Two Months to K-Day!

So here’s the story of how I got published

In December 2013, I sent the first three chapters of Knight to an editor at Capstone Young Readers as a writing sample, attached to a letter asking if Capstone had any book projects they were hiring writers for.

Before I could send the sample, though, I had to write the query.

The problem was that after having written dozens of queries for Knight, I just couldn’t bring myself to write another one—even if I was pitching myself as a writer and not the book proper.

So I sat at my computer for about half an hour with nothing more than

Dear [editor at Capstone]

on the screen. What could I say that would make me stand out?

Then it struck me: I had been reading to my son Griffin for years. Most fathers read to their kids, of course, but Griffin and I had taken it to a whole new level. In addition to bedtime reading, Griffin and I had gone through the complete Calvin and Hobbes by the time he was five—with me doing all the voices. And at that point, in 2014, I had been taking Griffin to the library regularly for five years, and had established a weekly routine in which we checked out one or more graphic novels and took them to a nearby coffee shop, where I’d read the text while he followed the story in pictures. And so I realized I did have a unique insight into what kids Griffin’s age wanted to read.

How best to put that, though? I came up with and discarded a few ideas. And then I typed

Dear [editor at Capstone],
I am Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

In a way, this was true. I had played him a couple of times, anyway, reading book versions of Phineas and Ferb to Griffin.

No way that editor is going to go along with that, said a voice in my head. Instant rejection.

You’re right, I said back to the voice in my head. So, realizing I had to back up my claim, I typed

No, seriously. I am.

And then the dam burst.

I am also (or have been), I wrote, Kevin Levin, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Phoncible P. Bone, Rowley Jefferson, Danny Smith, Navin Hayes, Hector Alembick, Norville Rogers, Jupiter Jones, Bilbo Baggins, Remus Lupin, and a bunch of other characters from various graphic novels, chapter books, and middle-grade novels.

How have I managed this? Basically, by spending large amounts of time over the past four years reading aloud to my (now) eight year old son.

And so, even as the voice in my head insisted This will never work I attached the first three chapters of Knight and hit send.

Three months later I got an e-mail back from Capstone asking me to send the full manuscript of the book I had used as a writing sample. Two months after that, I had a contract to publish.

And you know what the moral of this story is?

“Never give up”? Nope. “Write what you know”? Uh-uh. “If a foul ball is hit behind third base, then it’s the shortstop’s play”? No, not even that.

The moral is:

I am Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

No, seriously. I am.