Posts from ‘Sleeping Around’
As recommended by Oprah Winfrey.
Sunday, December 7th, 2008
I 
got the first copy from the printer of ‘Sleeping Around’ in the post today. It’s always such a great buzz to actually hold the finished product in your hands after putting in all that hard work travelling (okay, that’s not really hard work) and writing. I reckon there are three occasions that give you a big buzz when you get a book published. Number one is holding the actual printed book. Number two is seeing your book on a shelf in a book shop. I still get quite a buzz when I see my books on a shelf (and, like many authors, I can’t help myself and move them around to a better position). When my first book ‘Rule No.5: No sex on the bus’ came out I even put a stack in the No.1 position in… (read more)
Release date for ‘Sleeping around’.
Thursday, October 30th, 2008
After some serious pottering about ‘Sleeping around – A couch surfing tour of the globe’ finally has a launch date for Australia and New Zealand (overseas readers will be able to buy it online!). The book will hit the shelves on January 5th 2009. And… this is my new cover. What do you think? I quite like it. I’m also quite chuffed that Daniel Hoffer, the co-founder and chairman of couchsurfing.com, has given me a nice quote for the front cover. The back cover blurb reads like this… (read more)
Red pen? Blue pen? Green pen?
Friday, September 5th, 2008
I received the ‘proofread’ first typeset pages of my book today, which I have to check thoroughly and make any corrections with a red pen. Not a blue or green pen, mind you, only a red pen. According to Allen & Unwin protocol: ‘Our style for making corrections is: blue pen for typesetter’s errors (i.e. mistranscribed copy), red for author changes, green for publisher’s changes, and pencil for queries from the proofreader to you.’ Thankfully, there aren’t many blue, green or pencil marks on the proofread pages, so… (read more)
The Couch Surfing wave keeps getting bigger.
Monday, August 25th, 2008
When I did the trip for my upcoming book ‘Sleeping Around (a couch surfing tour of the globe)’ there were 150,000 members from 20,000 cities on CouchSurfing.com with around 1000 new members joining a week. This week the ‘Couch Surfing Project’ hit 700,000 members who hail from 47,000 cities with over 10,000 new members joining every week. By the end of the year the overall membership will be close to hitting the million mark.
For those of you not familiar with couchsurfing, the concept came about in 2004 when 22-year-old Casey Fenton, a software programmer in New Hampshire, decided he wanted a weekend away. (read more)