| Heya <<First Name>>,
Here’s all you need to know about this email: We’re discounting our new middle-grade novel by 64% through Tuesday, Feb. 15.
There’s an insanely long postscript below, but you can safely ignore it.
Happy reading,
Jeff and Bob …
… who believe that reading with kids can change the world for the better.
Insanely long postscript
Here’s the backstory on how a little coming-of-age book about a zombie girl changed the trajectory of my life and ruined any chance I had of being a respectable business professional.
It’s 2010, and after a decade or so as a writer/editor at a slew of big Seattle companies, my career pretty much burned down to cinders after a grim two-year slog through the halls of one tech behemoth who shall go unmentioned.
I received two souvenirs from that time: a companywide award for a project I led, and a stroke. (As a former college decathlete who didn’t smoke or overdrink, and who’d remained reasonably fit, the latter was particularly galling.)
To compound the whole midlife-crisis-of-it-all, I was also going through a divorce at the time. (Yes, divorces are a bummer. But I’ve learned that people can sometimes be better advocates for each other’s growth after they part.)
Well. Thinking I was done with the rat race, I decided to become an elementary school teacher. And after a year of school, I found it was a good fit for me.
The problem was, I wanted a great fit.
Who knew it would be zombies?
Around that time, my best old ex-friend (what a sad phrase that is!) introduced me to two other guys he knew who were launching a publishing company. The idea was that they were going to create beautifully designed public domain children’s books for the iPad.
One of the founders loved zombies, so he asked if I could take a stab, so to speak, at creating a zombie version of “The Three Little Pigs.” I wasn’t really into zombies, but I like a writing challenge, so I said yeah.
The company founders liked my revision, and suddenly we pivoted and became a zombie-book company for kids. Could I write a version of Red Riding Hood? Sure. It turned into a novel.
Goldilocks? Of course. An even longer novel.
Shockingly, our business model didn’t really work out.
The founders moved on to different ventures. Our little company dissolved.
But … seeds were planted. I learned that I liked writing kids books. And I met my current business partner, Bob.
Three books, a long pause, then a deluge
I wrote and published two other books: “Ooh Odd Zoo,” an abecedarium of animal poems; and “The Man Who Walked in Salt,” a picture book about grief.
Then work and life and raising my teen kids took over. I jumped back into the marketing world for a few years and back-burnered the kids-books.
In 2018, raw from the end of a relationship, I accepted my therapist’s invitation to simplify life and reconnect with the things that gave me meaning.
One of them was writing kids books. Still.
I wrote 19 that year. Mostly by getting up early and writing before work.
After that, I just kept writing.
A company, and a zombie story, reborn
Bob and I had worked together on a number of projects over the years.
Since he loves brainstorming business ideas, I called him up. “Bob,” I said, “I never let the kids-book idea go. And, well, now I’ve written about 30 more. Want to try again and see if we can make a business around it?”
We met for drinks at University Village in Seattle. I brought my stack of story offprints and we mapped out a plan for 320 Sycamore Studios.
One of those stories was the zombie-meets-Little-Red-Riding-Hood mashup that started everything years before and was still floating around on Amazon. “Scar and the Wolf.” Scar for “Scarlet.”
Only, I wasn’t happy with the book.
We pulled it off Amazon.
I rewrote the whole thing, commissioned new illustrations, and had the new version re-edited, re-proofed, and redesigned.
In the meantime, however, we published 9 other books.
Which means “Scar” is our first book and also our 10th.
About the whole “eating brains” thing
And yes, all the characters — aside from a tres fashionable (but untrustworthy wolf) — are zombies. And while there’s a bunch of gross-but-not-too-gross stuff in the story, it’s really a coming-of-age tale about a girl learning some truths about accountability, beauty, and friendship.
(Full disclosure, in case you’re wondering: These zombies DO eat brains, but only from animals that have died peacefully in their sleep. Honest.)
Oh, if you’re reading the story aloud, there’s a giant Jimmy Buffett Easter egg for you near the end.
I had so much fun with the story world that I went ahead and rewrote the sequel, too.
It’s called “Moldylocks and the Bear.” It’ll be out in March. And it’s a feast. While “Scar” is 100 pages, “Moldy” will be about 300.
Meantime, I still get up early and write before starting my day job.
Right now, I’m working on another middle-grade novel. It’s about how you can pursue something meaningful for a long time before the reason you’re pursuing it becomes clear.
Write what you know, and all that. |
