It’s Labor Day today, so we’re not in the office but instead pre-celebrating the results of our past few seasons of labor (pictured above).

Making books is a process that takes forever; as we write this, we not only have all the books from our upcoming fall season (that’s what’s pictured above) already in the office despite the fact that some of them are not out in stores until December; our winter 2013 season is entirely at the printer, as is at least half of our spring 2013 season, and we’re getting ready to present our fall 2013 season to our sales team tomorrow.  We’re already starting to schedule our 2014 books (not to acquire them — to figure out where our already-acquired books will fit on our seasonal schedule).  This is not because we’re slow (okay, not JUST because we’re slow), but because buying, editing, designing, marketing, and publishing books in the best possible way takes a whole lot of time.

Spending that long on any one project means that any book we publish is really a labor of love for us — and for our authors, too, of course!  But all that love is occasionally exhausting, so today we are resting.

Happy Labor Day to all of you!  Enjoy the holiday before the fall season is upon us.