just for fun

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With Strings

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favourite things.”

The box cuter slits the packing tape open and the generic brown cardboard box springs open and releases bright coloured confetti and streamers. Ok  maybe there wasn’t confetti and streamers when I opened the case of The Jewels of Sofia Tate, which arrived from the printer’s this afternoon, but there should have been. Every book deserves to be celebrated – it took a lot of work, patience, and time – from manuscript submission to copy-editing to final checks and every step in between – to get it to this place.  Despite the many, many boxes of newly arrived books that I have cracked opened I still get excited when a new book arrives. It’s neat to see a book in it’s final form especially if you’ve been dealing with galleys or ARCs of them, which are often not in the same format as the final book and have different cover treatment. One of the best parts of my job is presenting an author with their book. Often, if an author is local, they will drop by the office and pick up their author copies, and the look on their face, especially the first time authors, is priceless. 

So what happens after I open the boxes? Well after digging through way too much packing paper I take out the books and do a walk around the office and give one copy to each staff member. One of the neat things of distributing the books is seeing everyone’s reactions, which range from delight that the book has come in on time to “oh another book” to a mini debate erupting about the cover and our thoughts about it. One copy is put on display in our reception area and the rest are shelved in our storage cabinets for, mostly, publicity to use.  These extra copies will be mostly used for media requests, prizes for contests, and for reference. Today, my copy of Sofia comes into my slightly messy office and joins  Dancing in the Sky, Grave Doubts, Outside the Line, Hat Trick, and Outcasts, which are on display on the top shelf of my desk.

Tags: books, Jewels of Sofia Tate, publishing

About the author

Erin is a publicist for Dundurn Press. She reads a wide variety of books (maybe even too many!) and wields a vast amount of positively optimistic power over what should and shouldn't be done in the universe.