Just In time!

Well, bless me if they didn't just deliver the goods!  Last night was my annual reading of A Christmas Memory at the bookstore where I work and just in time my latest effort by way of self-publishing showed up that morning.  Here 'tis.

There was a bit of a scramble at the last minute.  Panic!  A dear coworker rushed twenty copies onto the inventory system so as to have them available for sale at the event.  She then, quite sensibly, put them on a display in the event-space -- where I then could not locate them for roughly twenty minutes and sent yet another coworker hustling all over the joint trying to find them in time.  We both looked everywhere, except of course in the most obvious place.  Someone eventually spotted them and order was restored.

This new one is called, Z Is for Zola: An Alphabet Book of Novelists.  In a way, it's something like a sequel to my first, A Is for Auden: An Alphabet Book of Poets.  It's the same format and premise, obviously, with a new set of prose writers this time.  You get the idea, I'm sure.

As is usually the case with these things, I already don't like some of the drawings much, and think others better than I remembered, but the thing is done now.  It is a serviceable effort.

Sold a couple of copies at the event, and a few more today, so that's encouraging.  Anyway, I'm happy.  (My last royalty cheque helps: a whopping $8.90!  So important at this expensive time of year.)  This means I can finally start the annual Great Christmas Mailing, as nearly everyone I know and love seems to live elsewhere, at least at Christmas time.  By the time I am in fact done mailing off copies of the new book and the latest calendar to far-flung Pennsylvania, London, San Francisco, Chicago, etc., I will be done and... done.  (Already bought something nice for the beloved husband, A.)

Until I'm through with the USPS, I can't quite relax, but Capote's done, the new book's done, Thanksgiving is over, and soon I can recline and listen to Christmas music to my hearts content.  (I'm eyeing a new record at the bookstore, 'cause, you know, never can have too much Christmas music.  Now, who are "Pentatonix, and do I need their "That's Christmas To Me"?  Stay tuned.)