My Advance Reader Copy

Which is the book before the book!

Something about My Journey

My ARCs finally arrived.
I knew exactly what was in the box that arrived a few weeks ago, yet I didn’t immediately grab the scissors and cut it open. I paused. Unlike the first time, I didn’t have a plan for how this moment should unfold. Last time, my mom came over, two of my four kids were there, and it was a beautiful May day when I opened the box out in my backyard. This time, the world was cold and snowy, literally and figuratively, and nothing felt quite right. So I waited.

Then inspiration struck. Of course—my grandson Rhodes would be the perfect witness. Never mind that an unboxing video featuring an adorable twenty-month-old would be Instagram-worthy. That was beside the point. Mostly.

I lugged the twenty-pound, still-sealed box to Rhode Island and set about creating a meaningful moment. I fiddled with my phone and the stand until everything was perfectly aimed at the table with the box and the little boy. I told Rhodes we needed to open it to see what was inside. He was excited—especially when I handed him the butter knife to cut the tape. After one final check of the camera, we were ready.

Rhodes was marvelous. He pulled out the packing material and then lifted the first book from the box. I grabbed another, and we looked at each other. Unexpectedly, I got a little choked up—holding the book for the first time and sharing that moment with him was more special than I imagined. Rhodes promptly set the book down, opened it, and began “reading” by tracing his finger carefully along the page.

I grabbed the phone off the stand to get a better angle. Curiously, I had to hit record instead of just continuing. When we finished, I called “cut,” and we excitedly went to watch the video together.

Except…there was no video—at least no video of the unboxing, only of Rhodes reading.

What I think happened is that during my final adjustment, I accidentally hit record—and when I went to start filming, I stopped it instead. I got nothing. No unboxing. I was crushed. Rhodes was crushed, too. He loves to see himself on people’s phones.

What you see below is the reenactment of the most perfect unboxing. When Lydia came home, she recorded us opening the re-taped box. Rhodes was less interested in the book this time—having already read the first few pages (fortunately, he’s not my target reader)—but he still was very enthusiastic about cutting the box open again... and again. Lydia managed to edit the video so the focus is on the book and not the knife, and we (Lydia) were able to edit in his first “read-through,” which I did manage to capture.

So that is my ARC unboxing story—one I will tell Rhodes about when he’s old enough to remember.

What once existed only in my head is now a real, printed book—with weight and thickness, a beautiful cover I can touch, and pages I can flip through. And that still feels like magic. If you haven’t already seen it on Facebook, you can check out the cobbled-together video below. You’d never know, right?

Check out the Video