Early Christmas Gifts!

This past Friday Jake walked into the house with a box from Augsburg Fortress Publishing.  I hadn't been expecting it and was so excited to see a box from them!

For those that don't know, about a year ago I sent in the music from my Christmas CD to see if it would be accepted for publishing.  Last summer the woman that reviewed my pieces informed me that she liked them, but that the Christmas line for 2011 was already full.  She wanted to keep the music for 2012 and have it reviewed then.

We put everything out of our minds and decided not to tell anyone - we didn't want to jinx anything.

This past December I was notified that they were interested in publishing my music for Christmas 2012.  After Mike and I reviewed (and asked for a couple modifications) on the contracts, I signed them and everything was put in motion.  I ended up at my sister's house that afternoon and told her my news with the request that she 1) not tell anyone and 2) help me write up a short biography on myself.  Luckily she agreed to both.

After that it was pretty smooth sailing, at least for my part.  I had to review a couple "rough drafts" to make sure everything was notated correctly.  Everything was done over email so it was extremely easy.  They informed me that the music would be available around March.  I initially thought it was just available to music stores to order for Christmas, but I checked Augsburg's site and it's available for immediate purchasing!

The kids were eager to help me open that box on Friday and we had a big family hug after we all looked through it!  Maddie's been working on some of the music from it already!  We celebrated with a nice dinner at Biaggi's.

This is truly a dream come true.  I was so excited to see that book with my name on and in it!  Never in a million years would I have thought I could not only arrange music, but have it be accepted to publish.  I'm pretty sure most of my music theory teachers would have taken a bet against it too!  It just goes to show that we are all capable of some incredible things if we just take a breath and try!