Soccer Beat by Sandra Gilbert Brug

    Learning to navigate the world of publishing is like learning to survive in the wild.  You can take your skills with you, but you never know what you'll actually find when you get there.  My writers group got a taste of survival skills this past week.  Sandra Brug, a wonderful poet and storyteller, has recently learned that her picture book Soccer Beat was going to be re-released in paperback form.  She learned this after sending a letter to her editor at Simon and Schuster requesting information about having the ebook rights returned to her.  She was considering launching a personal ebook release.  Instead of returning the rights to her, they decided to relaunch the book, which has been out of print in America for years.  Needless to say, Sandra was thrilled.  So at our meeting this week, we were discussing when her book would be available again.  She'd received an email from the editor stating that they didn't know yet when it would be coming out, but when it did, it would be in a print on demand format.
    Maurene Hinds, another excellent writer and writing teacher, pulled out her Droid and looked up Amazon.  Sure enough - Soccer Beat by Sandra Brug will be released on September 21, 2012.  That was in just a few days!  We found it interesting that the editor didn't even know when it would be released, even though it was already in pre-order standing at Amazon.  And Sandra wasn't even told!  This news has obviously sent Sandra into a sudden blitz of blogging and linking and promoting.  
    Writers, we live in a whole new world.  Information can drag for months and even years,or suddenly shift in a matter of moments.  No more steady plodding through the writing and publishing process.  Now we live the jumps and jerks and waits.  Who knows what might happen next?
    I highly recommend Soccer Beat by Sandra Brug.  My sons and I fell in love with Soccer Beat when we checked it out from the library years ago.  A few weeks later, my roommate stranger at my first ever Big Sky SCBWI conference was Sandra Brug.  What a wonderful surprise connection!  The rest for me is writing history.  

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