You're Not The Only One - Charity Book for Warchild

UPDATE 2: Hey guys - thanks again so much for all your comments and emails saying you've ordered the book and/or have received it and enjoyed it. Yay! I do read them all, things have got a bit crazy in my world of late so I haven't had a chance to answer you individually or even blog properly. Will be back as soon as poss - we've raised over £800 in the first week for Warchild and the total still goes up - ! I am waiting on the ISBN number and making any final adjustments and amendments and then we go GLOBAL, ha, ok not global, but then we hit the high street shops etc and the book becomes a real live hardcopy book ... but that's taking most of my time and nearly all of my patience. I've also got some work issues, have to find some new housemates and I've a court appearance and several baby related Drs appointments ahead, so apologies if I'm not seen here blogging for a while - I'm still around and leaving comments on yours when I can, and I do need to hear from you (email is best please) if there are any further amendments to be made to the book.

See you very soon, thanks for buying the book and all your plugging and pimping - keep spreading the word and let's try to hit the £1K mark asap !

____________________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Hi guys - thanks for all your comments and emails - I've amended as many urls and changed names as much as poss - it means that the first few prints are different, but until we have the ISBN number, this shouldn't matter too much. BUT I have a proposition for you - if I have ballsed up your URL in the book - I will buy another amended copy for you - so drop me your address via private email if you find I have.

Ah, its been a great three months, my blog's hit the 50th Most Influential Blog in the UK and I've had over 250 hits per day for the past 16 weeks or so! Now, I know it's not for my scintillating writing, my sidesplitting anecdotes or my filthy fantasies, it's only because of the book (sniff) but hey, it's been nice to be so popular, I hope you come back again even though the book's out...

Because it's HERE! We did it!

Ok, so it took three months, but rest assured it is three months of BRILLIANCE, of EXCELLENCE, of carefully chosen GORGEOUS bits of writing, of lovingly tendered editing and proofing, of gently nurtured and carefully catered for tastes and styles and with over ONE HUNDRED BLOGGERS' ENTRIES - woo hoooooooo!

The book costs £12.50

£5.00 goes to production costs (that Lulu take and pass on) Lulu.com takes £1.50 for themselves in fees (but I THINK they're going to waive that for us) and the rest, £6 goes to Warchild.

*If you buy it as a download, £10 of the £12.50 goes to Warchild*

Now, I suppose you want to know first off who's in it eh? All your little comments and questions over the past three months - I'm sorry it took so long and I'm sorry you had to wait!

Before I list the contributors, you'll have to hang on because I want to say a few things:

Firstly - THANK YOU to ALL of you who sent something in. ALL OF YOU. The final count was about 400 entries, which was a brilliant response, some of you sent in more than one (and a few of you more than 3!). I'm grateful you were all so generous to share, with potentially the world at large, some of your most private and intimate stories. It was tough reading what some of you have been through and amazing at the same time. Thank you.

If everyone who submitted something for the book, whether they made it or not, still bought the book that's a guaranteed £2.4 k we will have made for Warchild right there.

The second thing is: A huge thank you to Ariel, Desperate Sarah, Ms Robinson and Vi who have been bloody brilliant, especially Ariel who has helped me so much with the editing.

I chose 4 very different bloggers for the team so we had a good mix of tastes and preferences in picking the pieces, plus we had a slick voting system which meant we ruled out favouritism and bias as much as possible. Thus, a piece one of us loved wouldn't necessarily be loved by all or any of the others ....and I want you to know we scrapped a bit and debated and heckled quite a lot over quite a few of the pieces.

We all read every single entry more than once. We each voted 2 points for a def yes and 1 for a maybe. NO entries got 0 out of 10 so that means, whether you're in it or not, whatever you sent in meant something to at least one of us (I'm not entirely sure this makes you feel any better, but I hope it does).

I think we have a fantastic mixture of serious, poignant and moving stories together with upbeat, lighthearted posts which will make you feel a bit more like you're not the only one, and makes a great read too.

And thus, I guess, the biggest point I want to make is that if you're NOT in it, it means nothing bad whatsoever.

In the end, we had a limit of 200 pages for the stories (which we didn't manage to stick to as it is). We tried to keep all pieces under 1500 words (which we also didn't manage to stick to for one or two), plus sometimes there were several stories on very similar topics.

