What a fantastic year with such a fantastic staff! I can’t believe my first year with this press is coming to a close; it’s very bittersweet.
Just like every year before, we spent the 2014 portion getting ready for 2015. This meant reading through hundreds of manuscripts, and making buttons and books to be sold at Handmade Arcade and I Made It! for the Holidays in order to fund production in the spring.
I Made it! and Handmade Arcade were in December, and they were both great experiences for the staff. We got the opportunity to talk about our press to anyone who came by, and also got to walk around the markets and check out some other awesome booths!
When we came back, we decided to set up a shop in a classroom next to ours to continue our sales until Christmas. The Pop-Up Shop continued to go up and down throughout the year, and much later, helped to fund some posters that I made for the press.
After that, it was the new year and time to pick up the pace on publishing! It took us a long to finally come together on just two manuscripts, as we had all read so many great ones, but eventually, we were down to just The Bone and the Body by Laura Kochman and Apology to the Moon by Jim Daniels.
Planning for our new books wasn’t the only thing we had going on this spring; we were also prepping for the 2015 AWP conference, which I covered in full over here.
We went into overdrive when we came back, finalizing designs and beginning production. I wrote a post earlier you can find here, which will show you how our process went, and also covers our release party!
This year was my first on the BatCat staff, and it was amazing! I could not have asked for a better, more fulfilling experience, and I’m so, so excited to come back next year.
Good luck to our seniors, Sarah, Rae, Autumn, Sara, and Savannah!
Have a good summer, everyone!
Olivia C, BatCat Staff Member
BatCat Press 