I recently received the first printed copy of my book:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s pretty damn cool!

I was in the middle of my most brutal workout when it arrived. Talk about a pick-me-up! And it felt so good to finally hold tangible proof of years of hard work.

But don’t get too excited yet.

The edition I received is what’s called a “proof” copy. That means it’s not ready for publication. Instead, the proof copy is the version you use to make sure everything looks good. Going from a Word document to the printed page can yield some amazingly wacky results. Anyone who’s formatted their document for publication is nodding their heads right now. So the proof copy is needed to check margins, headers, footers, and remaining grammatical/spelling errors.

Now, that’s not as exciting as holding the final final book. But the proof copy does have its advantages. Because it’s like the red-headed stepchild book, you don’t have to treat it with the same reverence. In fact, I turned the proof over to a copy editor who wrote and scribbled over it. So it’s already tainted.

Because you don’t have to be so respectful of the proof copy, there are things you can do with it that you would never do with the actual published book:

1. Play a Game of Pool.

2. Have a “Few” Drinks.

3. Joke Around on a Bomb.

(Read the original post for more things you can do on a bomb.)

4. Invade Each Other’s Space.

5. Share an Intimate Evening.