Dilly is here!

I had quite a surprise yesterday when I visited my Facebook page. Several people had written on my profile wall saying things like, "Guess what came in the mail today?" and "I got your book today!" and "I got my Dilly book!" My friend Nancy even called me to let me know her copy had just come in the mail. She was skimming through it while still on the phone when her husband grabbed it to look at it. Talk about a thrill! Then later in the evening, several people left comments that they had read the book to their kids and how much they liked it. The funny thing is, I still haven't seen the actual book, only the PDFs. I ordered some books for myself and they were mailed yesterday. My wonderful publisher, Vivian Zabel was able to get the pre-orders out last Friday. I'm thrilled people are enjoying it already.

A New Job for Dilly can be ordered from me. If you click on the link or the cover on the right, it takes you directly to my website. If you use PayPal, there's a box for special instructions. If you'd like the book autographed, please let me know who to make it out to. I will mail out any orders I get as soon as my books come in, which should be in a few days. I'm so excited to see them and so are my kids. When I told the boys, they both said, "Dilly's really published, for real?" They're just as excited as I am. I can't wait to autograph a book for each of my children -- the ultimate thrill. The book is also available through 4RV Publishing, LLC and on Amazon. And as always, you can get the ISBN numbers and order it through any bookseller. But in the meantime, I will have extra copies to sell, so if you get them from me I can sign them for you. Also, if you visit the links page on my website, there's a PDF of fun activities you can download for your kids to do after they've read the book. Lisa Oakman did a beautiful job bringing Dilly to life.

I tell you -- this is a surreal feeling for me. It's a day I've been waiting for. Seeing people's comments made my night last night. My friend Joy said she read it 3 times and that her daughter was asking to read it in her preschool class. Sybil's son said he'd love a stuffed Dilly holding a pickle and thought it would be fun if Dilly did a number book. Sharon's son said it was clever how it was an alphabet book. And of course, when my boys dream, they dream big and are hoping for it to be made into animated movie, complete with soundtrack -- gotta love them! It's just an incredible feeling for me. Now that I have my website updated, I'm going to set up a book blog tour. I'll be contacting some of my blogging friends to see if they'd like to participate in that soon. It's funny to think that a camping trip to a national park could inspire me to write a children's story, which lead to where I am today. I'm so excited I could scream. I feel like Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels when he runs around banging on pots yelling, "Oklahoma! Oklahoma! Oklahoma!" Do you know what's really funny about that? My publisher is from Oklahoma! Pinch me ...