In Spring of 2012, Knock Knock will unleash a product of such visceral power and mind-blowing intensity, it is destined to set the world afire. Or, at least, delight a few people who enjoy tiny slips of paper with tiny words printed on them.

Introducing . . . "A Year of Fortunes (Without the Cookies)"!

A Year of Fortunes (Without the Cookies) is the world’s first book of fortune-cookie fortunes presented in a handy perforated format for easy tearing-and-sharing—365 of ’em. To wit:

• You will be successful in monkey business.

• Dance like no one is watching, because probably no one is.

• Less is more but more is more fun.

This book was one of my first projects at Knock Knock (I started working here in March 2011), and writing and editing it was a delicious task. I have always loved fortune cookies—the paper, the messages, and the cookies. I can hardly imagine anything more wonderful than a cookie you can read (or a fortune you can eat). I still remember a fortune I got in high school: Beauty is in your heart. Let it out. Let it beat. Give yourself a treat. Somebody wrote that! And then they put it in a cookie!

As you can imagine, research was grueling. I had to purchase (and consume) bags of cookies from several Asian eateries as well as the 99¢ store to gather a wide sampling of fortune-cookie styles. Torture.

1. Our designer Alexis' quick, hand-drawn sketch for the cover. She wanted us to emphasize "quick."; 2. Another sketched out design cover by the lovely Alexis.; 3. The final cover!

To write the book’s introduction, I also read as much as I could find about the origins of fortune cookies, which is a subject worthy of its own book and movie. At risk of blowing your mind, I will just say right now that fortune cookies come from Japan—and when you stop to think about that, it makes perfect sense. (A white slip of paper with a small, mysterious message—it just feels Japanese.)

Several other writers contributed to the book (including my brother, Ben!), and we also bought a magic number-picking contraption from 1913 to choose the lucky numbers for each fortune. (Not really.)

I really wanted to call it The Fortune Bookie (as did our head honcho, Jen) but we were overruled. That’s okay. The goal was to make something that would provide whimsy and delight every day, and I think we succeeded. I am so happy with the book, and its puffy red satin cover, I am going to go pass out.

So happy to see the final product! I literally had tears of joy.

Check out our journal’s cover! The illustration of the dog (in "play bow" position) with the yellow background is actually a window in which a photo of one's actual dog can be inserted. Cool, right?

As you may have surmised, Knock Knock—and KK-ers—love dogs. I hope you’ve gotten to know a little about Paco and Maisie, our Head Honcho Jen’s goofy and serene (respectively) resident pups, and you may have seen (and purchased!) some of our past animal-loving products: the instructional book How to Have an Ill-Behaved Dog (from our Self-Hurt series), the Pet Organizer, and a KK Pad, “Don’t Kill the Pets.” Yup, we’re dog people. To be fair, we also have cat people here (some of us are even poly-pet-owners or, as Jen likes to put it, “ambipetrous”).

Creating a dog journal had been a pet project (pun intended) of our head honcho’s for some time. Originally envisioned as something along the lines of the classic “baby’s first year” journal, but for dog owners, the idea morphed after some brainstorming as well as because of our support for older and rescue dog adoption. About a thousand hours and a gazillion decisions later, in the spring of 2012, you’ll be able to find It’s a Dog’s Life: A Journal of Our First Year Together in amazing stores near you. After all, whether you get a purebred puppy or a middle-aged mutt, it’s about your dog’s first year with you.

Most people here work in InDesign or Illustrator to write into layout form, but I’m partial to the hand-drawn touch.

One of our main goals for It’s a Dog’s Life was to create a combination guided journal and record-keeping organizer, with a sizable dose of Knock Knock humor. With fill-in-the-blanks, checkboxes, and helpful prompts, as well as interesting monthly content about the care and handling of your pooch (maybe I’ve drunk the orange Kool-Aid, but who doesn’t want to know about, say, canine body language?), this approach entailed a bigger editorial project than a straightforward journal. More factual content always means extra time given to research, fact-checking, and proofing. My first correspondence about this project was on Valentine’s Day 2011, and the final typeset, fully designed files were off to manufacturing at the end of July. We recently got the first proofs back from the printer, and they look great!

A lot of the research was done online, of course, but I also haunted my vet’s office and pet stores for written material. A funny thing happens when you’re researching a new project—everywhere you turn, something pertains to it. The New York Times, YouTube, news stories, my dog Elsa’s several trips to the emergency room (she’s fine)—all provided fodder (kibble?) for the project.

My dog Elsa. She played a part in the product brainstorm.

This was a completely new product for us, which meant free reign to dream up any ideas and concepts—no precedents! This suited me fine, since I take a somewhat unusual approach to writing for layouts—instead of working in Illustrator or InDesign, I dream up content and then sketch it out by hand. This means I need to work closely with a designer because, as you can see, my drawing talent is more MOBA than MOCA. But that’s the only way I can envision the layout as it incorporates text with design. Luckily, I got to work with the brilliant and patient designer Alexis Lowery, who transformed my scribblings into a design approach blending her take on (gotta say it) doggy style with the signature Knock Knock wit. Alexis also found a talented illustrator, Marian Richardson, who brought various dog personalities to life within the pages. I won’t lie—some of it was a struggle to get exactly right (for instance, deciding on the cover took longer than we thought) but in the final push, it just all came together.

I love the result, as do Paco, Maisie, and Elsa, and I hope you will, too!

As most of you know, Flashcards have been one of our stocks in trade since we released the original Slang and Therapy Flashcards in 2003. We refreshed them and made them a bit smaller for Spring 2010 and brought Parenting and Foodie Flashcards into the mix.

For the past year and a half or so, we’ve really enjoyed bringing out more products for kids. Our first children’s product, the Bingos (Roadtrip and Kids’ Night Out), were introduced a while ago, but we weren’t really doing kids’ product on purpose. Now it’s a big part of our strategy as well as what we want to create, starting with the Playtime Pads and continued with the currently bestselling This or That?. There’s some really big stuff shaking in the kids’ arena for 2012, but we can’t tell you about that yet!

As grown-ups, you may know what "lilliputian" means and where it comes from. But do you know what "brobdingnagian" means (let alone how to pronounce it)? The true test of adulthood.

One thing we can tell you is that we’re totally excited about Big Word Flashcards, to be introduced in January 2012 (Spring 2012, in fast-forwarded retailspeak). You may have noticed that we’ve been using more and more illustration in products such as Vs. and My Life in Graphs. This is in large part thanks to our creative director, Craig Hetzer, who’s an illustration lover and maven (with respect to finding great illustrators and determining their roles projects). Now that we’re using illustration, we can’t keep away from it—you’ll see lots in the rest of the Spring 2012 release.

The inspiration behind Big Word Flashcards is the way that kids love to learn new words, especially big, silly-sounding ones. (This, by the way, is a large part of the humor in one of my favorite kid’s books—and books on LA—Max in Hollywood, Baby, by the inimitable Maira Kalman.)

The charming pictures in the Big Word Flashcards were created by an illustrator named Robert Stites, while the words were selected and copy concocted by one of our editors, Meredith Ridings, consistent with our generally doing most editorial in-house. The beautiful evolution from adult to children’s flashcards—staying within the brand and previous flashcards but also injecting fresh newness, a challenging assignment—was accomplished by one of our fabulous designers, Alexis Lowery. The box has a hinged cover, more durable and easy to open for little fingers.

We hope you’ll enjoy Big Word Flashcards as much as we do—kid or adult! Tell us: do you think you’ll be buying them, and if so, for whom? And if you’re in the mood, tell us your favorite big silly-sounding word!