| Vendor | |
|---|---|
|
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik |
| Original language | |
| English | |
NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS
Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups
I am so excited to send you Kathryn Nicolai's NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS: Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups, a deceptively simple, brilliantly conceived collection of brief fictional stories written with the precise intention of carrying readers off to a peaceful and restorative slumber. Combining the all-ages appeal of GOODNIGHT STORIES FOR REBEL GIRLS with the gentleness of Jan Karon's classic Mitford stories and infused throughout with the principles of mindfulness, NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS is a book you will want to gift to yourself -- and then buy again and again for your sibling, your parent, your child, your friend.
Developed out of Kathryn Nicolai's wildly successful podcast of the same name -- there have been 10 million downloads to date, with fans in 70 countries around the world -- NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS offers sleep-challenged grown-ups of all ages a suite of charming and soothing stories that take place in and around an unnamed small fictional city that is loosely modelled on Ann Arbor, Michigan and exposes small, sweet moments of joy. Each story invites us to identify with the unnamed, gender-neutral first person narrators who recount their days. We can imagine ourselves visiting the local cider mill in the autumn. Watching the tree lighting in the park with friends in the winter. Stealing lilacs from an abandoned farm in the spring. Watching fireflies from the deck in the summer. There are stories that celebrate nature and revel in the joy of being home alone. Putting our ducks in a row with a day of quiet chores and a freshly baked loaf of banana bread. Closing up the book shop, opening the bakery, getting lost in the stacks of the library and picking out the best of the end-of-summer tomatoes at the farmer's market.
I like to think of Kathryn's stories as inspirational as well as aspirational, and as a fan of the podcast, I can personally attest to their effectiveness. Here's what British YA author Tabitha Suzuma wrote in her podcast review: These stories aren't just brilliant for getting to sleep to at night, they are also very beautiful stories in their own right. ... They are the most relaxing, most soothing pieces of fiction I have ever come across. ... so well written and crafted ... they make you feel warm and safe and content by describing the most simple and beautiful things in life, reminding us that it's in these that the real secret to happiness lies. Far more than just bedtime stories for grown-ups, these are hygge stories for the soul.
Insufficient sleep has been called a public health epidemic; an estimated 50 million Americans (and an even higher percentage of Canadians) suffer from sleep disorders. With more and more of us scrolling through upsetting news and disheartening social media posts before bed, it's not a surprise that these numbers keep climbing. Kathryn wanted to show that there was another way, a much healthier way to unwind and ease the mind before bed.
There's nothing quite like this book on the market now as far as I can tell. Others have compiled essays, poems, and short stories by various artists, but Kathryn's stories have a tangible through line, a feeling of continuity, a shared universe the reader can enter that's absent in similar books. Some books try to simply bore their listeners and readers to sleep, but that misses what people need when they feel anxious and can't sleep. Kathryn believes that what adults crave in a bedtime story is comfort, familiarity, a bit of nostalgia, and a perspective that looks at the world and finds many things to appreciate. She is aware too that many of us need a bit of instruction on good sleep hygiene, so the introduction of the book will walk readers through the process of preparing for good sleep, and the book will feature tips and reminders along the way. Many people find they fall asleep easily but wake in the middle of the night and struggle to fall back to sleep; Kathryn has created a technique for this as well, and instructions and exercises for using it would be featured here.
The stories themselves are brief by design, taking only a few minutes to read and enjoy, just right for a tired brain at the end of the day. Kathryn envisions her book as fully illustrated to evoke the memory of the story books of childhood, blending the nostalgia of the childhood experience of a bedtime storybook with a somewhat more modern and grown-up aesthetic. Many of the stories feature food and a few choice recipes are also included along with other "extras" not available to podcast listeners.
