A book to call my own

I'm having a book published!

There, I've said it.  I've been working on it for a few months now and been wondering when I should mention it on my blog.  Finally, I decided it's time.  After all, you guys are my most loyal readers so it's only right that I give you a sneak peak.

How did this project come about? Well, as you know, I've been writing for clients for more than 10 years now and recently, the thought struck me that it would be nice to have something published that was mine, instead of belonging to someone else. I was reading my old blog posts one day and chuckling over some Andre stories when I thought, maybe some of these could be possible fodder for a book.  So I compiled a few and emailed them to Edmund, the boss of Epigram Books, whom I know from previous work collaborations.

Quite to my surprise, he instantly replied and said, "Yes. Let's talk."  So talk we did and to cut a long story short, I signed a contract with Epigram Books for a fiction title. I must say, I feel very blessed. What? No need to cry over tons of rejection slips? No passing on a manuscript from publisher to publisher begging them to take a look at my work?  Maybe God figures I'm too tired to take that sort of rejection and gave me a free pass, haha.

Anyway, here are the details:

Title (tentative): The Good, the Bad and the PSLE
Genre: Literary fiction (humour)
No. of pages: 160 (approximate)
Format: paperback
Release date: September 2013
RRP: $17.90 (before GST)/$19.15 (after GST) 

The book is essentially about a typical Singaporean mother who navigates the local education system by helping her two children do well in school. Her older daughter is an ace student while her younger son is the total opposite who cares more about soccer and canteen food than getting full marks for spelling. The book culminates in the daughter' PSLE.

At this point, you're probably thinking, hmm... this family sounds familiar and of course, you're right! Many of the stories were taken from my old blog posts and woven into a narrative.  The son is very much based on Andre and the daughter in the book is a more intense version of Lesley-Anne.  I state this upfront so that if you're a long-time reader of my blog and decide to buy my book, you won't be surprised if you come across previously used material. 

I deliberately wrote this book as a fun and light-hearted read, it's definitely NOT a how-to-survive-PSLE guide (although as I told the publisher, the latter might actually sell more copies!)  I've always been big on humour so I hope to give readers a few laughs, especially on this subject that has come to stress out many Singaporeans.

The book is going through edits now and the picture on the right is a proposed book cover that has since been rejected and being reworked.  But here, you guys get a little behind-the-scenes glimpse at the work-in-progress.

It's a fascinating process and I love being part of it.  Epigram Books is great - they consult authors over things like covers, illustrations and really put in a great deal of thought into them.

I'll be giving regular updates on this blog. It's still two months before the book is published but when the time comes, I hope I can count on all your support!