I have had a few bad dreams recently – 1000 books are delivered to my front door, I open the first box, scan the pages and to my horror, all the print is overflowing the right margin. The images are either too faint to see or so dark everything looks like night – I desparately tear the boxes apart looking for just one that might be right. In the event, the 1000 books turned up in 42 boxes (41 x 24 and 1 x16 for the mathematically inclined) and after two days hard searching I have yet to find anything wrong, or at least nothing glaring. For this I have to thank my various editors and the skilled advice and guidance provided by The Choir Press, a truly professional organisation. So begins the next interesting task – promotion, marketing and selling.
It has been a fascinating voyage of discovery – for instance, until yesterday I did not appreciate there something called the Legal Deposit. This is the obligation on publishers to send one copy of each of their publications to the British Library. In addition another five must go to the Agency for The Legal Deposit Libraries – this covering The Bodleian Library, Oxford, The University Library, Cambridge, The National Library of Scotland, The Library of Trinity College, Dublin and The National Library of Wales. Odd to think that these august bodies now all contain works by yours truly.
Another worry was the exact dimensions of 1000 books – where would they all go? In the event they squeeze into a relatively confined space, mostly under our dining room table. We don’t expect to be wining and dining for some time!