Monday, November 2, 2009

The Baby IS Ugly After All

Following a call from the printer this morning, I dashed downtown to pick up my books. I plucked one out of the box, excited as a new mom about to cradle her newborn for the first time. The pinkish cast on the cover had been corrected, and the book looked great. Or so I thought at the time. The project manager of my book advised me that they had an overrun of eleven books. Did I want them? Heck, yes! I wouldn't leave any babies behind. He added the eleven to one of the boxes. He and another guy loaded the boxes into my car, and once I arrived home I realized I couldn't carry the boxes by myself. I grabbed a few of the books out of the box and took them inside to admire. I'm not sure I can verbally describe what happened next, but I'll try.

I set the small stack of books on the counter and proceeded to put the groceries away. When I glanced over at the stack, the side of the books appeared wavy. Not on the bound side, but on the unbound one. Thinking my eyes were deceiving me, I took the top book and set it by itself on the counter. Yep, definitely wavy. Is this because the glue isn't quite dry? I'm not sure but if I didn't know better I would say the books had been exposed to excess moisture. With all the rain we had last week, I guess it is a possibility. It occurred to me that perhaps these books were part of the eleven extra put in at the last minute. Maybe they were the first ones through the process and didn't look as good as the rest? Hope springs eternal. I went back out to my car and muscled one of the boxes in. Unfortunately it appears that all the books are doing the wave.

When my husband got home, he took one look and said it appeared that the books had gotten wet. He said HE wouldn't buy one in a bookstore looking like that. And I know that the bookstores are really picky about the appearance of books. Tomorrow I will call my project manager at the printers and see if he has an explanation. The proof book I had reviewed definitely did not look like these. It is six days until the book signing...

No comments: