Kate Duffy Icon

I can never remember what year it is. Never. I dated a check yesterday 12/18/09 and it looked right to me. For about 10 seconds. And then I thought, “No, it’s 08.” Brilliant.

My publishing schedule for 2008 is set and in the middle of January I present my January-April 09 trade and hardcover books and my January 09 mass markets at a sales meeting. Not that I own them all yet, but that’s another story. I have art descriptions for my January 09 books that have gone to the art department and materials for some of them that have gone to the copy department. In my world – it’s 09 time.

The lead time is necessary to get materials done in time to be included in the monthly sales kits that the reps use to solicit orders for our books. So we are already spending money on titles, some of which the authors have yet to start writing. And that lead time is yet another reason why if you are very late on delivering your work, there is not much I can do about it. If you can’t give me time to edit it, I can at least read it for libel. But that’s not much fun. Just saying.

So whatever year next year is, I hope it is the best yet for all of you. Brava has some phenomenal offerings – we continue to rely less on anthos and more on single titles. Our titles and covers, those that I have seen so far, get better and better. The content – sublime.

So many, many thanks to you who write and/or read our books.

Kate