This is the one hundred and third installment of West Wind, your weekly drop of thoughts, ideas, and info for this Season. It’s also six days away from Christmas!
Hey I know those people!
Candy gets people’s attention! Last weekend Michelle and I were successful in running a small booth where we sold copies of each of our three published books, plus a little CD containing the six narrated short stories. And it went well! I got to meet many people from the community and outside of it. Welcome to all those who agreed to sign up for this mailing list newsletter thing.
But, it was almost not so. I said earlier that the story of why was for another post, and this is the one. First, though, let’s explore a different kind of story.
Speaking of amazing stories, have you heard of the Wingless Cycle by Catherine Witzaney? It's an award-winning epic fantasy series for readers aged 9-14 about tiny warrior sprites and all the antics they get up to. When wingless sprite Asher Songfeather realizes the only way to save his sister is to face his greatest fears, he learns what true bravery looks like. But is he brave enough to save himself?
The first book Wingless won the 2025 Realm Award in the Early Reader to Middle Grade category, along with an Award of Merit from the Word Awards. Fancy! The sequel, Clanless is now available, and books 3 and 4 of the series are currently in the works. While I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read them myself, I have heard great things about the books from both adult and younger readers, and you can’t beat that kind of approval. You can find out more info about the series by visiting Catherine's website at catherinewitzaney.com
So, this tale starts all the way back in Dispatch #59. After selling all of his books, plus some he didn’t even have on hand, our intrepid author found himself in need of replenishment. However, he could handle any subsequent orders through print-on-demand fulfillment, so it wasn’t completely necessary to get more right away.
August turned into October, and the email came in confirming that we would have a booth at the Christmas Market at our church. Hooray! Only thing was, no books. I wanted to make a few changes to the front and end-matter in each title, and after ordering proof copies to make sure the changes looked good, I realized that the changes hadn’t changed at all.
Each of the three books were the same as the previous versions that I had ordered. In fact, they were the same as the original versions, that I had originally printed almost two years prior. None of the updates or tweaks (or typo fixes) that I had been submitting had actually occurred in the copies we’d been getting. I had been immediately turning around and selling them, so didn’t scrutinize each copy, and the only person who would have noticed in the first place was me, so I just let it go. Time was ticking, so I placed an order on November 22, thinking that would be plenty of time to get some copies on hand and sell a few at the market. Satisfied, I forgot about it.
Cut ahead to December 7, when I realized that the books hadn’t actually shipped out yet. Whoops. I contacted customer service for the printer, no response. Each day I say to Michelle: “If they ship out today, we’ll be fine, they’ll get here in time.” Each day, no luck.
Tuesday was panic day. We started going through other options, like printing copies at home and spiral binding them at the local print shop, and calling around to the few companies in the area that claim to do book printing. One had a minimum order of 50, one would take three weeks, another went out of business completely and didn’t update their website. One I couldn’t even reach, the phone just rang. No voicemail or anything. Michelle pointed out it was lunchtime, so they were probably away from the phone. Fair enough.
Nothing seemed like it was working. We were out of options. I was sitting down to type out the email to the market coordinators to regretfully tell them that we weren’t able to attend, when my phone buzzed because it was done charging. I picked it up to unplug it, and remembered that I hadn’t actually reached one of the printers on the list. It was the middle of the afternoon at this point, so, I went ahead and gave them a call.
I was floored to find out that not only could they print a small run of 21 books, but also have them done in two days. Totally shocked. Sure, their facility was an hour and a half drive away and I would need to take time off work to go get them, but that was nothing compared to actually being able to attend the event after all! I closed that email draft and started working on a quote and sending them files. What an absolute God moment, coming through for us when I had resigned ourselves to a less than favorable outcome. Juan Diego was pulling for us, as it was his feast day.
But the story isn’t over yet. The very next day I got an email that the first order of books had finally shipped. Kind of good, but the market was in three days and there was no way it would make it to us in time. The local printer was printing away, and I was supposed to go get them on Friday, the day before the market. No matter the snow that had just fallen on Thursday, they do a good job of clearing roads around here. Everything was going great.
Friday morning, I got an email that the books would be delivered that day. No way. If we had just waited, we would have had books to sell without having to do a second order. Well, that’s the kind of thinking I like to put in the Bitcoin folder. If I had just mined some more Bitcoin on my old laptop in 2012 (for free), I could have sold it for $80,000 today and been rich. But how could I have possibly known it would ever get that out of hand high?
I got back from my adventure with a fresh box of books, and not two hours later the UPS driver arrived with another one. Joy! Double the books to sell at the event the next day. But wait, what about all of those issues where all of my changes didn’t get implemented? What manner of books are these? Is the blurb from Katie Bogner prominently on the back cover of Octave?
You don’t have to wait til next week to find out, reader, I’ll tell you right now. They were all correct. We had twice as many books as we had originally ordered, plus a few extras that the local printer threw in because of cutting and trimming and such. So… wow. God provided so much for us in so many ways, and now the warehouse (storage box) is fully stocked and ready to send out signed copies to readers for the next year, and then some.
Sorry, no more room for a Florabeast this week, but you can browse the Floradex anytime you please, and maybe find one you’ve never heard of before. Winter is almost here, so enjoy the new Season, and the weekend, and remember that all is well.