Substack Exclusive: Busy in the Sun
Paid subscribers see (and hear) the next Big Old Garden in first-draft form!
Hello, Friends!
You may remember that I’ve been working on the next Big Old Garden book. Well, I have now drafted all but four chapters (which are outlined and ready to go). Hooray!
I have begun to think about funding publication, which demands serious consideration. When you count up all the artists and editors involved in making a book as good as children deserve it to be, the cost to make Busy in the Sun available as a paperback like A Year in the Big Old Garden and Beside the Pond is nearly eight thousand dollars.
Now, I have indeed hoarded the proceeds from sales of previous books (like a dragon!), and that has helped offset costs for a few initial illustrations (like the one below). But it takes a while for book sales to accumulate, and we funded publication of A Nose For Trouble just last Christmas, so the shortfall is… well, it’s mostly shortfall.
So here is what I’ve decided:
Beginning in September 2024, I will release one first-draft chapter of Busy in the Sun here on Substack each month, for paid subscribers only.
Each Substack post will include the full text of a first-draft chapter, and an audio recording of me reading it aloud. I hope that this combination will make it easy to share with the kids you love!
Depending on how this paid subscriber initiative works out, I think it’s a reasonable hope to release paperbacks in time for Christmas 2025. The first chapter, Snowdrops and Honeybees, will appear right here in two weeks. What do you think?
Excited for this, pal!