Approving Proofs, Short Run Printing

Tue 25 Jun 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Just like old days here: sent two books to the short run printer before breakfast — 1 box of Laurie J. Marks’s Fire Logic for Book Moon, 5 boxes for our distro; along with another 3 boxes of Geoff Ryman’s Was. Both books generally receive a small annual boost from Pride Month, which — from a publishing and personal standpoint — heartlifting.

Was is also taught in a couple of universities. If you’ve visited our table at AWP or, really, almost any bookfair, in the last 10 years I may have tried to put this book in your hands. It is a heartbreaker, an absolute unstoppable train that no matter how many times I reread it, I keep hoping the end will be different. It wasn’t ever a book I expected we would reprint but then, after we published the US edition of The King’s Last Song we were able to pick up the rights. And I keep re-reading it, and keep hoping. So many readers have found the same. Ack. What a book.

I started this meaning to write 2 lines: one about reprinting books, the other about approving printer proofs. I am not sure when I’ll next do this so there’s an odd feel to it. What used to be a run-of-the-mill task now holds an extra weight. The proofs are for the limited edition of Kelly’s novel, The Book of Love, and are for the endpapers, the signing sheet, the illustrations, the onlays, and the text, and I am not sure we’ll get them all approved today. Luckily for the two of us, this (hmm, somewhat mentally exhausting, there goes the day!) work also qualifies as fun.