About Us

Autumn Jade Publishing can be contacted via one of the following ways:

Email

info@autumnjade.com

Snail Mail

Steve Whan c/o Autumn Jade Publishing
2730 Crescentview Drive
North Vancouver, BC
Canada
V7R 2V1

The story behind the story...

My wife and I have adopted two girls from China. In January 1999, we were doing the paperwork to adopt our second daughter. I was sitting at the computer one night when it hit me. Wham! I read the Hardy Boys when I was younger and my sisters read Nancy Drew. Where were the mystery stories for Asian kids, especially the girls adopted from China? Within a couple of days, I roughed out the concept of a heroine who had been adopted from China, lived in Vancouver and solved mysteries with the help of dreams of Shanghai, China in the 1930s. The writing was going so well I decided to I needed a publisher for "Bullets on the Bund." I went to the library and researched the Canadian and American publishers that might be interested in my book.

I picked Scholastic Canada as my top choice and sent them a query letter. Less than two weeks later I had a reply requesting my manuscript. Which wasn't finished of course because I didn't expect a letter back so quickly. My wife and I did our best job polishing the manuscript and in June of 1999 I sent it off -- one year later I received a very nice rejection letter saying they loved the story and here were some suggestions. In June 2000 I sent a re-worked manuscript back to Scholastic. I still haven't heard back... I'm thinking they lost or misplaced it.

Scholastic didn't seem to be interested. What should I do?

1. Look for another publisher?
2. Publish the book myself?

The answer was '2'. We had a co-op student at work named Trevor Lai. He's the creator of the Ralphy series of children's books. He convinced me to self-publish the book. I hired Trevor to illustrate the cover and one of our technical writers at work, Tracey, to help me edit the book.

By March of 2001, the book was on its way to the printers. This web site and the Autumn Jade Mystery^TM Series are entirely the property of Autumn Jade Publishing which in reality is me: Steve Whan.

Part II...

In September of 2002 we successfully launched the second book in the series: The Emperor's Pendant. I kept an on-line journal of the creation of the book which may be interesting to budding self-publishers.

The icing on the cake was a full page interview in Canada's National Post.

Part III...

Sing Song Girls was published on December 1st, 2003. Canada's #1 magazine, Macleans, had a nice write-up for the launch of the book. I kept an on-line journal for Sing Song Girls as well.

Part IV...

Yikes! I can't believe I've written four books. Sisters of Shanghai will be published in September, 2006. Here's the on-line journal for book #4.

Oh, and as of June 19th, 2007, I've sold over 4000 copies of my books -- I'm getting closer to a best seller in Canada (5000 copies)! Not bad for someone who just wanted to write some stories for his daughters to read when they were older...

Like to cook? Check out my wife's on-line Vegetarian Cookbook.

I'm also, among many other things, on the Executive Board of FCCCF (Families with Children from China Charitable Fund).

© 2001-2012 Autumn Jade Publishing. Privacy Policy
Last modified: January 27, 2012 by Webmaster