{"id":26348,"date":"2018-07-10T07:30:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T11:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=26348"},"modified":"2018-07-10T07:30:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T11:30:03","slug":"attack-of-the-book-launch-frenzy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=26348","title":{"rendered":"Alpaca Lunch (and a Dinner) the Night Before Release Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may recall the story of\u00a0Vermont hobby farmers<\/a> John and Jennifer Churchman, who self-published their picture book locally, were blogged about here<\/a> in ShelfTalker, and subsequently hit the publishing lottery, winning a three-book deal from\u00a0Little, Brown in a bidding war<\/a> among\u00a0five houses. Now, two and a half years later, the Churchmans (The Sheepover<\/em><\/a>, Brave Little Finn<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0A Farm for Maisie<\/em><\/a>) are ushering in their fourth book, Alpaca Lunch<\/em><\/a>. The book may be releasing today, but preparations for its launch began at our store back in January, when we received our first pre-order.
\nWe had another few orders trickle in online and over the phone in February and March, but the alpaca love-fest started in earnest\u00a0in early April, when the Churchmans unleashed some powerful marketing magic sauce\u00a0on their Facebook<\/a> page\u00a0and\u00a0offered their followers a special signed, hoof-stamped, and numbered bookplate with pre-orders. As with the\u00a0prior three books, Vermont booksellers had orders pouring in from all corners of the nation. (We seem to get a lot of orders for these books especially from Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, California, upstate New York, and the Midwest.)
\nPrepping for release day takes near-military precision (note: there are photos below this long list, so you can scroll down for those if you don’t want the nitty-gritty):<\/p>\n