Why wait until after graduation to start dabbling in your career when you could be having fun doing the work you enjoy and making money for it? That’s the question senior Jonathan Burrello asked himself a year ago. Now, he has a self-published children’s book, “Woolly the Big Cow,” soon to be available online from such big-wig book vendors as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Burrello is originally from Ilion, New York, a small town he willingly discloses “is famous for nothing, except that the Erie Canal used to run though it.”

He is a film major with an extensive knowledge of obscure movies and an aptitude for illustration. And more importantly, ever since Burrello was young, he has had a strange fascination with cows.

“I had thousands of little plastic cows, and rubber cows and toy cows and stuff,” he said.

Then, five years back, Burrello was suddenly inspired to write a book about a cow.

“It just started out as one sentence, and I said, ‘I like that. I wonder what would happen if…’ And I wrote this little story,” said Burrello.

After finishing some drawings for the book and sharing it with his family, he put it on a shelf and forgot about it.

About a year ago, Burrello rediscovered “Woolly the Big Cow” and decided to wipe off the dust and give it a touchup.

“So I went to the trouble of redoing the whole story, redrawing it all, and that took quite a bit of time, and I thought, ‘Well, I did all this work, why don’t I try to get it published,’” he said.

After looking over his options and shipping his book to a few choice publishers, Burrello decided on self-publishing through the company Xlibris. Within the month, it will be on the virtual bookshelf at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

So what does the future hold for Jonathan Burrello? From the sound of it, he plans on making his move in the book industry.

“I’m working on a comic book right now and several other stories I’d like to turn into books,” he said.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Burrello’s Facebook page for “Woolly the Big Cow,” or go to Xlibris.com and get yourself a copy.