The Author Speaks: on the arrival of the stock

The books have finally arrived and I couldn’t be more relieved. As someone who is prone to anxiety it was a nerve wracking couple of weeks while pre-orders were rolling in, but (as usual) the hand-wringing was unnecessary.

Minuteman Press in Prahran, who have printed the book, have done an absolutely splendid job. Bringing the boxes inside was a task but I decided to add it to my daily workout (any exercise is the right sort of exercise to lose weight, I suppose.) The process was helped by a very responsive (and patient) team who were always keen to give advice when needed. With such a big undertaking that was vitally important, and with someone who was just learning the ropes it was doubly so.

The unboxing was almost as surreal as cutting the umbilical cord when my son was born (and far easier, I might add – cutting the cord is like using craft scissors to shear through a garden hose, but I digress.) To see something I had created and gestated and brought into the world finally here and able to be held, to feel the grain of the paper and smell the ink on the page, is something that will stick with me. When seeing all those books nestled in the box the first time it really hit me that this is legitimate. I am now a properly published author. All the hard work has started paying off.

One of my first jobs now is to send two copies of the book off for legal deposit. That means that I have to submit a copy to the National Library of Australia and another to the State Library of Victoria. They will then add the book to their respective databases. The legal deposit is a way of the libraries keeping track of the output of local authors and maintaining the work they create. Thus, in a few days Glenrowan will officially be in the same ranks as books like Our Sunshine and True History of the Kelly Gang on the shelves of some of our great institutions (though I have a sneaking suspicion mine will be better received by a great many readers who value the Kelly story as more than just a fairytale to play around with.)

Today I’m bundling up the Glenrowan140 orders and the collector’s packs. That means numbering and signing 140 copies of the book and adding the extra goodies as I put them in their parcels. Starting tomorrow I will be sending out parcels. Once the book is out in the world it’s out of my control, so it will be interesting to see how it is received. I’m pretty confident it will be received well.

At any rate I had best get back to work – these books don’t sign themselves.