“You ought to write a book!” Professional writers, if lucky, hear that many times in their lives. But we’ve never heard it as often as we do now. The Expat Almanac does not have millions of fans, but the ones we have are loyal and loving. We blush and try to keep our egos in check, but thank you, dear readers. Making the blog into a book is really a good idea.

People tell us they have been entertained by the blog, and we believe that people need all the entertainment they can get; it’s not optional in adult life. People tell us that our optimism is inspiring, and the world needs more optimists. People tell us that we’ve opened a bit of the world to them, and anything that contributes to better global understanding is great by us.

Often, people tell us they want to do the same thing. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned, and we encourage adventurous spirits on the edge of decision to pull the trigger. We made some mistakes, and the book will tell all. We did some things right, and we’ll brag about those. We feel that the Senior Year Abroad is an idea that is about to blossom as more and more of us retire healthy and raring to go.

People tell us they’ve read every word, but do they remember every word? Even I did not remember a lot of the entries when it came time to review them for the book. We wanted to leave out the dull stuff, organize the dramatic elements of Tom’s hospitalization, and add some new material. Also, we will cut out all the parts where we repeat ourselves. Where we repeat ourselves.

Blogs are great, but ephemeral, they’re a little hard to pass around. We want to have a book that can be of use to people, that can be enjoyed and shared. We travel with Kindles, but we still love the power of paper. Gift it, turn corners down, underline it. So not only will you be able to get the Expat Almanac for Kindle (free for blog readers like you—we’ll tell you how), and you’ll be able to get it on paper, too.

So, we’re working at it. The first draft is done and we’re editing now. We figure we’ll be launching about May 15^th. We so appreciate your support, and everything you’ve contributed so far. The time and money we’ve put into it is well worth the delight we feel when we get positive comments and also great private notes. It’s going to be so much fun to spread the joy.