The Impact of ACOTAR
You might be wondering why we chose to launch our business with A Court of Thorns and Roses dust jackets.
Well to put it simply, ACOTAR reignited our love for reading. After reading as much as possible for years, college was hard and life just hit pause on our hobbies that brought us fulfillment.
When the pandemic happened, we were forced to slow down and move back into our childhood bedrooms. For the first time in years we had time to sit, read, and allow ourselves to become immersed in fictional worlds that distracted from the chaos around us.
Among the books that gave us comfort in those months was A Court of Thorns and Roses. ACOTAR provided the familiar sense of fictional escapism that our childhood favorites had done before, but with an adult spin that aligned with our current stage of life. What resulted was an obsession; neither of us could put the books down and immediately picked up all of Sarah J. Maas’s other books. Her books raced up to top the list of our favorite books of all time (we’re looking at you ACOMAF). The characters spoke to our souls, taught us lessons on life, and reminded us to look for joy and embrace it wholeheartedly when we find it.
Since then, it has been a roller coaster of rediscovering our love for books, art, music, and everything else we had let the chaos of life deprive us of for years. Following along with BookTok and evaluating our bookshelves led to the idea of leaning into our creative streak and designing our own book covers.
What started as a one-off comment during a joint work-from-home day has spiraled into prototype development, social media campaigns, licensing emails, and tax forms. But one thing we both agree on is that the work is fun, we look forward to it every day, and often even in the most boring day-job meetings we find our minds drifting to new ideas and new products. We can’t wait to share them all with you.
So, we truly owe this all to ACOTAR and SJM herself for reigniting our love for reading and our love of the arts. She gave us the creative outlet we did not look for, but so desperately needed.
—Madison and Kathleen, Founders of Etchings Press
