Are you superstitious?
If Friday the 13th is so bad, then why was last Friday worse? (Knock on wood.) LOL
Seriously, last Friday was a nightmare for me. The old Murphy's Law seemed to have taken up residence in my life and touched every aspect of it. I was more stressed than a chair with a 40 ton truck on it. Somehow, I managed to survive without a heart attack. And thank goodness for that or I wouldn't have experienced these last two days of awesome news.
As many of you know, if you've read this Gather article, one of our titles, Fade To Pale by James Cheetham, was picked up by the biggest Canadian book chain McNally & Rand. Not only that, they bought twelve copies, with eight pre-sold. A huge coup for us as a relatively new, small press. (This title will be available on Amazon in a few weeks.) Mr. Cheetham has also had Fade To Pale mentioned on three radio stations (one was an interview) and a newspaper article interviewing him (Selkirk Journal in Canada).
Then today, I put in a call to an ex boss. I worked for two years at my hometown library as the senior librarian assistant while I got my masters degree at the local university. I have stayed friends with my ex boss, and, when we published Pervalism in print (available at Amazon as well as at Wild Child Publishing), I donated a copy to my hometown library. (This was back in December 2006.) I called because I had checked the online catalog system last Friday, and the title still wasn't there. My ex boss, Barbara, told me that she really didn't know what had happened to it. Perhaps they'd lost the book in processing.
Hm...well, you can imagine my response. She wondered if I wanted to donate another copy. Since I was originally from there, the book would have a better chance of passing through the library committee.
Now, people, I ask you, would you donate another copy if it could possibly get lost in the shuffle again? No, it's not a great deal of money for one book, but as a small press, every cent counts.
Barbara agreed to talk to the manager of the adult services department at the downtown library to see what happened to the book. As the last time took a while, I didn't imagine she had an answer on the issue, but I called her about something else entirely. Imagine my delight to hear that the manager decided to just purchase a copy for my hometown library, but not just one copy of Pervalism. The library system bought THREE copies! One for my old library, one for the main library, and one for the book mobile.
For some of you, you might be saying, "What's the big deal?"
Honey, breaking into the library systems is a big deal. It's the exposure, the possibility of getting some local newspapers to run stories on our little publishing company, and getting our books out there. It also makes it possible for me to approach my local library again, Culver City branch, which is part of the Los Angeles County Library system, to see if they will carry not just Pervalism, but Fade To Pale, Iron Horse Rider, Conspiracy of Angels, and Dreams & Desires: A Romance and Erotica Anthology. See, I can say that the Fresno County Library system has ordered three copies of Pervalism. It was approved by that system, surely it would be okay for ours.
And now that we have one title in that system, the possibility of us getting more in is much, much higher. You can bet I will be in contact with the manager of adult services for Fresno County Library to see if they would be interested in any of our other titles.
Not only that, because of this, my hometown newspaper has agreed to do a feature article on the local girl who did good. (grin)
Friday the 13th a problem? Not for the Irish. (grin)
Marci Baun
Editor-in-Chief
