Former Middle School Teacher Becomes Best-Selling Author
His former students at Wayzata Central Middle School in Plymouth know him as Mr. Eich. Now they know him as a best-selling author.
Matt Eicheldinger may have reached the big time. But it took years and years of persistence to get there. Fifteen years to be exact.
“I was just telling someone I can’t look in the camera too often or else I start crying if I’m telling a story,” said Eicheldinger as he was signing books at the Plymouth Community Center.
Eicheldinger wrote and illustrated “Matt Sprouts and The Curse of the Ten Broken Toes” at age 21. But getting a book deal was an immense challenge. He said he received hundreds of rejections from publishers.
“I believed in my idea so much and my students did that I ended up making the book myself in 2021 in hopes of getting noticed, and that’s eventually what got me a book deal,” he told CCX News. “And no one knew me when me when I had my book deal. I got a really small advance at the time. And I think for the publisher, it’s just giving someone a shot that maybe they saw something in. And it turned out to be a New York Times bestseller.”
The book was picked up by Andrews McMeel Publishing. Fittingly, it’s the same publisher that put out his childhood favorite, “Calvin and Hobbes.”
Matt Eicheldinger greets people during a book signing Tuesday night.
More Books
Eicheldinger has written two more books since, the latest titled “Sticky Notes,” which is geared toward adults about life lessons he learned as a teacher.
The book has gotten the industry’s attention. It has even appeared on a billboard in New York’s Times Square.
Eicheldinger, who gave up teaching to focus on his book work, says the whole experience is still barely sinking in.
“Just last year I was in a classroom trying to get kids to learn, and now I get to be on the other side of learning and create content for other people, and it’s just surreal.”
A New York City billboard/courtesy Matt Eicheldinger Instagram