But, the response was so good we already want to do another one ( You're Not The Only One, Too? You're Still Not The Only One? Hey! Look There's Someone With You?) so please know it means nothing if your piece didn't make it in.

So I guess you want the list of contributors eh?

If you submitted to it, or are in the book, or just want to help spread the word, here's also what you can do:

1) Buy the book and maybe leave a review:


2) Publicise the book on your site and link back here again please.

3) Send links to this post to some friends.

Thank you.

Now, here's who's in it - if your URL is wrong, I've spelt your name wrong here or in the book, we can change it, so do let me know.

*Please can you email me if you want the HTML for the widget or for the pic - thanks!*

UPDATE: Hi guys - thanks for all your comments and emails - I've amended as many urls and changed names as much as poss - it means that the first few prints will be different, but until we have the ISBN number, this shouldn't matter too much.
BUT I have a proposition for you - if I have ballsed up your URL in the book - I will buy another amended copy for you - so drop me your address via private email if you find I have.

Thank you again:

1. DBA Lehane
2. Corinne Furness
3. Village Idiot aka VI
4. Fringes
5. LilliPilli
6. Naomi Dunford
7. Leigh Forbes
8. Heather Hunter
9. Fweng Ebola
10. Sue
11. Ani Smith
12. Anna Pickard
13. Ree
14. Desperate Sarah
15. M.McEwen-Asker
16. Paige Jennifer
17. Cat
18. Sarah J Peach
19. Mike Atkinson
20. Diane Mandy
21. Rachel Goldsack
22. Deborah Carr
23. Jenny Maltby
24. Helen Redfern
25. Miss Smack
26. The H Factor
27. Fat Controller
28. L.M.Noonan
29. Kal
30. Ronjazz
31. Nicholas Grundy
32. Rob Ryan
33. Casdok
34. DJ Kirkby
35. Bone
36. Kathryn Harriss
37. Helen Dalby
38. Alex McGlin
39. Kate Kingsley
40. Miss Tickle
41. Just A Girl
42. Catherine Sanderson
43. Enigma
44. Tim Warren
45. Kat Campbell
46. Daren Callow
47. Alan White
48. Zinnia Cyclamen
49. Tired Dad
50. The Boy
51. Swiss Toni
52. Cliff Jones
53. Fiona Williams
54. Kate
55. Isabelle
56. An Unreliable Witness
57. Dave Lozo
58. Anne Byrne
59. Micky McGuinness
60. Phillip Copland
61. Larry Teabag
62. enidd
63. Sugar007
64. Ariel Langham
65. Mr Angry
66. The Overnight Editor
67. Kristin
68. Léonie Kate
69. Barb McMahon
70. Misssy M
71. Meaghan Kearney
72. Pat Mackay
73. Swearing Mother
74. Emma Kaufmann
75. Angela La La
76. Boy Does Life
77. Guy Herbert
78. Blue Soup
79. Junior
80. Curvy Girl
81. Prada Pixie
82. J
83. Ms Robinson
84. Distracted Spunk
85. Jane
86. Jennifer White
87. The Boy Who Could But Didn’t
88. Solaris Girl
89. Beth Smith
90. Wendy Christie
91. Miss Diarist
92. Colin
93. Hope
94. Enny
95. Joanna
96. Reluctant Memsahib
97. Karen
98. Stephanie Shaw
99. Clarissa
100. Susan P
101. Debbie
102. Crystal
103. Scorpy
104. Megan
105. Uncle Norman
106. Johnny B

ENJOY THE BOOK, I think it's bloody good!

You're Not The Only One - Update #7

Hey, just a quick heads up, because I know you're all desperate to know, I'm back on the internet at home and got lots of proofing done this weekend, so very very shortly we will have our book! Warchild are still reading it - I will chase them today - and the artwork is still forthcoming. Again, apologies for the delays...and no I will not give a sneaky peak of the line-up to you yet! Come on people, the best things in life are worth waiting for...

You're Not The Only One - update - 6

Well, the annoying and frustrating news is that we're going to have to delay "launching" the book til after Easter.

Sorry about that.

There are a few reasons: -

Still waiting on a cover. We have a few people working on that now, which is great.

Warchild haven't got back to me and approved the racier submissions (there are only a few).

