T'was the Night Before Christmas... 

...and all through the shop,
all we minions were working,
   until ready to drop.

The ebooks were flying,
the covers were spare,
The edits were crazy,
   with "one more thing I must share!"

We waited for Santa,
'Cuz we love old Saint Nick,
But Hitch made us work,
   Waving 'round an old stick!

So slave we all did,
And made all your books,
So that Hitch would say now,
   that we're off the hook.

Come today we're off,
to rest up our fingers,
Our hats we will doff,
   No books they do linger.

But we'll all be back,
Don't give it a thought,
for like all wage slaves,
   we're easily bought.

We'll be back on the fifth,
all eager and fresh,
All ready for you,
   after a well-deserved rest.

So Hitch wants to say,
very strongly and loud,
THANKS ALL YOU GUYS,
  you're the best type of crowd.

Indy and Len and Hitch and the gang,
will be back on the 5th,
to do books with a BANG!

In the meantime don't worry,
if you're in a hurry,
'cuz some poor guy got stuck
   sitting here like a duck.

Your emails we'll receive,
so no need to grieve.
We'll be a bit slow,
but we're raring to go.

Your books will be worked on,
your edits still made,
we're just resting a bit,
   before we all fade.

So please excuse the delays;
It won't be for days;
we'll jump on your queries,
   for your wondrous new series.

We waited for Santa,
'Cuz we love old St. Nick,
And sure 'nuff he came,
   It wasn't a trick.

And as he rode off,
into the night,
I could swear I heard Hitch yell,
   "That Edit's Not Right!"

~~~~~~~~~~

We'll be back on the morning of January 5th; we'll be here parttime between now and then, thanks.  

Holiday Closing Alert!

Independence Day (July 4th), 2020 

(And a notice about phone calls.) 

As amazing as it is, this year, for the first time ever,  we're going to be closed for the 4th of July!

That means we're going to be closed, Friday-Monday, July 3rd, 4th and 5th, 2020.

And please, don't forget why we honor Independence Day. 

A notification about phone calls:  due to the COVID-19 plague, we've significantly increased our incoming inquiries--nearly double our usual volume--and the number of incoming inquiries by phone has been literally overwhelming.  Although most writers will say that their call "will only take 15 minutes," the truth is, that after 10 years of doing this, most author inquiry calls take an hour.  45 minutes at best. I'm currently receiving 7-10 calls/day, and due to that, I've had to stop accepting incoming phone calls, which my voicemail will tell you. You can leave a message--I can't call you back without one--and if a call is needed, I will of course call you.  But we have very complete and extensive email replies, handouts and our website is very informative. Almost all the questions that I receive during a call are actually already answered on our site, or are, in fact, publishing questions, not questions about our services, what we do, what we offer, or the like.  I already handle between 90-130 emails/day, as it is. I can't handle that many emails and take 7-10 hours of calls each day. I can't. So, in order to be able to answer this huge email volume, to help the greatest number of people, with my time, I've had to stop accepting calls.  I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. I'm in the process of setting up a call-appointment function, for free 15-minute calls to answer questions from new prospective customers and longer paid sessions for folks who generally want consulting on "publishing," generally (and for prospective kids' book publishers, as a special category of paid consulting).  But that functionality isn't yet set up. I hope to get that working the week of the 5th July, sometime.  

Thank you for your understanding.  

Phone Call Service Back in Service! 

(Please read, thanks; updated 11-28-2022.) 

YUP ladies and gents, phone service is back in service and we are good to go.

During Covd, we had no choice but to stop accepting phone calls.  Now, we can lift that ban and return to our usual service.

Thank you for your understanding.

623-239-1660  

Waiting for a reply to your inquiry? 

(Please read, thanks.) 

 Due to a Spambomb attack, our contact form is having issues!  

A notification about our contact form inquiries:  A few weeks back,  we endured a spam-bomb attack.  We received literally tens of thousands of emails, via our contact form on the CONTACT page.  Our web guys leapt into action, and put in a "ReCaptcha" element, to try to stop the spam bombs.   And it worked, hooray. However, it apparently also caused a glitch, in which we have NOT received all the submitted inquiries, from real customers and prospective customers. We apologize for this and we're in the process of fixing it. In the meantime, if you do not hear from us same-day, or at the absolute latest, within 24 hours, please email us directly, not using the CONTACT form, but the email address on our CONTACT page in the "How to Reach Us" column, thank you. We apologize for any inconvenience and we hope it's all resolved shortly. 

Thank you for your understanding.   

2019-20 Winter Downtime Admin Office Hours:

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and a Super Happy New Year to you all!

As many of our returning customers know, like Santa, early winter-to-Christmas Eve is our busiest time; some years, like this one, nobody gets a day off--not even Sundays--for many weeks, sometimes even months, heading into the last production day prior to Christmas day.  Each year, we close over the holidays, to recharge our batteries, just like Santa and Dasher here.  

We'll be closed, administratively, from 2/21 at noon, through the morning of January 6th.  Yes, TWO WEEKS.  On the morning of the 6th, Indy, our Queen o'Quotes, along with Jay, our Doyenne of Customer Delight (Production and Customer Service), and someone new to many of you, Judith, our Princess of Perfection (QA), will be covering for me from the 21st until I return on the 6th.   Production will be full-tilt boogie while the office is closed, but in Admin, phones will not be answered and emails will only receive auto-replies until we're back on our regular schedule. Books that are in production will be shipped, fear not.  But we won't be undertaking new work submitted during the Downtime, thank you.  Please respect that we work very, very hard in the early winter, and we need this break, thank you.  

Again, if you are an existing customer with a book in production, please don't panic.  All is normal, but this old girl, she needs a BREAK.