Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Happy Anniversary to Carina Press!


Today we have a special guest on Word-Whores. To celebrate the one year anniversary of Word-Whore Jeffe's publisher, Carina Press, Word-Whores was asked to host a guest post from one of Carina's team. There's even prizes to be won!

In celebration of our one year anniversary, I asked as many of our Harlequin team members and Carina Press freelance editors as possible to write a short blog post, talking about what the past year or so has been like for them, working on Carina Press. I deliberately didn't provide any direction other than that, because I wanted to see what people came up with, in the spirit of Carina's 1st anniversary. I was so pleased when I saw what they'd all come up with, and had to say (and some of these posts made me just a little teary)! I hope you enjoy the post, and look for your opportunity to win a Carina Press book at the bottom of this post. ~Angela James

Aideen O’Leary-Chung is the Director of Digital Commerce for Harlequin and Carina Press. As part of the Carina Press management team, she oversees the distribution and marketing of Carina Press titles to 3rd party retailers, manages the cover art process and is a member of the acquisitions team. She watches more television than is healthy, often while reading a book at the same time (occasionally she remembers to speak to her husband).

My first reaction to our one-year Anniversary is denial – it can’t possibly have been just one year! Carina Press has been so much a part of my day-to-day thoughts for so long, that it’s almost impossible to remember a time when it wasn’t around. There have been so many moments in the past year that stand out for different reasons, it’s hard to narrow them down but here’s my attempt to capture some of my highlights:

  • Reading my first steampunk book. Yes, I was one of those steampunk virgins who was completely unfamiliar with the editorial. How times have changed! Recently at BEA, I was perusing Steampunk art books to find imagery for covers and can’t wait to find some steam in my stocking this Christmas with our Steampunk holiday collection.
  • Working on the cover art. Yes, I know it’s obvious coming from me, but there’s really nothing like opening a cover draft that is exactly what I would have wanted but could never have articulated or created myself. There have been any number of gasp-worthy covers this past year from all of our artists and receiving one just makes my day.
  • Our acquisition meetings. The genuine enthusiasm exhibited by the team for books that they have read injects a passion to every meeting that is unparalleled in any other meeting I attend. I always leave with a list of titles to read and new insights on my team members that you just wouldn’t glean from them in a finance meeting (ahem, not that there’s anything wrong with numbers meetings).
  • Seeing the sea of books for entry into the RITA nominations. They covered an entire table in Malle’s cube zone and it was such a treat to see them all together in one place, knowing their final, exciting destination. It was quite a moment.
  • Talking about Carina Press. I have to confess, I’ve been known on occasion to go on and on about Carina Press titles when talking to our retailers and hang up only to realize that I forgot to mention our other imprints. Oops! Let’s not tell my boss.

I could go on (seriously, anyone will confirm that…) but what it comes down to is that I feel extremely lucky to work on Carina Press. I’ve been introduced to so many new authors, genres and groups of readers and everyone has embraced Carina with such warmth. I look forward to seeing what our team of authors, editors, artists and the ever-growing team of people who work on Carina Press can come up with for our 2nd year! Thank you to everyone who has had a hand in making this imprint, once an idea we fell in love with, a reality.

To celebrate Carina's one year anniversary of publishing books, we're giving away some prizes. Today, on each of the nineteen blogs our team members are featured on, we're giving away a download of a Carina Press book to one random winner (that's nineteen total winners!) All you need to do to be entered to win is comment on this post. You can enter to win on all nineteen posts. In addition, on the Carina Press blog, we're giving away a grand prize of a Kobo ereader and 12 Carina Press books of the winner's choice. Visit the Carina Press blog to enter to win, and to see links to all 19 of today's blog posts.

And a sincere thank you from all of us, to our readers and authors, for making Carina Press's first year a success!

44 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing those memories, Aideen! We're excited to be part of Carina's celebration.

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  2. Thanks so much for choosing Word Whores to be part of the fun!

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  3. It's hard to believe it has only been a year. Your books are so polished it seems like you've been around forever.

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  4. I read my first Steampunk book this year too! Happy Anniversary!

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  5. Free books? Sign me up!
    Oh, and, congrats and stuff.

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  6. Love, love, love, the Carina Press covers, Aideen. Thank you for such a great year and wishing you even more success in the next!

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  7. Congrats on the books you've releases this year.

    Happy Anniversary.

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  8. Happy Anniversary! I'm looking forward to the coming soon books too.

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  9. Hello Aideen!
    Congratulations on the first anniversary of Carina Press! I have to admit that I have been afraid to jump into Steampunk. I will try it soon but I'm still not sure how to define it. LOL

    user1123 AT comcast DOT net

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  10. Congrats. Happy anniversary!!!

