The following comes from a July 28 story on RecordNet.com.

Two handsome men get married as their happy parents look on weeping with joy, and the couple lives happily ever after.

Sound like a fairy tale?

It is.

University of the Pacific (Stockton CA) business management professor Jeffry Miles has written The Princes and the Treasure, a children’s book about two handsome princes who go on a quest to find treasures and rescue a beautiful princess but discover that the real treasure is finding their love for each other.

“I attempted to do a fairy tale that was similar to but different from other fairy tales,” said Miles, an openly gay man. “I wanted it to look similar, because parents have said they read this book along with other fairy tales, and children don’t distinguish between the two. That was the point….

“I had always wanted a book like this when I was a child,” said Miles, 52.

The idea struck him on a trip to “an amusement park that will go unnamed” when he was sitting in front of the castle watching princes dancing with princesses. It reminded him of reading fairy tales as a child, knowing he was never going to end up with a princess.

“I knew when I was very young, single digits, 4 or 5, the children’s books I was reading, that it was never going to apply to me in my life,” Miles said. “I wanted to fill that void for people like myself and write a book that would meet that need….”

The story features Gallant and Ernest, two princes who set out to rescue the captured Princess Elena. To save her, they must go on a quest and collect five items. Each leg of the journey finds them encountering danger and adventure, from a red octopus to a snake. The physical Gallant and intellectual Ernest learn lessons from one another and in the end find true love. They’re married in church by a vicar in front of happy family members.

In creating the book, Miles followed none of his business training in terms of studying a target market or familiarizing himself with the publishing and distribution process.

Literary agents weren’t interested. Neither were publishers, though none actually told him it was because of the story’s content. He set up Handsome Prince Publishing and published himself. The process took about a year, between writing the story, which had to be edited down from 3,000 to fewer than 1,000 words, collaborating electronically with the San Diego-based illustrator J.L. Phillips, and sending it to Ingram Content Group to print….

As a child growing up in Columbus, Ohio, Miles’ sexual orientation was never an issue. He swam competitively from the time he was 8 and became involved in music when he started middle school. He didn’t come out as a gay man until he was in his mid-30s. He and his partner of 10 years, Patrick Lastowski, to whom the book is dedicated, married the first day it was legal in California, June 17, 2008….

He’s having it translated into 10 other languages and has had companies offer to produce an audio version of it for free, just to have their name associated with the book. He’s written a sequel, and a third story is nearly complete, both of which he hopes to release in 2015.,,,

To read original story, click here.