Beyond bedtime use, countless listeners have reached out to say that they use the stories to manage anxiety and PTSD; they turn to them to decompress after work, or use them to settle anxious kids. Even though the book is aimed at adults, it's completely family friendly and could be marketed in that way as well. Many listeners make it a family practice to listen together before a new week, and many school teachers have written to say they use the stories with their students during quiet time.
So many of us are interested in meditation, self-care and self-compassion, but when the time comes for us to sit and focus, our minds feel much too busy to achieve any sense of calm. Kathryn uses her expert understanding of mindfulness meditation to weave that practice into the stories. In a sense, the book provides a way to meditate through the pleasures of narrative, to experience all the therapeutic benefits of a formal mindfulness practice through the satisfaction we experienced as children, through stories. With over ten million downloads since its launch, the podcast has a large and growing audience. It's been featured as a New and Noteworthy podcast by Apple Podcasts, and in the Pride section; as a queer creator, Kathryn has a particularly strong following by the LGBTQ+ community, in part because she writes the stories in an inclusive way that queer listeners pick up on and appreciate. It has been number two in Canada, reached the overall charts in fifteen countries, and the Alternative Health charts in seventy. In June of 2019 the podcast achieved the milestone of reaching one million downloads in 30 days. Listeners are certainly part of the target market for the book, (current demographics show listeners are 76% female, 22% male with a predominance being between the ages of 18-27) though it would appeal to anyone struggling to sleep or cope with anxiety. In fact many listeners have even found the podcast through their doctor or therapist.
Kathryn Nicolai, the Michigan based writer and creator of the enormously successful podcast Nothing Much Happens, writes soothing, cozy stories that both ease the reader into peaceful sleep and teach the principles of mindfulness so that waking hours likewise become sweet and serene. She leans on her fifteen years of experience as a yoga and meditation teacher to seamlessly blend storytelling with brain training techniques that build better sleep habits over time. She is the owner of Ethos Yoga.
As a child, Kathryn told herself stories to feel safe, cozy and ultimately to fall asleep at night (a frequently necessary technique growing up in Flint, Michigan in the eighties). She's used the technique all her life and was driven to create the Nothing Much Happens podcast by a desire to share it with other people. The response was immediate and incredible.
The attached manuscript consists of 47 stories, all but one of which has been or will be featured in her podcast. It also features new material written specifically for the book. Kathryn will be happy to write additional original stories specifically for the book once a publisher is in place.
Developed out of Kathryn Nicolai's wildly successful podcast of the same name -- there have been 10 million downloads to date, with fans in 70 countries around the world -- NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS offers sleep-challenged grown-ups of all ages a suite of charming and soothing stories that take place in and around an unnamed small fictional city that is loosely modelled on Ann Arbor, Michigan and exposes small, sweet moments of joy. Each story invites us to identify with the unnamed, gender-neutral first person narrators who recount their days. We can imagine ourselves visiting the local cider mill in the autumn. Watching the tree lighting in the park with friends in the winter. Stealing lilacs from an abandoned farm in the spring. Watching fireflies from the deck in the summer. There are stories that celebrate nature and revel in the joy of being home alone. Putting our ducks in a row with a day of quiet chores and a freshly baked loaf of banana bread. Closing up the book shop, opening the bakery, getting lost in the stacks of the library and picking out the best of the end-of-summer tomatoes at the farmer's market.
I like to think of Kathryn's stories as inspirational as well as aspirational, and as a fan of the podcast, I can personally attest to their effectiveness. Here's what British YA author Tabitha Suzuma wrote in her podcast review: These stories aren't just brilliant for getting to sleep to at night, they are also very beautiful stories in their own right. ... They are the most relaxing, most soothing pieces of fiction I have ever come across. ... so well written and crafted ... they make you feel warm and safe and content by describing the most simple and beautiful things in life, reminding us that it's in these that the real secret to happiness lies. Far more than just bedtime stories for grown-ups, these are hygge stories for the soul.
