Ilana Wiles-small

Remember when I told you back in January that my New Year’s Resolution was to write a book? Well, don’t get too excited because I did not write a book. BUT. Apparently, you don’t need to actually write a book to sell a book, because I SOLD MY BOOK!!!

It wasn’t without any effort whatsoever, mind you. I spent the last few months figuring out exactly what I wanted to write about (no small feat), outlining the book chapter by chapter and putting together a very in depth book proposal (63 pages!), which is what you need to sell a book.

You also need to say things like “Ilana Wiles is awesome” and “her dedicated fans will buy 1 million copies” etc. etc. even if you have no idea if these things are true.

The book is going to be about the intersection of politics and religion and how modern day fundamentalists have— I’m just kidding! It’s going to be about parenting!!! Wheeeeeeee!!!!!

The book will use some of my favorite stuff from the blog but be mainly new stuff. It’s going to be about the first five years of parenthood because I cannot pretend to know anything about raising anyone older than that. I’m actually hoping Mazzy and Harlow start aging backwards so I will have some vague idea of how to parent them.

After many meetings and phone calls and deep thoughts late at night, I am so excited to announce my book will be published by Abrams(!), who makes absolutely beautiful books. Besides drooling over their library (they published Wes Anderson’s book!), I immediately hit it off with the team of people there who made encouraging comments like, “This is actually funny!”

My editor is a woman named Rebecca who has kids about the same age as mine and when we got together for a sushi lunch (this is what editors and authors do), we talked about the book 5% of the time and our kids the other 95% of the time (this is probably not what editors and authors should do). My literary agent Andy is also a mom with kids around the same age and she just so happened to be meeting with someone else at the sushi restaurant at the same time and it all felt like we were in a scripted reality show for Bravo called “Media Moms of NYC” where everybody goes to the same place “by accident”.

Did you hear me call myself an author?! Yes, I know, it’s a bit premature. Especially since I have absolutely no idea when I will find the time to write my book. But, I’ve got paperwork that says the book is due by mid November, so I guess I’ll have to figure it out.

Honestly, I can think of no better excuse to say “Honey! Watch the kids while I work on my book!” than CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION.

Here’s where you guys come in.

My blog has always been very interactive. I would like the book to be the same. There are photos I’ll want to use and memes I’ll want to recreate, many of which you guys have contributed. So… over the next few months, I may ask for photo submissions for a series that will appear exclusively in the book. Or you might see me post an old Epic Baby Hair picture asking for the parents to please contact me if they don’t mind me using it. I can promise— you will not find a picture of your child in the book without you giving me express permission.

If you want to contribute or stay informed, I recommend you follow the Mommy Shorts facebook page and subscribe to my Mommy Shorts weekly newsletter. I will always post calls for submissions in both places, but the newsletter guarantees you will see it. I’ll probably ask for stuff on Instagram too.

Who wouldn’t want their child’s Epic Baby Hair immortalized in print!

And then maybe the mom of the baby with the epic baby hair will buy my book for all her friends and I’ll have sold five copies instead of one! That’s my sales strategy, fyi.

Only 999,995 copies left to go.

(You guys will buy my book, right?)