Convention Countdown--Day 10

What a flurry of pre-convention activity! I've received several phone calls from colleagues today. "What are you doing in your booth?" "Where can I get cheap carpet?" "What do you think about..?"

I love that I can call these people colleagues and friends, and not competitors, as most people would label us. Of course, there is some competitiveness in the industry--there are a few companies that have a very hard-nosed, business-minded, take no prisoners approach to things. Fortunately, I've never found myself on the short end of an interaction with them.

But there are a handful of fun, friendly and supportive publishers that I am pleased to call my friends. I suppose that on some level we compete for the same product, the same authors and titles. But we don't fight. We don't backstab. We just do our business with integrity, make our offers and let the best man (or woman) win.

Sometimes, I get the contract. I like it when that happens. Sometimes I don't. When that happens, I get to re-evaluate my company, our policies and determine where changes need to be made so that I can better fill the needs of my authors and perhaps get the next contract I go after.

Back to convention preparations--

Received two pallets of new product today. That leaves only one more product shipment and then I'll be done. Yea!

There were 12 items on my "Must Do Today" list. I got three of them done. Press proofs for our promo pieces were not ready. Hopefully they will be ready tomorrow. We need to get them put together.

Catching up on e-mails and other messages that came in over the weekend. (1 hour)

Finished the proposal and first draft of the contract for the cool project I'm still negotiating for. Even if we can't work it out so that I am the #1 worldwide distributor for this product, I can still distribute it to the LDS market so it will be in the booth. I sent off an e-mail with all the contracts and spreadsheets attached. We are doing a conference call later this week. (3.25 hours)

Started on the catalog. (2.25 hours)

Took a break to do family things. One kid just got home from camp. One kid leaves for camp tomorrow. Do you know how hard it is to find a modest 1-piece swimsuit, that fits, in the "right" style and colors, this late in the season? Or at any time, for that matter. Ends up we're borrowing a tankini and using a long thick t-shirt as a cover-up. So frustrating.

I still have about 4 hours of work I need to put in tonight. I have a product list spreadsheet that has to be done by tomorrow. And it would be really good if I could at least get the catalog sketched out.