TNNA antics…

(Crossposted from the Cooperative Press blog…)
TEAM COOPERATIVE PRESS! yaaaaay! (I am so fortunate to work with these people, let me tell you…)

If you’ve been wondering why things seem so quiet over here, believe us when we say they are NOT, not by a long shot! We just returned from TNNA, the National Needle Arts Association tradeshow, where yarn store owners, designers, yarn companies and many more industry people gather together each June to sell knit-related things to each other. Oh, and eat ice cream from Jeni’s. (It’s a tradition, just like taking over the Hyatt’s lobby bar to knit and chat each night).

Imagine a convention center filled with yarn, knitting tools, and every knitting and crochet person you can imagine. Ok, now double that!
We were fortunate to have many CP authors at the show with us, some of whom have written up their own posts about it. (Alasdair Post-Quinn, Audrey Knight, Anna Dalvi and no doubt others I am currently missing).
The last day or so before the show was intense as we packed everything up, including galley copies of our upcoming books to show yarn store owner potential-buyers. We also had all new posters featuring images of items from upcoming books, and on Saturday, the big news was the launch of our new magazine Knit Edge, which as of today has had well over 2000 downloads. We got great feedback on the magazine, and on all of our upcoming books.
Friday night was Sample It!, a chance for yarn store owners to walk away with cash-and-carry products. You can only have one special deal for them (which makes it easier to get them checked out during the frenzy of that hour), and in our case it was 3 books for one price.

Immediately after that was Marly Bird’s infamous Yarn Thing Designer Dinner…this year with a masquerade theme. Here’s part of Team CP:

Saturday night Craftsy held a great party — here’s a picture. Believe it or not, there was a lot of business getting done! And I love how the sunlight is hitting Lee Meredith’s hair in this photo!

We were very pleased to sponsor the 2012 Business Innovations Award…

and all the more pleased that our friends from Shibui won!

So, in short — it was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun. We introduced CP’s books to even more yarn store owners and met lots of designers, yarn companies and other great people. If we seemed quiet it was just because an event of this magnitude takes a lot of prep to pull off! Many, many thanks to all the CP authors who came and helped, and particularly to Elizabeth Green Musselman, the second-in-command around here these days and the one responsible for helping Cooperative Press move forward even faster. We couldn’t do it without her!

Tagged with: Knitting