The ARC Arrives!
An exciting week in the forest! These beautiful flowers arrived on my doorstep. And flowers are always a celebration. I love flowers! The flowers didn't arrive by themselves, though. No, they were from our lovely friends at C&T Publishing along with a first copy of our book (Advanced Released Copy, or ARC)! And I just discovered there is a preview of the book, sharing pages here. So you can understand why we are happy-dancing!
Holding the book after all the months of writing and crafting and editing and sewing was a strange, marvelous feeling. They took our fairy-world and made magic. We love the layouts and colors. What a treat to see all of the hard work pay off :)
The book releases in late May, which is the trickiest part of showing it off. We took it to school and were asked many times where to buy a copy. A little waiting left...
I loved bringing it to school, because the children saw the wall between books and writers crumble. They thought hard about whether Asia and I had really written a real book. Until we showed them page with fairies and gnomes, their Moon Pockets and Treasure Owls.
"We made ones like that!"
Which quickly became, "When can we make pirates? And mermaids? And ninjas?"
I better get busy cutting felt :)
We also received CDs with all of the photos they used in the book. We had talented photographers work on Forest Fairy Crafts. I take many of our photographs, but the size and scope of this project meant I was happy to get help. We had over 400 placeholders for images in the original draft! Not all of them made it into the book, but still, they got to work with lots of fairies and crafts.
Our mermaids :)
I am busy today sewing sample for our hat pattern PDF that I will send out to everyone who preorders our book. You can order from any favorite book seller. We will simply ask for an order number or receipt copy. We are working on the technology to make this all possible. Amazon will have the book arrive on your doorstep on release day- you can order here .
We are visiting local bookstores and craft stores to set up book release parties. And I am ready to celebrate. It's a great day in the forest!
I have many postcards (pictured with the flowers) that I want to send you for helping share the fun news. Simply email your address with Fairy Crafts Postcard in the subject line and I will put one in the mail. Don't worry, I won't use your address for anything else :). If you work at a school or know a group of friends/parents/crafters that may appreciate a postcard, tell me how many you would like and I will do my best to drop them in the mail soon. Thank you for supporting the forest!
All kinds of good news. We will keep you posted as I get closer to the big Release Day :)