August 1st publishing date for my book Respect Our World: Sustainabililty!

I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.

What a surprise I had yesterday, when I noticed stores are posting my children’s educational book for pre-order!

It all started last summer…

• I received my usual copy of the Children’s Writer newsletter, produced by the Institute of Children’s Literature (see my post about ICL here)
• The newsletter mentioned a book producer looking for authors to work on projects.
• Since I’d been planning to check out non-traditional publishing opportunities, I looked into it.
• I sent my writing resume to Red Line Editorial.
• In early December I received an email from Red Line, inviting me to work on a project, their series of books called To Be Canadian.
• I accepted, and said I’d like to work on the one about Sustainability.
• I spent most of my school’s Christmas holiday researching and contacting experts.
• It was a VERY tight schedule, rather exhausting, but I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having!
• I wrote evenings and weekends during January, and edited and rewrote during February.
• They accepted my manuscript, noting that they planned to publish the series in the fall.
• I proceeded to wonder for the next few months if they were really going to publish it the way I wrote it, if it will say my name anywhere, what it will look like.
• I couldn’t really believe I’d be the author of a children’s book.

But it’s true!

Here are a couple websites that show the series, Beech Street Books (the publisher), and McNalley-Robinson.

And yes, my name is on the cover. Whew.

If you have an inkling to pursue this kind of work-for-hire educational writing opportunity, I recommend checking out Red Line’s website , and Evelyn Christenson’s website, which lists many other educational publishers.

YA-HOO!

Thank you publicdomainpictures.net for the HAPPY image!