OK, time’s up. If you haven’t mailed me with your submission for The Book by now, then I’m afraid it’s too late.
I shall be spending the next two days catching up the with ever-growing “unread” pile, and slowly assembling the manuscript. The goal is to release the finished book for sale at midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning, i.e. at the start of Red Nose Day itself.
At that point – but not before – I’ll be posting a link, which will take you straight to the dedicated page on lulu.com where you can purchase the book for yourselves. You can then post the same link on your own sites; e-mail it to your nearest, dearest, and that awfully nice couple you met on holiday last year; and generally Spread The Word All Over The Land.
As part of the same announcment, I shall also be revealing the full list of contributors, in the order in which they appear in the book. This will be a list of blog names only; I won’t be listing the authors by name, and I won’t be listing the titles of the individual posts. You’ll have to buy the book to find all of that out.
This brings me to the most awkward and regrettable detail of the project.
If I had any longer than seven days to complete the work, then I would absolutely pay everyone the simple courtesy of letting them know, by advance e-mail, whether or not their contributions have been successful.
However, I simply cannot spare the time to send out over 300 e-mails, when I’m going to need every last minute to get the book ready. Think about it: 300 e-mails. How long is that going to take?
And it wouldn’t just be a matter of sending the e-mails out, either. Think how long it would take to deal with 300 excited/disappointed bloggers all replying at once, with woo-hoos or boo-hoos, and all manner of supplementary questions. No. Can’t be done.
So, and it pains me to do it this way, most of you will have to wait until midnight on Thursday to find out whether or not you’re in the book.
I know, I know. But at least you won’t have Kate “empathetic” Thornton waiting behind you with a camera crew, claws outsretched, as the boys in VT cue up something suitably ecstatic (“Let Me Entertain You”) or plaintive (“Fix You”). Such cruelty has no place in our gentle World of Blog.
For similar reasons, I shall not be posting a sample of “hilariously” crap submissions – NOT THAT THERE HAVE BEEN ANY CRAP SUBMISSIONS YOU ARE ALL TALENTED AND SPECIAL – for everyone to have a good snigger over:
There was this Englishman, this Irishm…
…no, wait, can I start agai…
…oh, PLEASE PLEASE Mike, can y…
…well FOOK OFF THEN WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT COMEDY ANYW…
…no I WON’T come FOOKIN quietly, I…
I shall now return to my duties for the rest of the evening. Please remember me in your prayers.
troubled diva 