domain was cheap because my book had already dominated the search term.

I didn't miss the domain. I made it generic. There is a difference and I am choosing to feel extremely good about it.

There I was. Accidentally dominating a corner of the internet through the simple act of writing a book and putting it into the world. No campaign. No ad spend. No strategy deck. Just: wrote it, launched it, apparently shaped the search landscape enough that the name lost its speculative value.

My marketing degree — which I have occasionally, quietly, wondered whether it was doing anything — would like to take a small bow. Not because I planned any of this. But because I recognised it when I saw it. And that counts.

We bought the domain. It's ours now. The website is coming — properly this time, not in the "launch it and figure out the rest later" era. That era was charming. This one will be intentional.

And somewhere out there, the algorithm already knows what Maternity Abroadmeans. It learned from the book. Which is, honestly, the best thing my marketing brain has heard since graduation.

Feeling accidentally strategic,

Jessica Gabrielzyk

✦ MATERNITY ABROAD · NOW WITH A DOMAIN · WEBSITE INCOMING · WATCH THIS SPACE ✦

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk is a Brazilian writer living in Switzerland. She moved there with her husband and daughter, who was three months old at the time and had strong opinions about the whole thing even then.

She writes about change.

The visible kind and the kind that happens inside a person, while everything on the outside looks fine.

Her first book, Maternity Abroad, explored what it means to become a mother far from the system you trusted. It has reached readers in more than fifteen countries across five continents. Parenting Unpacked, her second book, follows the experience of parenting through major life disruption, whether that's an international move, a career loss, a new baby, or a life that simply stops responding the way it used to. My First American Coloring Book was created to help toddlers engage with daily life in the United States through play and familiar imagery.

She is a member of SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, and the International Academy of Brazilian Literature.

She writes for the parent who is still inside it, getting through the day, and wondering somewhere underneath all of it who they are becoming.

When she is not writing, she is walking forty minutes uphill with a stroller, telling herself the exercise is the point.

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