So what happens when a mammoth bookstore chain takes an interest in a tiny publisher's product? Stay tuned to this blog, and you'll find out.

In the past couple of weeks, Borders has ordered more than 1,000 copies of Do You Know. Our total print run was going to be 3,000, but now we're expanding it to feed demand. Other bookstores and distributors, especially in the South, have been placing big orders too. This is the stuff young publishers like us dream about, but for every dream, we also wake in the middle of the night, sweating and breathlessly repeating the dreaded "R" word: returns.

For those of you not clear on how the publishing world works, stores can order large numbers of books with no commitment. If they sell, we make money. If they don't, they send them back.

Large chains are notorious for over-ordering books they like because ... well ... they can. There is nothing in the system set up to punish bookstores for ordering too much. But then again, we're hoping that 1,000 books isn't too much — that they'll sell those and order more. Publishing veterans are rolling their eyes as they read this, but we still dream.