my first published work

pictures taken by peter - blogger with no blog

in a blog posting last month, my blogger friend lam chun see of goodmorning yesterday, mentioned that out of the six persons in the photo accompanying the posting, four of them were published authors. if i had been there, chun see would have mentioned that i would be part of that group soon. i was supposed to be there but i could not make it because i had to lead a small group of friends to melbourne. at that time, the above book, which i co-authored with wee kiat and ivan chew, was in the printing stage. with ivan also away, wee kiat was left alone to go through the final draft with the printer.

last saturday, my group of blogger friends (friends of yesterday.sg) met again at singapore post headquarters at paya lebar for a 'soft' launch of our stamp book. i asked wee kiat what a 'soft launch' was. as usual, his wry sense of humour showed when he explained that it was a meeting to present autographed copies to the other bloggers, with 'soft' drinks going around. actually, most of us had either coffee or tea.

like ivan, the other co-author, i am grateful to wee kiat for giving me the opportunity to work with him and ivan on this project. both ivan and i, being new to this area, played a supporting role. wee kiat did the bulk of the work. he did the many drafts, applied for the printing permit, liaised with the printer and the sponsors. he also coordinated the writing of the different topics and he roped in victor and his other friends to critique the work.

although i managed to secure a major sponsor in osim international, it was wee kiat who, through his contacts, got the national education branch of the ministry of education (moe) to sponsor the first 1000 copies of the book. i think the moe sponsorship is a significant endorsement of our work.

like james - the one in the second photo holding two books - i also distributed copies of the book to my neighbours and friends. those with school going children gave me the feedback that their children liked the book. this is the reward and satisfaction that comes after working on the project for about a year. incidentally, james has publicized this stamp book in his blog.

when wee kiat first approached me to work with him and ivan on this, his latest book, i had thought that it would entail nothing more than writing something on the assigned topics. what i did not anticipate was the numerous rounds of editing and refining so that the book would be suited for our target readers - upper primary and lower secondary students. victor koo - one of the book advisers -,with an eagle eye for lots of things, was most helpful in spotting a number of minor errors.

when the hard copies were out, wee kiat's work was not over. he still had a lot of legwork to do. he had to send copies to the sponsors, moe and osim. he also distributed copies to the national institute of education, the singapore philatelic museum and the national library board. he was the one who deposited two copies with the legal deposit.

we do not have the intention to sell this book to the general public but i understand you can get a copy for $8.80 at the singapore philatelic museum. many of those whom i gave the book to have asked me if i was a stamp collector. i like wee kiat's answer to this question: i am just an ordinary collector and my stamps are stored in shoe boxes; the serious collectors are called philatelists. i am not a philatelist.

this is wee kiat's 11th children book. on those occasions when he could not find a sponsor for his books, he had dug into his own - not very deep - pocket to pay for the printing. wee kiat has a blog in which the stamps that he has written about are featured.

thank you wee kiat and ivan for the successful completion of this project.