Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Happy Birthday, Carina Press!

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

Dana Grimaldi is a member of the Carina Press acquisitions team. She loves to read sci-fi, fantasy, romance, mystery, steampunk, paranormal and any medley of these genres

Sometimes, when you start a new job, you find out that it comes with unfortunate surprises. For instance, sometimes you’re a camp counselor on your first overnight camping trip…in the middle of a thunderstorm. And then, when you wake the campers in the middle of the night so you can move the tents under a shelter, you discover that the shelter you’re trying to use is already occupied…by bats.

But other times, if you’re lucky, those surprises can be amazing. When I started working as the copy editor for Harlequin.com, the company was preparing to launch Harlequin’s digital-first imprint, Carina Press. Even though my job description didn’t say anything about Carina, it wasn’t long before I was copy editing back cover copy, pamphlets and author bios for Carina Press, too. I was lucky enough to find myself at the right place during a very exciting time. Before long, I joined the acquisitions team.

Right from the start, I knew this was an amazing opportunity. Being on the acquisitions team is like being part of the best book club ever. Every week, I get the chance to sit down with some of the smartest, funniest, most interesting women I’ve ever worked with and talk about something I love: books. But the most exciting part is that when I read a book, I get to pass on my thoughts and comments to the book’s editor.

Working on the acquisitions team has even changed the way I read. I’d never really considered getting an eReader. I was perfectly happy reading print books. I didn’t even call them print books; they were just books. But when I joined the acquisitions team, I realized very quickly that I’d need to find myself an eReader—there are no hard copy manuscripts at a digital-first publisher! I asked around—there was no shortage of opinions about eReaders here—and eventually decided to get a Kindle and a lighted case. The Kindle is really easy to use and the reading light doesn’t give me forehead crease marks like the light I use for print books.

Working for Carina Press has also expanded the types of books I read. I’ve always read a pretty wide variety of fiction, but even though I’ve read and loved fantasy books, I’d never read urban fantasy. Even though I love time travel stories, historical books and science fiction, I’d never even heard of steampunk. I found out that I love both these genres.

Looking forward to the upcoming year, I’m excited to continue reading books in new genres by fresh new voices. Hopefully this year will bring more good surprises—involving books—rather than not-so-good surprises—involving bats.

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!

40 comments:

Lisa (Lisa's World of Books) said...

So glad that you are having a great experience! Happy Anniversary!

Unknown said...

Happy Anniversary! Hope you have many more to come! I'm not sure if the link for this blog is working on carina's blog, it didn't bring me here. I had to look your blog site up.

StacieDM said...

Hello Dana!
Congrats on the big anniversary!

Bats = gross! LOL

I have a Kindle and I love it. I don't know why I was dragging my feet for so long. I love my ereader now. I'm also addicted to the One-click button. Good luck with the upcoming Carina Press releases!

user1123 AT comcast DOT net

Carol Stephenson said...

LOL on the bats, Dana! Thanks for bringing all the great reads this past year. Wishing you and Carina Press even greater success in the next year!

Dana said...

Lisa-Thanks very much!

Amy S.-Thanks for the info on the link. I'll pass it on.

Stacie-I love my Kindle, too. I'm thinking of getting a skin for it... Do you have one for yours?

Carol-Thanks very much. There really were a lot of bats. So many bats lived in our camp office, we called it the Bat Cave.

Fedora said...

Happy anniversary, Dana and Carina Press! What a terrific year it's been! Wishing you many successes and wonderful surprises in the year to come as you bring us readers even more good stuff!

ReneeRearden said...

Happy Anniversary Carina Press!
Thank you for all your hard work. I LOVE reading, and I've found some wonderfule CP books this last year.

Here's to another great year!

ReneeRearden(at)yahoo(dot)com

Susan said...

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

ms bookjunkie said...

I love discovering a new-to-me genre or sub-genre. Happy Anniversary!

Jess (Gone with the Words) said...

Yay!! Happy Anniversary!!

jess [at] gonewiththewords [dot] com

Vicki Essex said...

Multigenre books are awesome. I hope Carina Press publishes more in the near future!

Diana Neal said...

It is because of Carina Press and the fabulous authors it supports that I really started to enjoy ebooks. Congratulations on turning a year old!!!!

shiderly77 said...

Happy Anniversary! Carina has had some awesome books this past year, glad I got to read a few!

I love reading on my Nook! *happy sigh*

shiderly77@yahoo.com

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

I messed up in guessing the link when I set this up to post, I'm sorry! Then I was at work all day with no access.

Thanks for pointing it out, Amy, and for getting it fixed, Dana! Congratulations to you and Carina Press and good luck to everyone in the prize drawing!

Cathy M said...

Congratulations on a fabulous first year. I read almost all my books electronically, and can always count on Carina for a great list of stories to read.


caity_mack at yahoo dot com

Ju Dimello said...

LOL on the camping trip ;) I prefer to stay at home in rain or in snow ;) :p And my outside consists of either work or the groceries.. or maximum - the mall ;) :p

I never knew about those reading lamps..:gasp: I guess I never realized we could use that to read when in the dark.. :p

But I started reading e-books about two years ago.. ;) And I still do, in spite if having no kindle..

Happy anniversary to Carina and here's to many more!!!!

Maria said...

Happy Birthday Carina! I think it would be really cool to be on the acquisitions team! Sounds like you really enjoy your job:)

Here's to an even bigger and better 2nd year!

Lisa B said...

awesome that you have a job you love! Congrats on one year!

Lisa B
modokker at yahoo dot com

Misty said...

Happy One Year Anniversary! You guys are doing a fantastic job!

Karen C said...

Congratulations on Carina's first year anniversary. Dana, I'm really glad that you've been lucky and have had more good surprises than bad! Wishing you continued success!

booklover0226 said...

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

Eva said...

Thanks for a great post and Congratulations and Happy Anniversary to Carina and all the wonderful authors!

In Julie's Opinion said...

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

June M. said...

Congrats on the first year and wishing for you to have an even better next year.

manning_j2004 at yahoo dot com

Carla said...

I too have a Kindle with the lighted case. It's one of my favorite things and allows me to read all of your great stories! Congrats on a successful first year!

emilystarr373 said...

Yay!! Congratulations to one year down and less bat problems!! :) I am so very envious of your book club, although I'd just want to read everything coming in and never edit a thing LOL!! Congratulations again!

JulieDestry said...

i adore my ereader, too! thanks for all your hard work this past year :D

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday to Carina Press! Here's to many more to come.

Jen B. said...

The more I read these posts the more I think I should have been in publishing instead of an accountant! Happy Anniversary Carina Press.
jepebATverizonDOTnet

kog said...

Happy anniversary to team Carina!

I think you have my dream job...

Unknown said...

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

lindseye said...

I am happily surprised when I visit Carina's website. Lots of great authors.

Anonymous said...

Bats would definately be an unfortunate surprise. I too am looking forward to another year. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Sheree said...

I love bats! But I love them best when they are outdoors eating insects that want to suck my blood! Not so much indoors or in a tent.

Happy Anniversary!

ironss [at] gmail [dot] com

gigis said...

To continued success and many more years!

love the bats ;)

gigi

Unknown said...

So wonderful to read what an invested and passionate, driven team the Carina Press team is! Must be fantastic working in such a work environment! :-)

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

Dana said...

Thank you so much for all the lovely comments and congratulations!
I'm wishing everyone the best of luck in the drawing. :)

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