Signed, sealed… slightly panicked
Author copies and mild chaos
Tomorrow (10-June-2025), Accidentally Wise officially launches. But before the fanfare, before the Instagram posts, before the book hopefully shows up where it is supposed to—there has been this: a deeply chaotic, oddly meaningful, unexpectedly manual process of shipping out my author copies. This is the story of that process, told with honesty, bubble wrap, and one mild health scare.
There is nothing quite like seeing your book in print for the first time. People say it is like graduation day, but I imagine diplomas do not come shrink-wrapped with your own face on the cover. Nor do you worry that you accidentally ordered too many and now need to send them to people who may or may not have signed up for this milestone.
Accidentally Wise launches tomorrow. And while most people imagine authors spending this final stretch basking in the glow of accomplishment or planning clever Instagram reels, I have been knee-deep in cardboard, cello tape, mild chaos, and a recurring fantasy of outsourcing everything to someone who enjoys bubble wrap as much as I now irrationally do.
To be clear, the publisher is handling the big, grown-up logistics—the book distribution, the website orders, the actual retail sanity. What I am talking about here are the author copies—the stack I wanted to manage personally, because I wanted them to feel special. Personal. Thoughtful. Like getting a letter from someone who definitely overthinks things, and maybe also snuck in a bookmark.
The books arrived in a pristine stack, full of possibility and that new-book smell. I admired them for exactly four seconds before slipping into full-blown logistics mode. Author copies needed to go out. And not just go out—they needed to be personalised. Because apparently, I thought writing the book was not enough. No, I had to make each parcel a curated emotional experience.
Over the weekend, a family member had a mini medical emergency. The kind that shakes you just enough to remind you what really matters. So, between repacking parcels and rechecking shipping addresses, I found myself doing hospital rounds and emotional triage—texting doctors, fetching medicines, and whispering “please be okay” while crouched next to a blood pressure monitor. The launch countdown continued in the background, but suddenly, it was not the loudest thing in the room.[^1].
Still, the show (or in this case, the book) must go on.
Each copy had a handwritten note. Each note was supposed to feel like it came from a deeply thoughtful author. Not the sleep-deprived, label-wrangling, hospital-visiting, snack-fuelled creature I had become.
Let us talk about the labels. I ordered beautiful, glossy address labels. Only to realise far too late that I had specified the wrong size and they were massive. Bigger than the actual package. They looked less like shipping labels and more like I was trying to wallpaper the envelopes. After briefly considering reordering (and dying a little inside), I found myself cutting, folding, and origami-ing them into submission like some kind of stationery-based hostage negotiator.
Then came the bookmarks. Oh, the bookmarks. I had them designed. I had them printed. I even signed some with the flair of a person who had definitely practised their signature in the mirror. They were meant to be included in each pre-ordered parcel. Except I sent a batch to the publisher in another city and the courier company responded with what I can only describe as deliberate indifference. I tracked that parcel so obsessively, the courier app started calling me by name.
But the real chaos? It came with the notes inside the books.
How much is too much? I started out writing long, heartfelt messages. Mini-essays, really. Then I worried I was oversharing. So the next batch got short, cryptic notes that made me sound like a mysterious aunt at a wedding. Then I backtracked and tried to strike a middle ground. By copy ten, I was writing things like, “Hope you like the book. Sorry if this note is weird. It has been a long week.”
There is also a lingering fear that I may have mismatched the notes and the packages. Which means someone out there might receive a copy addressed to “Dear D” when their name is clearly not D. If this happens to you, please know it was written with love. Just... not exactly your name on it.
And then, of course, there is Amazon.
They paused pre-orders a few days ago, citing a surge. Not a typo. A surge. I did not know whether to be flattered or mildly alarmed. One minute everything was live, and the next, it was as if the book had tripped some invisible wire and been quietly escorted off the digital shelves for “exceeding expectations.” There is a special kind of tension in checking your own book listing multiple times a day, hoping it reappears on cue, like a shy cat at a party. So far, it has been... elusive. Fingers crossed for launch day.
At the time of writing this, the author-copy shipping is done but my study table looks like an Amazon warehouse if Amazon ran out of budget and had to outsource to a single overthinking human. I am the packing team, the writing team, and the customer complaints department, all in one.
But despite all of this—maybe even because of it—I would not change a thing.
This book has been a deeply personal journey. And now, so is every parcel. Not factory-perfect, but hand-packed with absurd care, hospital-lobby gratitude, and chaos fuelled by impulse, lists, and misplaced scissors. Just like the book itself.
[^1]: Somewhere during all this, and almost by accident, we ended up watching Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara at home—over two nights, in broken instalments. A quiet, timely reminder tucked inside a film title: Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, indeed.