Update

Back at Starbucks part-time as a barista. Tips going toward gas money and all of my salary will go toward paying off all the back royalties. Working on layout today.

Happy New Year to you all.

Cris

Weather and Work Updates

Hello, everyone.

Well, looks like we're going to have quite a winter this year and it's started early. On Monday, November 22, we lost power, phone and Internet mid-morning. We got our power back on Wednesday and the Internet and phone was restored late Wednesday night.

A couple of smaller trees came down on the back of the office, but luckily there was no significant damage.

Additionally, Jennifer was hospitalized last week due to extreme anemia. As it stands now, it looks like it's Celiac disease, which has gone undiagnosed for 5 years. We were woken up by a pounding on the door--before we had power or phone back--by Jennifer's mother who was the recipient of a phone call from a nurse who claimed Jennifer was in danger of going into a coma "at any moment." Not the best bedside manner, that nurse.

That was the culmination of a long battle with her health care provider (who I personally believe is an idiot) and after a long, and exhausting day, she was home and her care had been transferred to a new doctor. Unfortunately, that was also Max's 11th birthday and that really wasn't how we wanted to spend it.

I went back to work on Thursday evening after a dinner with over 20 DiMarcos and have been working since then to catch up.

In an effort to keep the timeline for hardback orders as short as possible--despite the weather, which definitely had a negative impact on our timeline--I am billing in groups. As we get close to shipping the first group of hardback orders, I will be billing a second group. The manufacture of the hardbacks is slightly more time intensive and we want to make sure that the product is exceptional.

I do not think that hardbacks will arrive before the holidays. Any books which ship before then will likely arrive very close to or shortly after Christmas. But I can't guarantee that they will be there before Christmas.

Picture Book Hardbacks are also going to be available beginning in January. They will be in a 6.5 x 6.5 size rather than in an 8 x 8 size. I'll be sending an email to all authors and artists who have picture books with us later this month that will have pricing and timeline information.

I appreciate your patience regarding the my timeline in getting back to you. I'm going to try and clean out my inbox by the end of the week.

Take care everyone,
Cris