Killers -- Wrappers and Books

Posted by Colin Harvey Oct 11, 2008

Somehow or other --against all odds-- it looked as if our decision to ship wrappers for a limited edition to various points around the world was going to work.

Then two things happened.

I needed a holiday. I was desperately run down and still grieving over the death of my dog.

But it meant going off-line for a week just two weeks before launch. In the chaos, I missed one vital point; that the books were being shipped from a printer in the UK, rather than the US.

And Hurricane Ike hit the coast of Texas. The bald facts are that it killed over a dozen people, left thousands needing to be evacuated, and millions without power for weeks, even (possibly) for months.

Just as I was returning from holiday Dindy and I were struggling to talk, and shipments from the US were understandably halted by the appalling weather.

But the jackets (which were coming separately from Greece via Whitby) arrived on the Wednesday before Fantasycon, and Charlie graciously gave up an evening to come and sign them. I took the wrappers with me to the con for Sarah and Paul to sign, and where the books were due to arrive, so we could put together some finished copies.

Sadly, Hurricane Ike blew our schedule off by just enough -- 48, maybe 72 hours -- that the hardbacks wouldn't make it. This was unfortunate, but not a disaster: we still had paperbacks to sell, and Paul and Sarah still needed to sign the jackets.

Then I arrived in Nottingham...