I have a new book coming. It will be published April 26, on the anniversary of Peregrine’s birthday. You’ll be able to pre-order it soon. I’m still getting all of that set up. I’ll have more details about how you can order the book coming soon.

For now let me tell you a little more about it.

In 2020 I was asked by an editor working for a popular line of self-help books if I would consider writing a horse training book for them. The request was interesting. It did no harm to say I would consider the idea. For a couple of months I heard nothing more from him. Then I got another email. This one took the idea a little further. They were definitely interested.

The email exchanges continued. The editor asked me to write a sample chapter. I did. In the fall of 2021 I was offered a contract to write a horse training book for them. The contract was very one-sided, but their marketing would bring clicker training to a much broader part of the horse community than I am able to reach on my own. So, even though it felt more than a little bit like I was selling my soul, I signed the contract.

I was still working on my on-line clinics so it was nose to grindstone all winter to get that project finished. I launched the clinics March 11, 2022. The following day I started on the new book.

It turned out the clinics were the perfect prep for writing a book. I was well primed. The words literally flew onto the page. The contract stipulated a July deadline for submitting the final chapters. I beat that deadline by two months. By mid-May I was sending in the final chapters. The editing had already begun on the sections I had already submitted. I had a meeting with the editor the end of May, and then I heard nothing.

Weeks went by in email silence. I started emailing others in the team who would be involved in the book’s production. Nothing. Finally, at the end of June I got an email from the production manager. The editor no longer worked for the company, and they would not be going ahead with the book. End of story.

I told you the contract was very one-sided.

So I was left with a book, but no publisher.

I put the book aside for a while. I had other projects that needed my attention, and I wanted some time to consider my options. I could look for another publisher. I could publish it myself. Self-publishing seemed like the best option. I like the editorial control that gives me over the content.

So there you have it. I wasn’t intending to write another book. That wasn’t on my radar. The book is very much the product of the pandemic. At the start of 2020 I had a full schedule of clinics planned for the year ahead. When we went into lockdown, one by one those clinics were canceled. My initial thought was I couldn’t possibly transfer my teaching to an on-line format. I needed to see the horses, to work with them directly to know what to advise. But in-person clinics were out, so I started to experiment. Rebekka Schulze, the organizer of the North Carolina clinic that was scheduled for the spring of 2020, invited me to test out a zoom clinic option. I discovered I loved the format. Using video we could focus in on the training details make such a difference to horses. People didn’t have the expense or the stress of travel. We could watch the horses in their home environments. There were so many advantages.

I put together more on-line clinics. I built each clinic around a major topic. I think my favorite was the rope handling clinic. Who knew that you could teach something as tactile as rope handling via an on-line platform!

Those clinics created the structure for the new book. When I heard back from my contact at the publishers that they weren’t going ahead with the project, I was actually relieved. They had done me a huge favor. I would not have written the book without the prompt from them. But in the end I am glad to have the book back in my own court. Their contract placed too many restrictions on how I could use my own work.

I set the book aside over the summer and came back to it in the fall of 2022. When I read it with a fresh perspective, I loved it. It’s a very good book. It needed to be published, so the editing and formatting process began.

The gestation period for a horse is roughly eleven months. It has taken me just a little bit longer than that to write and prepare my new book for publication. Every day I get a step closer to having it ready. April 26 is my target for publication – Peregrine’s birthday.

Coming next: I’ll answer the question – why another book? And very soon I’ll have information about how you can pre-order your copy. This isn’t a marketing tease. So much has changed in the publishing world, I’m on a steep learning curve putting all the pieces in place for a smooth book launch April 26.