Plus, I haven't heard back from a few submitters - can you check your spam folders and see if there is a You're Not The Only One email there: I wrote to a few people with thoughts on editing the odd one or two submissions and I am still waiting to hear back.

(please don't think that if you haven't been contacted that that means you're not in the book, that's NOT the case! One or two submissions were a bit too long so I suggested some edits. I will post the final list after Easter when we have the finished book - there's more than 100 of you in it and its bloody brilliant!)

Thank you again for submitting and I'm sorry for the delays.

Cover Art Contest! - Warchild Update #5

Hey, we're nearly there with the book, editing and re-reading and slotting it all together... but we still haven't got any cover art finalised and so, if you fancy submitting us something, please do.

We are waiting on a few people who said they might be able to get us something, but we'd thought we'd throw it out there for good measure just in case.

DEADLINE: Sunday 16th March - 9pm

SPEC: Something simple and iconic reflecting "You're Not The Only One" and the camaraderie of blogging. Please not too many colours - less is more. Must be above 300 dpi - and 1786 x 2556 pixels. You can give me GIF files or PSDs - please include bleed (thanks Boy for prompt!)

SEND TO: address as before: bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk

thanks in advance!

You're Not The Only One - update 4

OK THAT'S IT! Thank you for all your submissions and links and pimpings - the deadline was Sunday Mar 9 - please send no more stories, the project is now closed... and wow what brilliant things you've sent us!

I am hoping to get the final draft ready for the end of this week and will be listing the final running order next Monday night (March 17th)

ALL LINKERS AND PIMPERS ARE LISTED: HERE

You're Not The Only One - update # 2

NEW DEADLINE SUNDAY 9TH MARCH 08

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them!"

Shit, I think I was just on TV. Our workplace has been in the news a bit lately (for boring not scandalous reasons, sadly) and as it's a media company there are often cameras and semi-famous people milling around which I usually tune out unless they're particularly ridiculous but I think they were just doing a news piece and I walked straight in the middle of it about three times as I bought lunch and had a cig. Great.

But international fame and fortune CAN STILL BE YOURS if you send us something you've written for the WARCHILD book, You're Not The Only One!

The guidelines are here.

SUNDAY 9TH MARCH is the new deadline (as requested by Warchild)! You have one more week!

bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk is where to send them....

Over 250 submissions!

Over 300 links (which I will update tonight; I've still got no internet access at home which is rather amusing given I'm trying to organise an internet based project. They promise me it back on Saturday. Until then I can piggyback an unsuspecting neighbour but it's only a matter of time before he finds out, password protects and I am totally shut out of the information superhighway. Or arrested).

If you have written anything FUNNY about something you've been through, then we would greedily lap it up; because the standard has been sky high, we're all sniffing and moping about because everything's been so sad! We of course want you to write about anything you've been through, but if you've spun an amusing angle on it, we'd favour those pieces a bit now given we're very very sad and need to add a little balance to the book. And our psyches.

So get writing and sending: I am thrusting greatness upon you. Thrust it back!

(click here to see all the submitters and linkers....)

UPDATE:  Man, I hope I haven't confused or put anyone off - if you have sent something not funny THIS IS FINE!  Just that in order to make the book balanced and not Zola-esque depressing, we just wanted some variety... it is however still about ANYTHING you have been through, so if you still want to submit trauma and pain, please do too...  this was how the book got devised, by reading how much people had been through and how people share this through blogging and find You're Not The Only One... geddit ?

Right.  As you were.

You're Not The Only One - update # 1

It would be the week I start this blog book up and have a hideously large work project come up that my flaming internet connection at home goes awol wouldn't it?

We've been booing (as in tears) and ahhhh and ooohing at your fantastic submissions - so varied, so well written, so damn moving... Thanks so much to those who've got them in to us already.

BUT: Just in case any of you all think I'm an utter genius for coming up with the bloggers book idea, please note again, the true home of the genius was Mike at Troubled Diva who last year came up with Shaggy Blog Stories IN ONE WEEK (maybe you could buy one of those too, as you're feeling generous...). I'm just the bastard doing the cover version.

Over 80 linkers and pimpers!

Over 60 submissions!

