Every now and then it's fun to get a little peek at the man behind the curtain. (No, I'm not revealing anything secret about my gender identity. I'm being figurative, folks!) So, here are a few fun "behind the scenes" tidbits about Ella Publishing Co.



Tidbit #1
Once a week or so, Wendy Smedley comes over to my house for a "work day." We really do try to focus, but there's SO much to talk about. We get quite a lot done, and we also spend plenty of time discussing books, parenting, movies, scrapbook industry gossip, Richard Armitage (hero of of our favorite BBC mini-series North & South), and so much more. (Disclaimer: we're both growing our hair out for either Locks of Love or Pantene Beautiful Lengths, and it's starting to drive us crazy!)



Tidbit #2
Joe the Programmer is the genius (and the little brother of one of my husband's high school chums) behind making Ella Publishing Co. work. Having come from the financial industry and worked in may other industries as well, he has seen his fair share of tech-support requests. And he's always floored by how NICE Ella readers are when they're reporting a problem.

Average tech support request: "Your website sucks. I downloaded a file yesterday, but today it disappeared. Please fix this immediately or give me my money back. I'll never order from you idiots again!"

Ella tech support request: "Hi! I LOVE what you guys are doing. Keep up the great work! I hate to bother you because I know you're busy, but it seems that a file I recently downloaded has disappeared from my account. Could you please look into this for me when you get a chance? xoxoxo! ~Janice"

The above may be a slight exaggeration, but it's only VERY slight. After the site had been live for 3 months, Joe the Programmer e-mailed me to say, "I'm shocked! You just got your first tech support complaint that DIDN'T end with 'xoxoxo'! How are you going to handle it? This customer might possibly be a bit disgruntled."

Well, I replied to that customer, offering her money back AND restoring the missing file to her. Her response? "Oh, you didn't have to give me the file AND return my money! Here, let me pay you for that again!" Of course, I wouldn't let her. But the level of kindness and respect among Ella customers is truly unprecedented.

Tidbit #3
We have picked a winner for Thursday's UR2 Cre8ive giveaway. And thanks to random.org, the winner is #11...Fun Mama Deanna!

We're also selecting the winner of our Six Weeks of Sketches challenge as we speak, and we'll post it later this week!