We have a new catalogue! It came in on Friday, and went out the next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And is, indeed, still going out. To make the arrival even more nerve racking we got a last minute phone call from the printer on the day they were supposed to be printing saying he thought we'd got our measurements wrong. Now 'twas I who did those measurements originally so if 3000 copies of our most important sales tool were about to turn up unusable, it was going to be squarely my fault. My hands actually shook before cutting into the first box.
They were fine.* Good even. Striking, different, one hopes. The front cover depicts the image from Banquet of Lies with definitions of translation (reflection, combination,transformation) written colourfully in our new designer Alice's (I wonder if she'd like to blog? I'll ask next week) sprightly hand. Inside you will find interviews with not our front list authors BUT our frontlist translators. The spearhead of our efforts to publicize the importance of translated fiction.
The week was of course spent sending them to everyone we know, the Big List came out, the one that in theory everyone we meet gets added to immediately that it seems to us they might be interested. And then it was the monotony of take, open,shove, 2 militres saliva, 10 grams pressure, address, 10 more grams pressure, stamp (the royal kind), stamp (the ink kind), flick of the wrist. This last because rather than piling envelopes up neatly it seems far more fun to see how high a pile of envelopes can be built from two and a half metres away. I find this fun because I am a boy. I think Rebecca, who is not, found it thoroughly annoying.
And so now they're out. All except foreign ones and all the people who were left off the Big List. Should anyone find themselves in this unfortunate situation please let us know and we'll flick a copy thuswards.
Some news:
The splendiferous Vulpes Libris have done a review of This May Help You Understand the World , which is still doing very well.
The Spectator gave a brief mention to The Bookaholics Guide... in an article on books on the internet.
And on Monday, hopefully, we welcome back Catheryn. Whose birthday it was yesterday, should anyone like to send us cake. We can offer impeccably measured translation themed catalogues in return.
Kit
*It is, of course, unlikely that if there had been a problem, I would have mentioned it on the blog. I'd be cowering in shame somewhere, probably curled up under something, making a plan to fix things somehow.
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