Being on a short production schedule is challenging, but it’s also a lot of fun: at any given time, we have at least three projects ongoing concerning different aspects of the book. We’re putting the finishing touches on the structure of manuscript–tweaking the order of the chapters, placement of key lines, and chapter titles. We’re also going full-speed ahead on selling the book to our book representatives. These are the people who we will depend upon to convince Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores to stock and handsell our book, so we really want to make a memorable impression on them. Sales kits, which are fun little bundles of promotional materials that get sent to book reps, are in process. There are lots of possibilities here–roadmaps? postcards? something alluding to Brautigan’s bizarre fascination with mayonnaise? We shall see. Sales kits are a great opportunity to show off our cleverness and creativity while piquing the interest of our book reps. Given the budget we have, it’s an opportunity to be resourceful as well. Being a publishing student means mastering the art of doing excellent work for cheap. I’m really excited to see how our sales kits turn out. We’ll be assembling them and sending them out next week. Naturally, we have other things going on as well–there are events to plan, awards to apply for, and a blog tour to plan. As always, we have our hands full.