A magical moment for author Mary

As the September 25 launch of Unclaimed Baggage, Mary E. O'Keefe's wonderful new Abigail Massey novel, continues to approach, the excitement builds. At least for the people on the Abigail team and, we hope, the folks with the McAdam Historical Restoration Commission.

The writing and publication of a novel is a long and complex journey and the Abigail team is trying to celebrate each step in that challenging but rewarding process. Last week, we enjoyed the creation and implementation of the marketing and promotion plan, with videos being filmed and schedules being worked out.

This week, we celebrate one of the most magical moments in an author's career -- the moment they first see and hold their published novel. For Mary, that memorable moment happened this past Saturday in the middle of a downtown Fredericton coffee shop when Abigail creator and author Mark Walma presented Mary with the printer's proof of Unclaimed Baggage.

To make the moment even more magical, Mary happened to be in mid-conversation with a mutual friend who was, at that very second, asking when the new book was expected to be out. Mark handed Mary the printer's proof and, in an excited, almost sing-song voice, Mary said, "Oh my goodness, that's it!" before accepting the book and cradling it carefully in her hands.

The book itself is absolutely beautiful. Mark and Mary agreed that illustrator and designer Lynn Walma had taken her already fabulous work on early Abigail books up another notch with Unclaimed Baggage: beautifully designed, perfectly executed and with three new illustrations that are already among our favourites, UB is simply a stunning work of art.

As Mary flipped through the new novel, Mark asked her how it felt to hold her first novel in the her hands. Again, with a delighted laugh, Mary said simply, "It feels pretty good!"

The printer's proof copy is a single printing of the new book that is prepared by the printing company so that the creative team can give it one last review before the full print run is initiated. This review is not intended to be another edit -- the time for changing the text is long since passed -- but to give us the chance to ensure that no mistakes were introduced to the book as it moved from computer file to printed form.

For example, we look for duplicated pages, or pages that might be missing, or print that is fuzzy or otherwise unclear, or text that is misaligned on the page or even chapters that have somehow been printed out of order.

We're happy to report that Sure Print and Design in Toronto produced an absolutely perfect printer's proof and we are ready to give the go ahead for the initial print run of 500 copies. With the marketing and promotion strategy in full swing and interest already high, we are hopeful that we sell out of those 500 copies soon after the September 25th launch and have to go back to Sure Print to ask them to run off hundreds more copies of Unclaimed Baggage!

Preparing for a September launch

 

(L to R) Sariah, Mary and Jen preparing to record

It was an amazing and exciting day at the McAdam Railway Station and Hotel yesterday.

Abigail authors Mary O'Keefe and Mark Walma met with Jennifer Yamazaki, Operations Manager for the Station, and Sariah Murray, newly hired summer student, to start to implement the promotional campaign for Mary's upcoming Abigail novel, Unclaimed Baggage. 

The day started with a lovely surprise: McAdam Historical Restoration Commission mainstays Gail Swan, Frank Carroll and Elsie Carroll joined the group for a coffee and a catch-up chat. It's hard to believe that 14 years ago the first meeting took place involving the Abigail creative team (represented by Mark, Mary and Mark's partner Patti) and the Commission's executive, which included Gail, Frank and Elsie!

Getting set up

So much has happened since then and the morning coffee was a wonderful opportunity for the group of friends to compare notes about their lives and the Abigail Massey journey they have all shared.

There was a lot of laughter, some tears and a number of stories shared, making it hard for Jennifer to get the group refocused on the task at hand: recording a series of videos featuring Mary and Mark in preparation for a summer of promotion for the new novel.

But focus we did. With Sariah serving as interviewer and Jen staffing the camera, Author Mary turned out to be a natural, providing eloquent, heart-warming and fascinating answers to the questions Sariah posed. Mary was so good, in fact, we nicknamed her "One-Take Mary" since she rarely needed more than one try to deliver a wonderful performance.

Mark was almost as smooth and the day, which we expected to be a long one, wound up early with photos on the Station platform and a delicious lunch at the newly refurbished McAdam Cafe.

The new novel!

Now it's up to Jen and Sariah to take the raw video and begin to prepare it (editing, cropping, adding titles) for posting throughout the coming months. This is all in preparation for the Book Launch Event for Unclaimed Baggage, which is now scheduled for late September (likely the 25th).

Even as we were wrapping things up in McAdam, we received word from Lynn Walma in Ontario that yesterday she picked up a printed sample of the new novel at the printers for our final review before the entire run is printed! It's beautiful.