‘Sunshine’ steps into spotlight

• What: “Haunting of Sunshine Girl” book signing with Paige McKenzie, Mercedes Rose and Nick Hagen.

• Where: Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 S.W. Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, Ore.

• When: 7 p.m. Wednesday.

• Cost: Free.

• Information: http://hauntingofsunshinegirl.com

The YouTube series tells the tale of Sunshine (Paige McKenzie), a girl who moves into a haunted house in Vancouver with her mother (played by her real-life mother, Mercedes Rose).

The production, directed by Nick Hagen and filmed in Vancouver, follows Sunshine as she chases ghosts, strange characters and other phenomena.

The series, on The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Network on YouTube, is in its 12th season. It launched in late 2010. The YouTube series is free to view online at https://www.youtube.com/user/hauntedsunshinegirl.

Watch the book trailer video

With recent TV appearances on the “Today” show and MSNBC, a trip to The Weinstein Co. Oscar party in Hollywood, Calif., and the launch of a national book tour, it’s apparent that Vancouver’s once-little YouTube channel has grown up.

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Network, which launched in Clark County in October 2010 as a project between Nick Hagen, Mercedes Rose and Paige McKenzie, is gaining national attention as the next “Twilight,” “Hunger Games” or “Divergent” for the young adult market.

Working with Weinstein, one of the biggest names in Hollywood, the stalwart band of Pacific Northwesterners will release their first book Tuesday — not in small shops, but in such big retail outlets as Target, Wal-Mart, Powell’s, Barnes & Noble, Costco and Amazon.

And the book, called, creatively enough, “The Haunting of Sunshine Girl,” has already gotten kudos from “Goosebumps” author R.L. Stine and renowned horror director Wes Craven.

“Things that go bump in the night are afraid to read this book. … Read it if you dare, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Craven said in a promotional blurb.

McKenzie, the book’s main author, said she’s just amazed at how fast the last year filled up with writing, filming for her YouTube network and making television appearances.

“I’m super busy, but super good,” McKenzie, 20, said. “It’s been really exciting. It’s kind of a whirlwind right now.”

The book is the first of two, with more likely to follow, McKenzie said. And talk is that Weinstein wants to bring it to the screen — although whether that’s a big movie screen or a TV series on Netflix or another network remains to be seen.

“Until they green-light it, they keep everything quiet and in-house,” Hagen said. “The Weinsteins are so cutting edge, I know they really like Netflix, but I could also see it on network or cable. We’ll know more when they move forward.”

The plot of the book is essentially the first YouTube series’ playlist re-imagined, Hagen said.

McKenzie wrote most of the narrative herself, she said, with help from young adult fiction writer Alyssa Sheinmel and input from Hagen and Rose.

“It’s definitely not a small launch,” Rose said. “It’s already pre-sold in other countries, as well. It’s coming out in Germany, France, the U.K. and I think several other countries.”

McKenzie, Hagen and Rose together own the local film company Coat Tale Productions, which operates The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Network on YouTube.

Earlier this year, McKenzie went to New York to record the audio version of the book, which also comes out Tuesday.

“That was recording five or six hours a day for five days,” McKenzie said. “I’m learning a lot. Eventually I’d like to wear lots of hats — directing, producing — and now I’m an author, which is pretty cool.”

After a handful of signings in Portland and Seattle, McKenzie will hit the book tour circuit, with appearances planned in New York, Connecticut, Texas and California.

She also filmed about 20 YouTube episodes back-to-back recently so that the network will continue to have new material while she’s off promoting the book. Rose and Hagen are working on editing those episodes now.

“At this point my main focus is keeping the channel going while Paige is so busy,” Rose said. “We want to keep going with the network no matter what happens. We’re actually looking to expand and are looking for other YouTube videos to add to our channel.”

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Network has also benefited from McKenzie’s growing fame. The channel is averaging about 7 million video views a month and had close to 250,000 subscribers as of mid-March.

“Part of the thing with YouTube is you have to put content up continuously,” Rose said. “We’re on season 12 of ‘Sunshine’ now, so we have hundreds of videos to watch. It’s great that we have all this content you can watch over and over again.”

‘Origin story’

Hagen is also working on the channel and on some of the story for the second book in the series.

“Book one is sort of the ‘Sunshine’ origin story,” Hagen said. “Book two, there’s this growing dark, evil force in the world, and it will all wrap together with who Sunshine is and what happened when she was born.”

Hagen, who has directed the YouTube series since it began, probably won’t be the director when the book goes to either the TV or film screen, although at some point he’d love that, he said.

“Hopefully, I’ll get to write some episodes and then they’ll let me direct,” Hagen said. “They don’t really know me well now, and Hollywood’s a different animal than Vancouver.”

He and Rose are also working on a few new series ideas for the Sunshine network, including one about alien abductions, Hagen said.

“It took a lot of work, and there were times where everyone was asking us what the hell we were doing with YouTube,” Hagen said. “Now people ask if we’re surprised by our success. But this has always been our plan.”

McKenzie agreed.

“It’s not like any of us fell into this,” McKenzie said. “This has been a lot of work. But now I’m just super excited to see how much it’s growing.”