June 20th, 2013, to paraphrase FDR; a date that shall live in infamy. The Queen is in deep seclusion. Today is Scepter’s official release date for The Rules. Yes, despite people already sneaking it out of England’s bookstores, today really is the day. And as part of the EU, hopefully the book is available across the Commoneweatlth. Eddy Merckx will be directing one of his man-servants to the nearest bookshop for a copy.
Why an English publisher? I think the British have such a deeply entrenched sense of humor, only they thought this is insane enough to maybe be funny. An American company might never have gotten the joke. Sceptre seems to be a reputable company and yet they approached us to conjure up a book about The Rules. Obviously, the Keepers are in equal parts dumbfounded and thrilled this has happened. If someone approaches you to do something like this, something you have never done before, never considered doing, with deadlines and contracts attached, say yes. Then figure out how to do it.
How do we write a book? We divided the number of words required in the contract by the number of Rules and it came out to 666 words per Rule. That seemed about right. We never got together in a pub and argued about a mad idea like this. It shames me to say this but it was a virtual collaboration There were endless emails, spreadsheets, skype calls, and ignored shared file folders as five disconnected people each wrote alone. A month into the writing someone let on we couldn’t be using expletives in this book. Oh for fucks sake, I’m back to zero aren’t I then?
Luckily that was a false alarm.
Artists Pedale.Forcheta and Jesse Willems offered us use of their photographs, an act of generosity that made our work much easier. With no hyperlinks and video to fall back on, really good photography still saves the day. The Rules and Lexicon were already written by this excitable community of Cyclists, we just had to fluff it up. We are fluffers.
Due to publishing rights we don’t understand at all, The Rules is not available in the USA yet. VVVV Norton in New York has secured the US publishing rights. They too are also a seemingly upright and stalwart publisher. Maybe too upright for the likes of us but damn it, they have signed on and will be printing and releasing it in the USA in 2014. Before that happens we will have to dream up some more promotional stunts, something (like measuring sock height) that will either end up in litigation, a tazing or a shooting.
Brett has still not seen the book and Marko won’t see one for another month, unless we air drop a copy to him, in a dry bag, somewhere near Hudson Bay, Canada. I’m afraid to read it. I’ll find the glaring mistake I made and never caught. And I’m afraid to show it to my ma. I’ve disappointed her enough already in this life. But everyone else, in Britian and the Commonwealth, go out there and buy a copy or three. It could almost fit in a jersey pocket. Come on Keepers Tour 2014 and get it signed!
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@frank
heheeee...begrudge him his unnecessarily heavy rimmed glasses...still laughing, still laughing.
@Velodeluded
Oh cock.
@Velodeluded
May I humbly suggest that if any of us find editing errors, we keep it off the thread, and just e-mail the boys. I dunno, just seems tacky to handle it publicly. My 2 Euros.
@frank
I've read it and loved it - I'm about to read it again. There's few books that you can do that with: sometimes you actually want to look something up - the "fuck me there's a Rule about that" conversation in the cafe over the espresso perhaps - and sometimes in the depths of a really disappointing evening when you just want to remind yourself by reading a few pages that tomorrow will be better because you are a cyclist and you can and will ride your bike.
It reminds me a wee bit of "Hamish's Mountain Walk" - its about the need to do something and the inspiring spirit of it rather than the usual "six ways that beetroot can help you corner better" douchery and interval training. Not bad for a book written by a drunk virtual committee across several continents.
There are a few typos and bits of mangled sentence but I'll leave those alone - they're like fingerprints on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling - they make it human (and how come we never hear about the guy who did the Sistine Chapel Floor?).
One of the reasons I started my own business was because my last ever boss used to buy books, read them, pencil mark the typos and mistakes and send them back to the publishers with explanatory letters. Maybe she'll write to you about this one...
You should have got this guy in to do the editing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IvWoQplqXQ
@scaler911
Please.
@Velodeluded
That is the precise error referred to here:
@Velodeluded, @the Engine, @Marcus
I look at these things the same way now as I looked at random roofs right after shingling my first...in painful recognition of erros and overwhelming understanding of what the shingler went through.
Errors in a final product, wether a chunk of code, a blog post, or a book are painful for the creator to see. A pain that is equal to the enjoyment others find in pointing them out. In the end, its net-neutral.
I guess the same impulse that makes young kids kick down sand castles made by other kids is something rooted deep and doesn't go away when we get older. No sweat - we are used to making mistakes at this point. Hopefully the overall product will be enjoyable nevertheless.
And - by the time we release in the US, it should be perfect. You'll all have to buy a second copy to get the right one.
@Marcus
Fuckin; eh right. Better have the personal possessive straight in the tomb. Or else.
Way to go Keepers; let the book tour begin. Going to be expensive getting y'all to those media interviews given your distribution globally.
@Gianni
Yes, no, no, yes (especially @Brett). But like my mum says: "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke".
Some disappointing news from the company in charge of the Australian distribution, they're not expecting the release to happen down here until late July...really starting to wonder what the point of us being in the Commonwealth actually is.
Link for that comment here: https://twitter.com/HachetteAus/status/346823745450692608
My copy arrived 2 days ago from the UK. Lovely quality hardback edition. I was excited as it was being unwrapped and couldn't wait to show Ms. Medio. Her comment - "oh, they have a book now, I suppose you'll be reading that as well as the website....." somewhat deflated my elation. She does think it's an attractive cover though