So, to you, this is just a big brown chest of drawers. To us, it’s a hard-won plans chest where we’ll store great illustrations while we’re working with them. Plans chests are RIDICULOUSLY expensive and we have lost four ebay auctions for one so far. This one was in Cambridge, and Adrian drove there in a big old Volvo to discover that he could only fit half of it in the car. So he had to go back the next day for the top half, thus adding to both the cost and our carbon footprint: so much for “doing the right thing” (see “What’s important to us” on the About us page). Still, at least we are reusing.
Kate turned down some books today. This is harder to do when you don’t have many books than it is when you have a nice, meaty programme and a backlist, as Kate and Camilla are discovering. But we don’t feel that we can compromise on what we really think works as a read and what we really think works for the market: we think we’ve set our standards high, and we have to stick to them.
There’s good coverage in today’s The Bookseller about our launch, following their briefer coverage on Monday.
So, we have flowers, and a plans chest and, most importantly, a really warm welcome from so many people in the book industry. This website’s received 1,600 visits from 34 countries in its first five days and we’ve had scores of comments directly and posted on the site. Thank you very much if you’ve written to us personally, if you’ve posted a comment, or if you’ve wished us well silently. It’s good to be here.