Insufficient sleep has been called a public health epidemic; an estimated 50 million Americans (and an even higher percentage of Canadians) suffer from sleep disorders. With more and more of us scrolling through upsetting news and disheartening social media posts before bed, it's not a surprise that these numbers keep climbing. Kathryn wanted to show that there was another way, a much healthier way to unwind and ease the mind before bed.
There's nothing quite like this book on the market now as far as I can tell. Others have compiled essays, poems, and short stories by various artists, but Kathryn's stories have a tangible through line, a feeling of continuity, a shared universe the reader can enter that's absent in similar books. Some books try to simply bore their listeners and readers to sleep, but that misses what people need when they feel anxious and can't sleep. Kathryn believes that what adults crave in a bedtime story is comfort, familiarity, a bit of nostalgia, and a perspective that looks at the world and finds many things to appreciate. She is aware too that many of us need a bit of instruction on good sleep hygiene, so the introduction of the book will walk readers through the process of preparing for good sleep, and the book will feature tips and reminders along the way. Many people find they fall asleep easily but wake in the middle of the night and struggle to fall back to sleep; Kathryn has created a technique for this as well, and instructions and exercises for using it would be featured here.
The stories themselves are brief by design, taking only a few minutes to read and enjoy, just right for a tired brain at the end of the day. Kathryn envisions her book as fully illustrated to evoke the memory of the story books of childhood, blending the nostalgia of the childhood experience of a bedtime storybook with a somewhat more modern and grown-up aesthetic. Many of the stories feature food and a few choice recipes are also included along with other "extras" not available to podcast listeners.
Beyond bedtime use, countless listeners have reached out to say that they use the stories to manage anxiety and PTSD; they turn to them to decompress after work, or use them to settle anxious kids. Even though the book is aimed at adults, it's completely family friendly and could be marketed in that way as well. Many listeners make it a family practice to listen together before a new week, and many school teachers have written to say they use the stories with their students during quiet time.
So many of us are interested in meditation, self-care and self-compassion, but when the time comes for us to sit and focus, our minds feel much too busy to achieve any sense of calm. Kathryn uses her expert understanding of mindfulness meditation to weave that practice into the stories. In a sense, the book provides a way to meditate through the pleasures of narrative, to experience all the therapeutic benefits of a formal mindfulness practice through the satisfaction we experienced as children, through stories. With over ten million downloads since its launch, the podcast has a large and growing audience. It's been featured as a New and Noteworthy podcast by Apple Podcasts, and in the Pride section; as a queer creator, Kathryn has a particularly strong following by the LGBTQ+ community, in part because she writes the stories in an inclusive way that queer listeners pick up on and appreciate. It has been number two in Canada, reached the overall charts in fifteen countries, and the Alternative Health charts in seventy. In June of 2019 the podcast achieved the milestone of reaching one million downloads in 30 days. Listeners are certainly part of the target market for the book, (current demographics show listeners are 76% female, 22% male with a predominance being between the ages of 18-27) though it would appeal to anyone struggling to sleep or cope with anxiety. In fact many listeners have even found the podcast through their doctor or therapist.
Kathryn Nicolai, the Michigan based writer and creator of the enormously successful podcast Nothing Much Happens, writes soothing, cozy stories that both ease the reader into peaceful sleep and teach the principles of mindfulness so that waking hours likewise become sweet and serene. She leans on her fifteen years of experience as a yoga and meditation teacher to seamlessly blend storytelling with brain training techniques that build better sleep habits over time. She is the owner of Ethos Yoga.
As a child, Kathryn told herself stories to feel safe, cozy and ultimately to fall asleep at night (a frequently necessary technique growing up in Flint, Michigan in the eighties). She's used the technique all her life and was driven to create the Nothing Much Happens podcast by a desire to share it with other people. The response was immediate and incredible.
The attached manuscript consists of 47 stories, all but one of which has been or will be featured in her podcast. It also features new material written specifically for the book. Kathryn will be happy to write additional original stories specifically for the book once a publisher is in place.