A funny story.
So STRANGEWAYS: MURDER MOON is being printed. Things happen, and the schedule slips. Some of these things are my fault even. Right. First project, etc. I can roll with that.
The schedule slips such that I have to pay to have books air-shipped to me to arrive in time to take down to Los Angeles for the Wizard World show a couple of weeks ago. Price you gotta pay, right? And I'm just doing this to get the word out mostly; not a money-making proposition for me. So the books arrive on Thursday, in time for me to pack some into my stuff for the LA trip the following morning. Hooray.
I figure the rest of the books are going to be a week behind or more, given shipping. I know that they go to Diamond faster because Lebonfon has a regular truck to Diamond that runs on a set schedule. But for me, I figure that it's going to be a little while. I mean, that's a lot of books that I ordered, mostly to keep the unit cost to a manageable level, even if that means paying more up front. This is a decision that I'd want to rethink later, but too late now, as the die is cast and all that jazz.
So the books have to be driven down all the way from Quebec. I'm a patient guy.
Of course, the following Monday, I hear that the books are on Diamond's ship list for that week (being the 19th, a week early, which threw me into a bit of an uproar.) So I have that to deal with, getting review copies out and the like, with a lot less (read zero) time than I thought I'd have. This, after talking with people who'd done self-published books before, them saying that I'd probably miss the 26th as a ship date given the time for the books to run through the system. Well, that didn't turn out to be true, did it?
Jump ahead to Tuesday, like the day after Monday, and the phone rings.
"Mr. Maxwell?" asks a voice with a heavy French accent. Only it's not really French, it's Quebeçois, but I'm not educated enough to tell the difference between the two. "We are on our way and wanted to confirm the directions." No, I'm not going to write it in dialect, as that'd make it pretty much unreadable.
"Uh, great," says, I. Not entirely sure where all the books are going to actually go, since I hadn't cleared garage space fully, since I was expecting them to be *late*, not *early*.
Turns out that they were about half an hour away. I quickly spread layers of newspaper over the oil spots on the garage floor. Funny how you never think about that stuff ahead of time. I shoved some boxes over to one side too, so there was enough room to dump the shipment, but not enough to park my car when all was said and done. Good thing rainy season is over.
Big 'ol truck arrives, leaving a mess of diesel oil on the nice residential street where I live. At least the neighbors didn't stare, but then again there's been a lot of moving trucks coming in and out recently thanks to the whole mortgage meltdown, so maybe it wasn't that unusual after all.
"Where do you want these?"
Such a loaded question. I wanted them in bookstores or being read by the adoring public. As it was, I'd have to be content storing them at home. I stood in the garage and said "Ici," only a little resigned.
"Parlez-vous Français?" the driver asked tentatively.
"Oui," I replied. Which sounded a lot more like "ouweeee", way down in the chest and throat. Good thing I'd taken all that French in college, 'cause I was too stubborn to take Spanish after three years of High School Spanish. "Je parlez un peut de Français, mais pas de Quebeçois."
That got a little chuckle. And yes, I know that I can't spell French.
We then spent the next half an hour unloading boxes by hand, with just a hand-truck and not a pallet-jack, which would have been dangerous, given the steep angle of the street I live on, so just as well. And once things were all unloaded, I got to play international negotiator as the guys on the next stop on the route didn't speak French. But I did passably. In little bits.
Finally got both sides to settle on a delivery "A demain", which is "tomorrow" for you non-Francophones out there. So the driver and his wife got to enjoy the tres belle weather we were enjoying in the Sierras that day. Seventy and climbing, full sun, whereas the driver had come from a couple meters of snow the day or two before.
Then I got to tell my wife and tell her the good news. And to park on the right side of the garage...