Here we are in the busiest time of year, the 6 weeks leading up to, you guessed it, the big Fall surgical convention. I'll bet you thought I was going to say something else! For the past year I have been managing a book / multimedia CD project, with a release date of Oct. 12, no questions asked. This past two weeks has been the home stretch. Here are some highlights: Starting in January, we handed our edited Word docs and about 300 pictures to our graphic designer for book lauout. Upon receipt of the first draft, we next identified misplaced images, or missing images, and remedied those issues. Next we received about 150 original medical illustrations, and put those where they belong, and began the editorial review. Each of about 30 authors were sent their chapter as a color printout, plus a copy of their interactive chapter on CD, along with a deadline. About 15 of the authors missed or ignored the deadline, so the project was delayed, and delayed, and delayed. Well, now to the home stretch, all authors have approved their chapters, the editors have approved everything, and the fine toothed comb edits began. Myself, our book prject manager and our liaison with the surgical society we work with took turns checking every word, semicolon, gerund and anatomical word. 
We all learned some new words, such as Dononvillier's fascia and the White Line of Toldt - two structures we are all carrying around inside ourselves. Who knew! Finally, last week, we receive the Blue Line proofs from the printer, and we each got a few hours with the document, adding red marks and sticky tabs. I met with the designer for another two hours making some notes and some notes for future reference. 
Then we sent the marked up proof to our associate in Chicago for her input. She sent it back to us the next day. I then went over everyone's comments by phone with the designer who turned around a final PDF for this morning. After a few more items to fix, the PDF was uploaded to the printer's ftp site. Meanwhile I documented each change on a change form, and sent the forms with the proof back to the printer. I just received word that FedEx's stock has gone up, no thanks to me! The printer will give us digital proofs of the pages we changed. Meanwhile the cover has gone through a few revisions, and this too was approved and uploaded. We will get a one-off print of the cover by FedEx sometime soon. Once all approvals are submitted, all t's crossed and lower case j's dotted, the book goes to press. Finally, I modified the brochure with the new covwe deisgn, to send to a local print shop, so the 10,000 attendees of the convention can all get a brochure in their registration bags. Meanwhile, our Flash deisnger is making the final edits to the interactive CD, an electronic version of each print chapter, with the addition of narrated surgical video, about 3 hours worth among all chapters, but broken up by chapter and step. So if you only want to watch the EEA anastomosis in the open transmesorectal excision cases, you have that power. By the same token, if you are only interested in viewing the transanal endoscopic microsurgery videos, you will be rewarded for your specialized surgical interests! Exciting, isn't it. Then, around Oct 8 we should get several 1000 pound pallets of books delivered by lift-gate equipped truck to our secret underground bunker where we store our inventory ( I kid you not). The storage room was a clean room used for medical device assembly before we took it over. It is next to the geothermal pump room. So at the end of this process, there are no balloons or cakes, just the knowledge that in a few weeks we begin another project just like this, with 18 fun filled months ahead! Thanks for reading. Mike Cohen | 