PLEASE keep at it, we need you !

bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk - NEW DEADLINE 9th MARCH 2008

You're Not The Only One

THE BOOK IS OUT! GO HERE

One of the things that a lot of us love about blogging is that we share experiences. We may not meet or even see our fellow bloggers but we feel we know them. For many of us it's an important part of feeling connected, almost like having another support system. Recently I tagged some bloggers on memes requiring a bit more info on who they were and what they felt and what I read really moved me. They made me wish I could pay for their writing, to thank them for sharing, to give them something for giving me their words on their personal stories.

From that thought, and with the help of a small team (Sarah from He Loves Me Not, Ariel from From Fuck Up To Fab, Ms R from Woman of Experience and Vi from Village Secrets) we've come up with a plan! We're putting together a book for WARCHILD written by bloggers and here's where you come in:

We would like you to submit (to us at bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk) a written piece about something you've been through from any aspect of your life that you want to share. It can literally be about anything: your relationships, your past, a road not taken, being a parent, an illness or your regrets etc. We've called it "You're Not The Only One" to reflect the camaraderie of blogging.

Proceeds will go to WARCHILD and, blatantly following in the same fashion as Troubled Diva (Mike Atkinson)'s Shaggy Blog Stories, we will be publishing it through www.lulu.com. This is a no upfront fee internet publishing site who will take £4.70 per book sold if we make it no longer than 200 pages. We're pricing the book at £9 so £4.30 will go to straight to the charity. Because the cost lulu.com takes goes up according to how many pages we want published, we do have to stick to the 200 page limit so we can't guarantee you'll get your submission in for sure and the absolute maximum length for submission is 1500 words (but we’d rather not have too many at that length. In fact you may stand more chance if your piece is on the less wordy side).

WARCHILD is a uk based charity but it helps children all over the world, so we'd like as many submissions from as many places as possible

A small note, we'd prefer it if you submit stories you've not published outside the blogworld, i.e a piece from your own site is great, but not from a previously published hard copy book, lulu or otherwise; that makes this exclusive.

To summarise:

• You must be a blogger with a live blog
• It must be about something you've been through, amusing or serious or any style you like.
• You can submit in your blogname and remain anonymous, or not, up to you.
• It can't be something previously published outside the blogworld, but anything from your blog, or something entirely new, is fine.
• Try to keep below 1500 words.
• You must pimp the book on your site and buy it if you make a submission to be in it!
• Please LINK BACK TO THIS POST to spread the word!
• NEW DEADLINE IS 9th MARCH 2008 for submissions - NOW CLOSED!
  
• Send your submissions to us at bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk

We’re really excited about this and think, if we get the quality we know is out there, we stand a good chance of getting some great PR.

If it's hugely submitted to, we'll do another one later in the year.... so get writing !

Oh, and here's a sticker to put on your blog too...

SUBMISSIONS and/or LINKS FROM:

