Today’s Meet a Poppy tidbit is with Amy E. Reichert.
As a writer, seeing your debut transform from dream to reality, is a truly marvelous experience. Amy had the added excitement of seeing her book physically become a book. Here’s what she had to say:
“A major moment in my life—when was when I went to see THE COINCIDENCE OF COCONUT CAKE be printed and bound. I love understanding how things are made, but to see how my debut was put together was an experience to top them all.
This all came together because my sister works for the company that prints my book, so we were able to pull some strings and schedule the visit. On the first day, the pages were printed. In the bottom-left, you can see the fresh signatures (signatures are 32 page chunks that make up a book) coming off the line. I have one on my bookshelf that was literally hot off the press when I held it for the first time (the pic of it is in the upper-left). Top-center is what a printing press looks like. It took about 12 hours to print all the signatures that would make up my books.
On the second day, I watched my book get assembled and bound. The upper-right photo shows all the palettes. Each palette is a different signature—so all those palettes are my books deconstructed (or pre-constructed in this case). My book was made of 11 different signatures that were stacked, glued, covered, then trimmed. The bottom-center pic shows untrimmed copies zooming down the conveyor belt. The last step is putting the finished books on palettes (bottom-right). Seeing all those gorgeous spines lined up finally made me cry. Almost five years of writing, revising, querying, and waiting had resulted in a stunning book I could hold in my hand.
That’s my happy—knowing that hard work really can pay off.”
I love this Amy, I can only just imagine the goosebumps you had watching your book become a real thing…very exciting an specially nice your sister was the one to get you this visit!!! Well deserved congratulations!!