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  11. Happy one year anniversary. Wishing you many more successful years.
    Crystal816[at}hotmail[dot}com

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  12. Happy anniversary, Carina Press! Here's to many more successful years. :)

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  13. Yay! Cheers, Carina Press! And best wishes for many more years of exitement and fun.

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  14. Thanks for visiting the Word Whores, Aideen, and for letting us be a part of Carina's First Birthday celebration!

    I confess great envy for your seat at the cover art table and imagine all sorts of discussions about making eye-candy "pop from the page."

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  15. Happy first anniversary, Aideen and Carina Press! It's exciting to see how much you've done in just one year, and thank you for sharing a little of what it takes to bring these stories to us readers! Looking forward to so much more in this coming year!

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  16. Happy anniversary! Carina Press has had a fantastic first year. I also discovered steampunk recently, and can't wait to read more...hint hint! Thanks for all of your hard work.

    ReneeRearden(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  17. Happy Anniversary Carina Press! A lot of hard work goes into creating these books and I thank you for it!

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  18. Yay!! Happy Anniversary!!

    jess [at] gonewiththewords [dot] com

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  19. Happy Anniversary!

    I love anniversary's and Carina's in particular. I love the vast array of books offered and by such wonderful authors!

    shiderly77@yahoo.com

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  20. Thanks for sharing Aideen! It really is fab and wonderful that Carina press is celebrating the first anniversary :)

    Happy anniversary !! !

    judimello AT gmail DOT com

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  21. What a great year, congratulations on your success. Carina Press gave me my first ever steampunk story to read as well.


    caity_mack at yahoo dot com
    cathy m

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  22. Congrats on your one year!

    jacobjunk at verizon dot net

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  23. Congratulations on Carina's one year anniversary! Enjoyed reading your higlights of the year. Wishing you all continued success!

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  24. Thanks for all you do, Aideen! You're one of the reasons it's so awesome to be part of Carina Press. :)

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  25. Congratulations for such a grand and successful year.

    Thanks to Carina Press, I've discovered many new authors.

    Thanks,
    Tracey D
    booklover0226 at gmail dot com

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  26. Happy, happy anniversary, Carina! I wish you many, many wonderful years to come:)
    jwitt33 at live dot com

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  27. Congrats Carina! :) I look forward to what the next year brings. :D

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  28. Congrats on the first year and wishing for you to have an even better next year. Thank you for sharing with us.

    manning_j2004 at yahoo dot com

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  29. Happy Anniversary Carina! Steampunk romance has become one of my favorite subgenres! Here's to a bigger and better 2nd year!

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  30. Woohoo!! Congratulations on one year down and reading your first Steampunk romance! You can officially wipe your brow and giggle! Great post!

    emilystarr373@hotmail.com

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  31. happy anniversary, carina! i agree, your acquisitions team is fabulous and your cover artists do brilliantly!

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  32. Congrats on your first year, Carina!
    I'm in awe of such an amazing team - makes me want to work for Carina too!

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  33. Hope you have many more. Congrats!

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  34. Carina press books are addictive. Im so glad I could celebrate birthday one with you!

    Hollybwright at comcast dot net

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  35. Happy Anniversary Carina Press!
    jepebATverizonDOTnet

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  36. I have enjoyed reading the stories I have found at Carina.

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  37. Congrats on one year!
    marlenebreakfield(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  38. Full steam ahead into year two. envious of your highlights.

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  39. Happy Anniversary! Many more great reads to come, I'm sure!

    ironss [at] gmail [dot] com

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  40. Happy Anniversay!

    gigi

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  41. Thank you for the great post Aideen, one of the things I love most about Carina Press is what a personal, human publishing it is! Not a big company with an impenetrable facade, but people whose face, voice we can see and hear on blogs, twitter, FB. :-)

    Thanks to you this last year I have discovered so many wonderful new authors, series, books and many have become favourites of mine, THANK YOU!

    Congratulations to the whole Carina team and Happy 1st anniversary, here's to many more! :-)

    stella.exlibris (at) gmail (dot) com

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  42. From Aideen:

    How exciting! I was loving reading the comments. I did respond at one point and it kind of disappeared somewhere and I never got back to figure it out!

    ing for you to have an even better next year. Thank you for sharing with us.My random pick for the free download is:

    June M!

    June - we'll send your email address to Angela James and she'll be contacting you. Congrats on your win!!

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  43. It sounds like you have a lot be excited about. Thanks for doing a great job at Carina Press! outredgeous at gmail dot com

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