The Boy Who Could But Didn't / DJKirkby / Kahless / Think Think Think / Jaded And Opinionated /I Hate The Earth / Much Ado About Sumthin! / Fallen Scorpion / Scary Duck /Boy Does Life And Stuff /Blue Soup /Fresh Air Lover /Music Around The World /Why Don't We Get Drunk And Blog? / Mother of Shrek /Creative Splurges /Lillipad /Craig Andrew /Curvy Girl World /...failed painter /Jazzy Ron /Candy's Corner /Old Heatonian /Itelli / The Misssy M Misssives / Driving The Flies / My Very Own Karma / Fussy Bitch /Little Red Boat /Lucy Pepper / This Redeemable Life /Boy On Top /Johnny B's Private Secret Diary / Nite Byrds Nest /McAsh / Mommy Has A Headache /Troubled Diva /Having My Cake /Rogi /Novel Racers /Being Lucy Diamond /Smaller Than Life /Domestic Goddesque /Enny-Pen /650 Miles /Single + Cats = Sad /Cherry Blossom Adventures /Dot And Mars /Sabbloneuse /This is This /Sometimes Funny Is All I Have /Girl With A One-Track Mind /One Man Blogs /Parlez Vous Moo? /H Factor /Iron Girl /Quadrireme /Missing In Iraq /Bane Dad /Martinis For Two /Not So Painful Reality /Broke In Berlin /The Gospel According To Rhys /Our Albion /Little Miss Awkward /Automatic Win /Lane's Write /Deb's Daydreams In The Shed / Swiss Toni / Cold Tea Again / The Overnight Editor / Let's Kill Saturday Night / La Femme a Las Vegas / Textually Promiscuous / Everything Is Electric / Kitchen Table /Letters To Ed /Not What It Seems /Enduring Rambles / Joe Heather /Miss Tickle /Crystal Jigsaw /William Hammett /I'm Just A London Girl /Forever Scarred /Real E Fun /Down In Me /I am Livid /Mr Fractious / Twisting Ivy / Smack Dab In The Middle / Eileen Dover / Notes from Hallett's Mountain / Goddamn Right / Late Thirties Crisis / The Most Boring Blog on the Internet / Queen Vixen / The Jagster / The F Word / Distracted Spunk / The Cat Girl Speaks /Jottings / Princesse Ecossaise /An Unreliable Witness / Miss Diarist / Swearing Mother / Two Blue Fish / Because They Made Me / Secret Walk / Prada Pixie / Enidd / Sean / Secret Walk / Menopausal Old Bag / Hope Dies Last / Cold Tea Again / Shot To Nothing / Maniac Mum / Uncle Norman / Random Moments / Motor Mouth / Life Goes On I Think / Rachel North London / Sami And The City / Inner Minx / Nappy Mountain / Weenit / Winter Thunder / Somewhere - Something / Pats Past Imperfect / Citizen of the Month / Silver Lining / Lemon Pillows / Kat Campbell / Rachel-Catherine / Single in San Francisco / Debi Alper / Bobz Yer Uncle / Make The Voices Go Away / Tampon Teabag / Belle-Diary of a Housewife / Petite Anglais / It Had Better Be Good / Nuts In May / Humdrum Blog / Jackie Adshead / Two Months Medicine in Niger / Basically Unemployable / Cally Taylor / Kay Reyes / Persistent / Musings From The Hinterland / Woman With No Regrets / Trauma Queen / IttyBiz / Beda Kantarjian / Billy Gean / Spiral Skies /Life With Leukaemia / I Love The Smoke / Kat Campbell / This Fish / Cure Climb / Mopsa / Absolute Vanilla / A Place To Hide / Speculative Woman / Mr Farty / Jamies Smitten / Judd Hole / Distant Aggravation / DBA Lehane / Bloody Students / Peregrinatus / Maximum Customer Experience / Helga Hansen / Through The Debris / Redders Ramblings / Sorkin Saturdays / Traveling Chica / Barren Blog / Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction / Words Wine and Whatnot / It's A Life / Letters of Bother / Suzanne Broughton / Creative Crabbing / Aprylsbulgaria / John Soanes / The Deadbeats Novel In Progress / Watching Geordie Life / Lesley Bonney / Karen Clarke/Highly Satisfactional / Random Access Babble / Beautiful Simplicity / One Fine Weasel / Outside I'm Dancing / Leigh Forbes / She Breathes Again / Reluctant Memsahib / A Mother's Place Is In The Wrong / Emerging Writer / Kitty / Lilly Sheehan / Brand New Tattoo / Afloat in Falmouth /The Inadvertent Gardener / Fall On Me / Karen Took A Walk / Ebar / Hotfessional / Retired & Crazy / Borrowed Light / Alien In A Foreign Field / Sarah Dunnakey / Grape Girl / A Writer / Enemies of Reason / L'Eggs Up And Laughing / The Life and Times /No, It's Not Just You / Twenty Something and Clueless / My Salad Dressing Days / Dear J- / Serial Deviant / Kathryn Harris / Adventures In Blunderland / Sarah Charsley / Dauntless Dater / Tired Dad / Tea Stains /Canned Laughter / Useless Rants / Lost White Kenyan / If You Read Only One Blog This Year / Heroes In Rehab / Sketch and Colour / Kristabella / Karoons / My Turnip / Status Anxiety / Gibbon Core / All My Own Worn / My New Notebook / Big Blue Barn West / Gay Camera Whore / Ganching / Typing Away

ALL UPDATES ON THE BOOK GO HERE

Hey, did you link or submit and I've left you off this list somehow? Please let me know in the comments box and I'll correct it...SJP


In support of War Child, registered with the Charity Commission no. 1071659