Bookmarks: Everything Takes Longer Than You Think It Will

photo by John Sandel

It's here-itty-here-here-here.

After weeks of round-the-clock emails, phone calls and hair-pulling, and one (only one!) unavoidable spurt of tears, Camelot & Vine is finally available in paperback--or as the old folks call it, a "real" book.

My friend Paula says, "Just upload it! It takes five minutes!"

She's right, of course. It takes five minutes to upload the book's interior, another five to upload the cover. The inside of the book has been ready to go to print since early January.

But when you've worked meticulously with an excellent designer to create a cover you both love, and it comes out looking like the printer just learned how to operate the press that day;
when the scoliosis of your book's spine is worse than that of Richard III;
when WYSIWYG means Wait--You're Sure It Wasn't Yellow-Green?;

then it takes more like six weeks. Six migraine-inducing, return-to-the-drawing-board weeks.

When the book finally came, for the third time, and it was finally right, of course John and I immediately cooed over it. Then I emailed Kate Wong, the designer who had worked so hard. A week ago we were both reaching the ends of our expertise. If it didn't come out right this time, we didn't know what to do next.

"Oh dear God what a relief!" Kate wrote back. "I have to admit I've been nervous all day!" It meant a lot to me to knowing she cared so much.

So, we finally have a book. A "real" book. And because it's birthday month, both paperback and ebook are on special until the end of March. I'll post the Amazon link for the paperback when it goes live next week. For now, you can get the paperback of Camelot & Vine at CreateSpace, which is owned by Amazon, so go figure. The ebook is on special, too, no matter the format you choose, so git yer Camelot while it's hot!