Pre-orders and the world’s smallest bookmarks
So I decided I was going to have a bit of fun with the Raven’s Haven for Women of Magic pre-order launch this week by sending out some funky themed bookmarks to those who got in first.
I had a really funky design made, found a website that would make them for me and paid for expedited shipping to get them here on time. The printing did seem unusually cheap though. I probably should have double-checked that…
The box arrived in time and I excitedly opened it to find – the world’s teeniest bookmarks!
After initially being quite upset, I began to see the funny side. I decided to have a look at my order before stoking my righteous indignation, because I had a sinking feeling it might have been my fault, and sure enough, this one was entirely on me.
Check your measurements people!
When I do my book admin, it’s often after a full day of work and my brain, which thinks it’s done enough braining for the day, gets a bit resentful that I’m asking it to do more. This is why I should probably leave things like ordering bookmarks until the weekend.
I’d found myself a site that would print bookmarks for me at a reasonable price. It was from an NZ address, had an NZ phone number and for all intents and purposes looked like an NZ company. (Which is why I thought it was a little odd that the package that arrived had come from India.) That in itself wasn’t an issue – though I always prefer to support local suppliers. The bookmarks arrived in time and they are good quality.
The giveaway that it wasn’t an NZ outfit though, should have been that the measurements were in inches. If they had been in centimeters I would have clicked straight away that the measurements were business card sized. But tired, resentful brain just skipped over numbers like 2 and 3.5 because they didn’t compute. I suspect I just thought, ‘they must be some weird designer dimensions, whatevs’ and went for the smallest one because they’d all be bookmark sized, I mean they were labelled bookmarks. So that’s how I ended up with a box of business cards themed around a single book and it was completely my fault.
Confusing customs
It gets better though. By the time the package got to me, it had been opened and repackaged and was covered in ‘Customs have been poking around in here’ stickers. When I opened the box it was pretty obvious why. A boxed neatly packed with white square packages, would definitely have looked suss on the x-ray.
I would love to have seen the customs official’s face when they found hundreds of business cards covered in cats!
Back up freebies!
But never fear, there will still be goodies for those who get in on the pre-orders. Not only will you get one of the world’s teeniest bookmarks, I will also throw in a Ghost Bus themed art print by the very talented Shaun Garea from Estrata Productions – New Zealand
Above is just one example. You can check out the others on my post about the Sir Julius Vogel Awards
So how do we pre-order already?
First dibs on pre-orders for Raven’s Haven for Women of Magic go to my newsletter subscribers. But don’t worry, it’s not too late! I’ll be sending out my first newsletter with the pre-order link tonight, so there’s still plenty of time to sign up. You can do that from the Anna Kirtlan Writes homepage. Or, right here, right now, via the link below:
Once the newsletter crew get their turn I will start sharing the link via social media and my website. Can’t wait for you to be able to get copies in your hot little hands! Have a lovely Easter and I’ll be in touch soon.
