Especially if you visit my Backstreet Boys site or follow my social media, you’ve already seen the news – I got a publishing deal to write a book with my friend Emilia about the Backstreet Boys for their 30th anniversary in 2023.

We wrote the book over an almost two month time period and it’s insane to think about it now. During that time period, I also had a full-time job, had my Etsy shop, took care of my Mom, went to three concerts (2.5 if you count the Bristow cancellation and 2 were out of town), and had COVID! Emilia also dealt with some hospitalizations and had to have surgery.

But we got it done!

It’s a dream come true for the both of us. I’ve self-published books before, but never had one actually and truly published. The idea of actually being a real published author has inspired me to continue my fictional writing and someday get that published besides on Amazon.

For the Backstreet Boys’ book, we researched whether it was old Angelfire websites from 1997 to looking at newspaper archives from all over the world. We looked at other books (some were so poorly written) and the best part, we talked to fans.

There’s this assumption that we only included fans in this book. Are there fans that we know in the book? Yes. Are there fans that we don’t know in the book? Yes. Because Emilia and I have been in the fandom for so long, especially with websites and working with the fan club, it’s hard to find fans that we don’t know, or at least heard of. There’s going to be feelings hurt by people who were not included in the book and we are truly sorry. We couldn’t just put the people we know in the book. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be an adequate look at the fandom.

Right now, this weekend, we are actually reviewing the book (it’s already designed!) and going over captions (I speak newspaper so I still call them cutlines), and any mistakes. That’s a part of the job I’m used to coming from newspapers and magazines.

Also, while I’m talking about books, I have republished some of my fictional books with my actual name (shocker – my last name isn’t Brooks!). I plan on finishing the “How to Be An Adult Fangirl (And Not Ruin Your Life)” sequel soon and publishing that.

You can find those links, along with information about the Backstreet Boys book by going to my BOOKS page. The Backstreet Boys’ book has a page of it’s own that you can find the link to there.