So…a book!

I know I don’t normally post on Sundays but this isn’t a normal post. It’s more of an announcement.

I’m writing a book.

Well, more accurately, I have written a book and I am now in the last bits of editing.

It’s a non-fiction parenting book collecting together the parenting posts here and adding in a load more stuff.

It’s called Being a Dad is Bloody Brilliant: The TasteHitch Guide to Parenting.

If only I could have told myself then what I know now…my son (in white) a few hours old.

The idea came about for two reasons. Firstly, when I was preparing to be a dad there wasn’t really a book that reflected how I was feeling. A surprising number of the dad books out there are written by women telling men what to do. I get enough of that at home…

The ones that are written by men fall into two categories. Aggressive meathead barks instructions from the page on how to be a REAL MAN. Or whimsical folk-tinged emotional mumbo-jumbo. ‘Make your child the flower-child’.

I’d rather not, actually mate.

I wanted the book for the normal guy who did manly stuff (watch sport, drink beer, use every item in the kitchen when cooking) but also feels and accepts emotions (yes, I cried at the end of Cool Runnings – but then who didn’t?)

Secondly, the feedback I received on my posts here was very kind and encouraged me to think that maybe people might want to read what I had to say. In that regard, you only have yourselves to blame.

It will be released on Amazon Kindle ideally, just before Christmas.

When that day comes (I’ll, of course, announce it on here) and if you find yourself on Amazon, doing your Christmas shopping, and you think – ‘Our Jack’s just had his first child, what parenting book should I get him?’ could you possibly consider mine as an option? I’d really appreciate it.

I’m hoping to keep the price low for the first few days after it officially comes out so it shouldn’t break the bank either.

And yes, that was the softest sell you’ll ever see.

Back tomorrow with part two of ‘Escape from New Zealand’…

If you’d like a taste of the kind of thing that will appear in the book, you could do worse than check out this link here.