Y hello thar trading cards!

Pressing Matters: Week of September 30-October 4, 2013

Acquisitions

1. Still reading through submissions – slush, sequels, solicited. So much reading! Responses are headed out, a few fulls are requested, and there’s a lot of head-shaking going on. Seriously, is it that hard to follow directions, people?

Editing

1. Commentary on a new novel by Susan Jane Bigelow sent back. She…may be plotting Kate’s death now.

Production

1. Finalizing the last few revisions on II Crimsonstreak. Soon…the launch!
2. Many, many promotional items have been ordered for upcoming launches. Some make perfect sense, like bookmarks. Some, maybe not so much. How many buttercream eyeballs does a small press need, anyway?
3. Being a small press is always interesting. Where else do you produce trading card sets and lovingly wrap them individually in waxed paper?

Reviews, Promotions, and Buzz

1. Itching to follow up with the adventures of Chris Fairborne, aka Crimsonstreak, we have good news! The pre-order is now open, and there’s some nifty rewards available!
2. Great review of The Other Half of the Sky now up at SF Signal.
3. Are you in the NYC area? Get yourself over to Queens on October 9 for a night that’s not to be missed! Enigma Bookshop is hosting Leonard Richardson and Anne E. Johnson for a sci-fi blowout!
4. On the Left Coast? You’re not left out of the author fun! Justin Robinson will be appearing at Conjecture 2013 with a table in the Dealers’ Room from Oct. 18-20 in San Diego.

Sundries

1. Fulfilling pre-orders for City of Devils is taking longer than we anticipated – not because of the trading cards, but because of the Anti-Monster Preparedness Kits. Apparently, the necessary bottles and vials were delivered…somewhere…and signed for by…someone…and that place was not here, and that person was not anyone we’ve ever heard of. So someone, somewhere, has 100 little bottles that we need, dangit. Trying to solve that one.
2. It’s Accounting Time again. Someone please send Kate more bourbon.
3. Having trouble finishing that novel you’re under contract for? Apply for three weeks to write at the trendy Standard hotel and you can go write in style! Of course, if it’s sponsored by The Paris Review, we all know what kind of exclusive literature they’re looking for…us genre geeks will have to make do with writing at the kitchen table, alas.
4. This video of how, exactly, the rover got to Mars is neat.
5. Speaking of out of this world…the latest beer from Dogfish Head is made with ground-up lunar meteorites. I…am skeptical. Too much mineral finish!
6. An oldie but goodie. Not least because I have a feeling I AM going to die in a freak reshelving accident one day not too far in the future.
7. A dragon writer at work, proving that three heads are better than one…
8. Dr. Seuss dinosaurs. Yep.
9. RAWR!