It’s hard to know where to start with this post, so let’s dive in and then catch up. I got a book deal!

Harriman House, an imprint of Pan McMillan based in the UK, will publish the second edition of “The Little Book of Boards: A Board Member’s Handbook for Small (and Very Small) Nonprofits” on June 16. I wrote more about the book on my nonprofit site.

But the story I really want to tell starts in the sixth grade. That’s when I wrote 80 pages and thought I’d written a novel. (I had plans to be a best-selling middle-school novelist.) I eventually wrote a sequel to that book in the seventh grade and then another sequel in the eighth grade. And then I actually had a novel. Still, it turns out that no one was interested in publishing an eighth grader’s novel called Terror in the Cascades.

After that, as my friends will attest, because I made them read every book, I wrote a book about every 12 to 18 months throughout high school and college. I was mostly writing whatever I was reading in my English classes, so the books get more and more literary during that time.

My writing slowed after graduation as I got a handle on what it meant to be an adult who had to adult in the world. But in 2007, I discovered National Novel Writing Month. A book in a month? Was that even possible? I decided to give it a go. But I knew that in order to have any chance at all, it had to be genre fiction.

I wrote what became “The Saints Go Dying,” a pretty classic “cat and mouse” sort of mystery between a detective and a serial killer. Fast forward to 2010, and this book later became the first book I self-published.

I learned a lot of things very quickly at that time.

First, despite my years away from it, I still loved writing! That part of me had definitely not gone away.

And second, I loved publishing too. It didn’t matter to me that I had self-published the book. I had readers. It was the best kind of hook.

I threw myself into this new world of self-publishing. Looking back, my publishing journey is pretty hilariously all over the board. Mysteries, science fiction, a play, and more.

Because I also discovered that I really liked helping people with my writing.

When I wrote my first piece of nonfiction, it was written to my younger self. Here are some practical tools that would help you be a better fundraiser as you start your journey. And then, I kept going. And those books… lasted. A book I first wrote in 2009 was recommended by “LinkedIn for Nonprofits” in 2022. That’s some amazing staying power.

And that’s why I’m so excited about “The Little Book of Boards” getting a second edition with one of the big publishers.

It’s not just because “I’ve made it” as a writer. To be honest, I’ve gotten over that feeling. (I’ve sold something like 140,000 copies of my all books over the last 15 years. I got over not feeling like a “real” writer a long time ago.)

No, what I love about this is that so many more people will get to find this book. Working with Nick and Sally and Lucy and Charlotte and everyone at Harriman House gives me the opportunity to really get this book out there.

Because if there’s one thing that I have missed about the publishing success I’ve had, it’s this: being able to walk into a bookstore somewhere and find my book. For all my success online, that’s still the experience I’ve been missing. And it’s an experience a lot of prospective buyers still want to.

And, starting on June 16, I’ll be able to do just that.

You can pre-order The Little Book of Boards on Amazon or wherever you buy your books.