Gone to Print

The key turned in the lock and the door opened slowly. The print foreman flicked the light switch and high above them the fluorescent tubes clicked and popped into life. In front of them stood the printing press, seeming to jump around on its base as the lights around it flickered and got brighter. The smell of fresh paper, ink and machine oil filled the air. The foreman walked purposely around to the control panel and pushed the gold disk into the slot at the top.

The courier stood speechless in the doorway, catching his breath and watching the room come alive in front of him. He had been traveling since dawn the previous day to bring the precious data that was now being prepared for its final journey onto paper.

The control panel lit up, sections turning green as the pages were loaded into the memory of the vast machine. In the background the foreman could hear the print rollers and cooling fans coming up to speed. Finally the "Print Ready" light came on.

He glanced down at the lever that set the number of copies required. "Rob wrote some of this" he said to himself, as he pulled the lever all the way to the right hand end of it's travel before jabbing the Start button. The printing continued long into the night, vast trucks appearing out of the darkness to load up with copies for distribution to the furthest corners of the world....

Or,to put it another way, our book went to print this week. You should be able to find it in all good bookshops (and probably a few dodgy ones) by the end of June.

You can buy it at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.