So this is a day we’ve been waiting for in trepidation for a few weeks now. Our advance copies of the book have arrived. Here’s the package, not yet opened.

The nerve-wracking part is that we were not able to see an example proof before the printers went ahead and did the whole print run. When a large publisher prints a full-colour book such as this, they get proofs ahead of the actual print-run, and the chance to change the colours and correct tiny mistakes. An expensive extra step, which is fine if you’re printing thousands of copies, but which would have added loads to our costs. We just sent some test prints to the printers, asked them to match the colours to those, and then crossed our fingers.

So if, when we open these, the colours are all wrong, that’s tough. Because there are another 994 of them on their way to us, on a boat somewhere right now.

Okay. 3… 2… 1…

They’re okay! Thank god… the colours look great, as good as we could have expected. (If they hadn’t been that might have been the end of this post whilst I went off to weep in the corner).

Here’s Catherine and Mr C having the first read…

So now you’ve had a first glimpse of the cover. Here’s a proper look:

But that’s all you’re going to see. We don’t want to spoil the surprise of the actual book. If you want to see the whole book I’m afraid you’re going to just have to pre-order one.

The other exciting piece of Mr C news is that we have arranged a book launch: we are having a stall in Brighton’s refurbished Open Market on Saturday 13 December. We’re going to decorate the stall with all the props we used to make the book, and Mr Coconut himself will be there – inside the actual coconut where he lives, naturally. (His puppet that we used to make the book will make an appearance as well.)

If you live in or near Brighton and can make it to the Open Market that day, we’d be delighted to see you, and show you some of how we made the book. And introduce you to Mr Coconut himself. We’ll have a big stack of books for sale if you’d like one.