Did I Mention I Wrote A Children's Book? My Baby Brother by ColleenDuncan Canavan is here!

I entered a contest to get a children's book published as an e-book with NY publisher MeeGenius (now acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt!) and although I didn't win the most votes in the online contest they still wanted to publish my book. It was inspired by a conversation my little daughter and her baby brother had on the living room rug. They were playing quietly together and they did not know I had snuck in to watch them. My son, who was just a baby at the time was playing with the toy his big sissy had given him and he gave it a love making her laugh. My daughter leaned over and gave him the biggest hug then placed his tiny face into her hands, kissed his cheek and said to him, "Thank you for coming to me, Baby Brother!" and with that I started to write this story so I could remember that moment forever! After I wiped away my tears of joy, of course, because it was a moment of love in the purest form share by two tiny people.

My Baby Brother is available on ipad, iphone (download in the App store), android App on Google Play, Windows, computer, etc. It's currently featured on the "Home/Featured" page or it can be found under the categories of Family and Meegenius Originals and sells for only $2.99 if you buy it alone or you can join their book club which gives you access to over 700+ titles for just $5.00 a month with a 30 day free trial!  

My Baby Brother is perfect for families who have a big sister/baby brother relationship, but all siblings will connect with the love for one another that is shared in this sweet, heartwarming story about a big sister wanting to teach her baby brother everything she knows. Big sister talks about how she's loved him since before he was born and how she used to talk to him and hug him while he was growing in mommy's belly.

"I will love you forever. I am your big sister and you are my baby brother." 

I wrote this story because my own daughter was having a hard time adjusting to having a new sibling and I wanted to show her just how wonderful it can be - once we get past the crying infant stage. She gets to teach him all sorts of wonderful things once he grows up! I've had moms tell me it made them cry. (Best compliment ever!)

Are you new to MeeGenius and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt?  Check it out because this site is really cool. They have tons of books on there and it's set up to where you and your child can flip through the book yourself (by 'turning' the pages and reading it yourself) or there is a feature where it reads the book to your child, highlighting the word while it's being read so your child can start to get familiar with reading. My children love how it turns the page for them so they can read it all by themselves! Each book has a fun, silly, or heartwarming voice for each story. (I am not the narrator of my story.) When you sign up they even give you some free books to get your library started. My book is only $2.99 and it stays in your library forever! Please check it out! 

I hope you like it and I want to thank you so much for your support!

To read a preview of my book, My Baby Brother by Colleen Duncan Canavan and/or to order it for your iPad, click here!

To get more information about My Baby Brother by Colleen Duncan Canavan click here. 

If you like it then please do this small time children's book author a huge favor and PLEASE click the "Suggest It" button on MeeGenius! next to my book!  Thank you!!

During the Author's Challenge Contest, I was featured in the Long Beach Post!

Exciting News! Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Acquires MeeGenius!

To read more from My Tales From The Crib click here.

To follow me on Twitter click here. 

To follow me on Pinterest click here. 


Tweet

This post was shared on the following sites:

 

Thank you for your support!

I wanted to take this time to send out a thank you for your love and support with my story, "Thank You For Coming To Me Baby Brother."

Many of my facebook family and friends voted for my story and so many of you promoted it on your page and got your friends and family and co-workers, etc. to vote too and I appreciate that so much! I still have a few more raffles to pick too, so stay tuned! I'll be writing a blog post to thank all of you individually who supported my little story, so I'll share that on here as well. I have not forgotten you and I appreciate you very much!

The MeeGenius contest is officially over and it appears that they have decided not to choose "Baby Brother" as a semi finalist. They will announce the semi-finalists officially on Jan 31st. I wrote them an email last week asking them if they already sent out the emails but I read it on their facebook page today that they have already chosen them and sent out emails. The number of semi-finalists is undetermined. Despite the fact that I was fairly certain I was going to be a judge's pick, they have another vision for their ebooks library, and I'm actually excited about the possibilities that are now out there for me to explore with my story and the others in the "older sibling/baby sibling"series. Many people have asked me to write other versions of my story so their child can have one about them too, so I plan to do just that. I'll be working on a Big Sister/Baby Sister version, a Big Brother/Baby Sister version and a Big Brother/Baby Brother version! I'd love to hear any ideas you may have for these stories. If you have any special moments that have been shared between your own children that you can see fitting into one of these stories, I'd love to hear it! Please share in the comments section of this blog post or you can email me too at: colleen@mnky.com.

I'm not bummed that it wasn't chosen because of all of the positive feedback I have received from all of this. I'm looking at this as a blessing in disguise because I really see this book as a hard cover book that you can own and have it on your shelf, where you can sit and read it and physically flip through the pages even if you don't have an ipad/iphone. It will be published one way or another either through self publishing or through finding a publisher who believes in this story as much as I do. However, I'll need to wait til April of 2012 before it's "officially released" back to me. MeeGenius still has the rights to publish it later after the contest is over. I'm not sure why they would do that if it's not a semi-finalist, but we'll see. I'd rather it just be released back to me at this point so I can find a publisher to make it into a physical book.

I'm so overwhelmed by all of the love and support so many of you have given me and my little story, as well as the perfect strangers who took the time to vote and leave me a comment to tell me how it touched them. I'm going to print up all of my comments and treasure them always. I will also compile them into one blog post so my mom can read all of them too, haha. Or anyone else for that matter.

Thank you again soooo much! It really touched my heart beyond words how so many of you took the time to support me and my writing. It means a lot and I'm very grateful to have so many of you in my life and call my friend. Thank you.

P.S. Here is an UPDATE on my children's book.

xoxoxo

~*Colleen

To continue reading more from My Tales From The Crib, click here