This past week has been a real whirlwind, not only for those of us working on The Wax Bullet War, but for the press as a whole. We had two conferences last weekend: the 2014 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference held in Seattle, and the Northwest Regional National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference here in Portland. It was an acronym-laced whirlwind—did I mention that?

So, while we have lots to do before publication day, most of those projects were on hold for the week while we focused our attention on these conferences. It wasn’t time lost, though; I can’t stress enough how valuable making face-to-face connections with people can be in the life of a book. Crafting interesting, exciting copy that conveys passion for a title is a necessary skill in publishing, but in-person conversations are another thing entirely: they allow us to ask and answer questions directly and to talk about the book in more personal terms.

We took postcards and galleys to AWP and handed them out to potential readers and reviewers. Sean had a great reading the first evening of AWP, and people laughed and nodded as he read his piece, a teaser of the book to come. The Ooligan delegation at NCTE came back with reports much like ours from AWP: people were interested and enthusiastic about Sean’s book.

And, of course, Sean did much of the same and more. Publishers do their very best to send new titles out into the world with as much oomph behind them as possible, but the dedication of an author to helping that process can be key to a book’s success. To say Sean has been a great partner in that regard would be an understatement.

We’re back at it, so stay tuned for another update and an exciting announcement next week.

Laurel