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Stephanies & First Book Update

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Screenshot of donation confirmation page on First Book's site.We launched The Stephanies last month and promised to share half our profits for the month of November with First Book. November is done and gone (and with it all those great Movember mustaches!) so it’s time to tally our sales and make a donation.

We sold a whopping 7 print copies and 8 digital copies, for a grand total of $30.38 in royalties. So we’ll make a donation to First Book for $15.19. Doesn’t sound like much, but it will provide six new books to kids in need. That’s pretty cool. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy!

Those sales can be combined with the 36-some odd sales from our Kickstarter campaign and that’s pretty great for a self-published book written by a 6-year-old. How many books did you sell as a first grader? I’ve got a big ol’ nothing in that count. Creating this book, sharing it with the world and giving back in a tiny little way has been pretty awesome. The numbers don’t sound like much, but we weren’t in it for the numbers.

More than anything I had a blast doing it with Lexi. I now owe Milo a book project of his own. And this is a great test case for how kids can make their own books (not to mention how to use Kickstarter).

While we’re no longer donating our profits (we’ll now siphon the cash straight to Lexi’s college fund), you’re welcome to grab your own copy of The Stephanies. We’ve got the original paperback, a “Color-Your-Own” paperback, and digital versions for the Kindle, iBook & Nook, and the standard PDF version. It’s a great little gift for the kid in your life, no matter how old they are.

Books

The Stephanies & First Book

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I Support First BookTomorrow is your last chance to grab a copy of The Stephanies and support First Book. We’re sharing half our profits from the month of November with First Book, and with tomorrow being the last day of the month, it’s your last chance.

First Book is an organization that gives kids in need access to books. What’s so great about books? Aside from being awesome, literacy is the best predictor of a child’s future success. If they can read, they’re more likely to do better in life. The biggest barrier to literacy is not having access to books. It’s kind of a simple—if a kid can’t get easy access to a book, they’re not going to learn how to read.

So First Book is about giving kids that first book, giving them access to books so they can learn how to read so they can do better in life. It’s simple, but it’s awesome.

For $10 they can donate four new books, so hopefully we’ll be able to give a few books. It’s kind of cool to not only write a book, but to help others learn how to read books.

The idea of not having books is kind of unfathomable to me. We have literally thousands of books in our house. The kids both have at least a hundred books in their rooms. We like books. I hope in some small way we can pass on that love.

So if you haven’t done it yet, grab a copy of The Stephanies. We’ve got the original paperback, a “Color-Your-Own” version, and digital versions for the Kindle, iBook & Nook, and the standard PDF version. We’ll donate 50% of the profits to First Book.

Thanks.

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The Stephanies is Available

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The StephaniesAll the wild frenzy of the U.S. presidential election comes down to today. I’ve been blogging about it almost non-stop lately, but today it’s time to shut up and go vote. And then spend the rest of the day in a state of unnerved distraction, trying not to reload your favorite news site every 10 minutes (oh wait, is that just me?).

So today I’m launching an election distraction: The Stephanies is now available. You can go buy the print version, the digital version or the “color-your-own” version where you (or your kid) can be the illustrator.

The Story
The Stephanies is a short, goofy little story about two girls who are both named Stephanie. Sharing a name causes all kinds of problems and the two girls continually square off:

“My name is Stephanie!”

“No, my name is Stephanie!”

“Grr…” both girls grumbled.

It’s great fun. If you’re into children’s books, think more Robert Munsch than Margaret Wise Brown. This is the book my 6-year-old daughter and I wrote together and then published through a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Good Cause
Proceeds from the original Kickstarter campaign went to Lexi’s college fund, but for the month of November we’re going to share. Half the profits from The Stephanies will go to First Book, an organization that gives kids in need access to books.

Watch Lexi Read
We also put together a fun video of Lexi reading The Stephanies:

Thanks & Please Review
I’d be remiss if I didn’t send out a big thank you to everyone who backed our Kickstarter campaign and made this project possible. Thank you!

I hope you’ll check out the book, give it a review on Amazon and tell your friends. Thanks!