TGIF

Iiiit's Friday!

I must mention that this is the first full week of work that I've done since the beginning of July last year so needless to say I'm pretty knackered!

This morning I finished off the preparation for the author meeting this afternoon and then was asked by the Director whether my other colleague had showed me the 'Germany pending folder'. I explained that as the chapters had been set as priority, I hadn't been shown the pending folder yet. What the Director had neglected to tell me was that this work was also a priority (of course!) so she was rather upset with me because the other colleague was off today so she could only show me on Monday. After a very brief explanation of what I should be doing, the Director left me to my own devices.

The task was basically to read through a folder of printed e-mails and make a list of all German customers where some kind of action was outstanding. This could be anything from, "We sent you some FCs of 3 books a month ago, have you had a chance to review them?" to sending out new synopses or pricing lists and printing schedules. The majority seemed to be to send chasers as we were waiting to hear back from the publishers whether they wanted to join the print run or whether they would reject the concept.

Co-edition publishing means that several publishers can publish the same book but in different territories and languages which renders the printing process cheaper overall because the coloured plates such as the pictures remain the same and the layout is the same; only the black plates ie the text changes (for different languages).

Anyway, I read through the folder and realised that it really wasn't up-to-date so I check the ca. 50 German e-mail folders which I had previously imported. This meant reading through the latest e-mails for each customer e.g. Random House. I made 6 pages of notes of all outstanding actions and then presented them to the Director. She was in a much better mood (either she had calmed down or she was pleased with what I'd done). She told me what to do for each customer (usually sending a chaser e-mail which I can do in German if I like!).

Lunchtime had come so I went for a bite to eat and then spent the remainder of my house queuing in the post office to post a letter for work as well as buying kitchen supplies and more toilet paper with money from the kitty.

Back at the office, I found an e-mail from the Director asking me to call a B&B in Lyon to see if they had an available room for her this weekend for a romantic weekend away. Oh well, it's a good excuse to practice French I guess. Turns out they were fully booked.

I sorted out some more London Book Fair appointments and sorted out some scrap A4 sheets for the photocopier until the Editorial Director asked for a run through of the points she needed to raise in the author meeting. This book is one on modern art for children. We sat down for an hour before the author arrived, and she stayed for an hour and a half! The meeting went well and I was glad that I had stayed late the evening before to work on the documents and preparation. There were quite a few queries from the Art Director for the photo shoot for the book which we had to clarify but also some text re-writes appeared to be missing so we requested those too.

All of a sudden it was 5.40pm and time for home! The poor Editorial Director was staying behind though to type up the notes for the Art Director - I'm so glad she didn't ask me to do it!