Blurb Saves Christmas?

My Grandmother turned 90 last March. Over the past year she wrote fairy tale stories for her 6 great grandchildren with each of them as the main character. She writes all of her stories by longhand. 

In May I got the bright idea to type them all up to create a book as a Christmas gift for Grandmother. Additionally, I found a wonderful illustrator, Evalyn "Evie" German, to illustrate each kid as their fairy tale character.

Check out Evie's work here:

Whatevie website

@what.evie Instagram

As the illustrations came in from Evie, I loved them so much I started to think this was the best gift idea I'd ever come up with. If Christmas was a contest, I would win. Maybe I'd killed it this year and get a bye for next year. I'm out for 2018.

Malone

Harlowe

Rowan

Lola

Connor and Chloe 

I loved the illustrations so much, I thought it would complete the book if I had one with Grandmother and all the kids, so I asked Evie for one more.

Blurb, a site that helps you create professional, quality books, was recommended to me. I'm not a designer, so it took me awhile to get the book the way I wanted. I did a test mockup that needed some changes, but finally by December 2nd I finished the book and placed my order.

I got a notice that it shipped on Dec. 8th and should arrive by the 19th. Plenty early for a Christmas day celebration.

Then the 19th passed and I still didn't have Grandmother's book. On the 20th I emailed Blurb and they replied that they'd credit the $15 shipping charge and that I should check with my post office. I went to the post office and shared the tracking information, but they had no record of the package in their computer. I wasn't going to get the book.

I emailed my Blurb customer service contact, Miranda, early the morning of the 21st, shared the story about Grandmother's fairy tales and pleaded if there was any expedited solution. 

I checked the website to see if I could reorder with overnight shipping, but it requires 3 - 4 days just to produce the book. There was no way it would make it before Christmas.

Then Miranda got back to me. She rushed production and had the book overnighted to me. We had to be home in person on Saturday to accept delivery. Christmas is saved!

...but now it's 6pm on Saturday 12/23 and no package delivered.

I do have the mockup version, so I have something for Grandmother to open on Christmas day, but it's not the final version. I'm so frustrated. I don't know what I could have done differently to make this work.

I'm sad, but I think Grandmother will still love the book. I'll try to get a picture of her reaction to share.

Merry Christmas!!

If you'd like to see a copy of the book, you can find it on Blurb: Grandmother Cate's Fairy Tales.

SaveSave