How Far One Little Book Can Go
Almost exactly one year later since I announced the book that started it all (One weaning poem. Three English editions). Tomorrow, Bye-Bye, Boobies turns one.
It is strange to even write that, looking back from where this started in a coffee shop with my friend who encouraged me to take the book out of my head and let it out into the world. (A quiet thank you) Plus, of course, my amazing editor Lauren and the rest of my friends and family as I slowly shared I was doing this.
When I think about it, a year ago, I was putting one small book out into the world and hoping someone, somewhere, might find it useful. I had no idea who would buy it, where it would end up, or whether it would travel much farther than home. . (I had learned that you don't want your friends/family to buy your books so it would have to be strangers).
And now, a year later, I have a scratch map showing me just how far this little book has gone so far.
Every time one of our books finds its way to a new country, I get to scratch off another little piece of the world. It has become one of my favourite things to do partly because it is fun, but mostly because every new country means that someone I do not know found one of these books and decided to take a chance on it. That part still gets me.
These books have travelled farther than I ever dreamed in their first year. They have found readers in places I have never been, landed in bookstores I may never walk into, and made their way onto library shelves where, with any luck, they will keep being discovered again and again.
And somewhere along the way, that first book started becoming something bigger.
Bye-Bye, Boobies has now been translated into more languages, with more editions still to come. I have had the enormous privilege of working with wonderful human translators who have treated these stories with such care. Each one has brought something of themselves to the work, and I am so grateful for the time, thought, and trust they have given these books.
See Why Human Translators still matter in an AI world.
The Little Goodbyes series is growing too. The second book, Bye-Bye, Boobies at Night, is coming this year and Little Goodbyes Press itself is growing in ways that still feel a little surreal to me. There are more books now, more series, more translations and there are so many more ideas waiting their turn.
At some point, without me quite noticing when it happened, this stopped feeling like “I made a book” and started feeling like “we are building a press.” That was not on my bingo card when I committed to writing and illustrating a book.
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I am deeply grateful to every person who has taken a chance on one of them. To the parents who bought a book because they hoped it might help in their weaning process, to the readers who picked one simply because it caught their eye, to the librarians who gave a little independent book a place on their shelves, to the booksellers who made room for us, to the translators who helped these stories speak in new languages, and to everyone who has quietly supported this strange little publishing adventure as it has grown.
A year ago, Bye-Bye, Boobies was just one book that I was hoping would connect with families.
Now there is a map on my wall with more and more of the world scratched away, a growing shelf of translations, another Little Goodbyes book on the way, and a press that is beginning to feel very real.
That is far more than I knew to hope for when I pressed publish and watched in astonishment that the very first place someone in Germany took a chance on my book.
Thank you for finding us.
And thank you for helping these little books travel so far.
