So it’s official – I’ve published my third book, and it’s a children’s book!
I’ve entertained the idea in the back of my mind of eventually trying my hands at writing a kids book for a while, but it wasn’t until earlier this spring when I finally found some direction as to what it could be. I was out walking the dog sometime around March/April when completely at random, I thought that the name A is for Awesome would make a great name for a children’s book – you know, one that runs through the alphabet letter by letter. The remaining hour of my walk was agonizing because I had forgotten my phone at home and I wanted to look right now to see if the name had already been taken.
By the time I got home, I was pretty convinced that at least one other person had already come up with the same great idea as I had, but low and behold searching through Amazon and Google – it wasn’t! And thus a dream was born!
That said, I wasn’t 100% sure if it was something that Lori would be into – I mean, we’d ended the comic over five years ago and drawing wasn’t really a part of her life anymore, but surprisingly she jumped at the idea and even better, together we set a goal to have the whole thing finished and ready for unveiling at her daughter’s 1st birthday party in September! It seemed reasonable at the time, but it honestly ended up being pretty tight because collaborating from across the country is always tough, even with phones and Internet and everything, and we were pretty much working literally right up until the night before the party itself. In fact, we ended up having to get a preview copy printed at the local Office Max because there was just no way to get it done otherwise, which provided its own challenges because A) “Office Max isn’t a book publisher!” and B) they wanted an absolutely ridiculous amount to do a simple 32-page book…
Seriously – you’d think for $40 they could at least be sure to include all of the pages the first go around! 😯
Anyways, as the pictures suggest, the party still turned out great and along with properly celebrating little Madelyn’s first birthday, we were also able to read her the book (which we dedicated to her) in front of a small audience, which was kinda cool! That was about eight weeks ago and I’ve spent way too much of that time since either traveling or on vacation, so admittedly it ended up taking a bit longer to get this thing finally printed and ready for sale than I would’ve liked. But nonetheless, that’s all behind us now and as of this afternoon, the site from which you can purchase it officially went live and is happily standing by to take your order as we speak! 😉
Really, though, like most of the projects that I work on, a whole lot went into this one, but ultimately I’m pretty proud with how it turned out and I sincerely hope that enough people out there feel the same way and choose to order a copy … not only because I want their money, but also just because it’s a really cute book and fun and kinda different from the typical A to Z books that a lot of children’s book authors have already crapped out. Plus, ours is the first book in a series of awesome books, and although we haven’t really put much thought into the next installment just yet, you can probably expect to see it sometime next year and it’s going to be even more fun than this one is to read!
…and the only way you’re going to know what to compare it to is if you buy this one for yourself and check it out! 
By the way, you can find some sample pages and more info over on the main site for the new book, so please take a gander over in that direction if you find yourself truly interested.
I’m very tired now and desperately need to take a well-deserved break this weekend, but 2012 is almost over and I’ve still got more projects on the list to wow you with! I hope that I can wow you with the next one because it’s really very huge, but in the meantime, whether you’ve got kids to shop for this Christmas or simply enjoy a good book about the alphabet yourself, send me $6 and let me send you a copy to enjoy in return!
