I AM PUBLISHED!!

This has been hard news to keep quiet...but I didn't want to share until it was official :) But now that I have the book in my hands...here is the big news!! I am published!!!

So, here's the story, this past February I was contacted by BetterPhoto, which is an online photo community, probably more of you would recognize it as a photo contest that I enter. I have posted about finalist and wins on my blog several times. Anyway I was contacted on behalf of Jim Miotke, President, BetterPhoto.com, Inc. and Author of several Photography books, who was in the process of choosing photos for his next book (which would be later released in Oct 2008). So I get an email asking for permission to use my photo "Glorious Morning" in the book. I was asked to get the appropriate releases for my photo around and so I did all that and sent it in and then a couple months later I get another email saying that the book was in the final stages of editing and my photo had made the final cut for the book. Okay..so I am getting more excited but still not getting my hopes up too much :) Of course the email goes on to say there are NO guarantees, due to page layouts, space, etc and basically when it comes to publishing there are no certainties so until the book hits shelves...we are basically just crossing our fingers...LOL. Well, this past week I got another email from Jim saying it was official, the book was finished and my picture was in the book!! The release date for the book was October 28th but I wanted to see it for myself before sharing and guess what...today I got my book!! And yes it is there, on page 43, my photo!! I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to actually see my photo published in a book!!

Here is the book, by Jim Miotke, The BetterPhoto Guide to Photographing Children.

And here is the photo of mine that made it into the book.

"Glorious Morning"

Here are a couple really quick snaps of my photo in the book. I am on page 43 :)

Thanks for letting me share my news with you all!!

Also I wanted to say, I have made a lot of friends at BetterPhoto in the past few years I've been a member there, but some of use have become closer than others and we are in a small group together called "The Pixelchicks". Many of them were also chosen to have photos in this book and a couple of them are even on the cover of the book, so my Huge Congrats goes out to them today too!!

till next time...