"Assholes Finish First" deal is officially announced

Here is the Publishers Weekly announcement (it's a little down the page).

So that's the official news, here is what they are not telling you:

The advance for Assholes Finish First is the largest advance ever given to a blogger for a single book: $300,000.

[Note: I am 99% sure of it being the largest single book advance ever given to a blogger, and I did search high and low for confirmation, but I may be wrong. If I am, please email me and tell me, I don't want to claim something that isn't true. EDIT: There are conflicting reports on this because lots of publishers don't release info on advances--like mine for instance--but Julie Powell's deal may have been for $400,000, or less depending on who you ask. And it may or may not have been a two book deal, of which there are several larger than my ONE book deal.]

I also think that I am the first blogger to ever sign a second book deal (though again, I am not 100% sure) [EDIT: I was way wrong on this. There have been a bunch that have signed second deals. I just didn't know about them]. Why is this? Well, this article does a pretty good job explaining why. [Fun fact: According to BookScan, my book has by itself outsold all the books listed on that Boston Herald piece--Straight Up and Dirty, Washingtonniene, Dog Days, and Anonymous Lawyer--PUT TOGETHER. (So has Maddox's, as he just spent 15 fucking weeks on the NY Times Best Seller List, which is awesome)]

-The book is slated to come out January 2008, but I am going to try to get it done and out before then.

-The book will be about 20 stories, all of them brand new and never before published. Plus, there are going to be two appendixes at the end that will be shockingly awesome. Just wait and see.

-Yes, this does mean that I won't be publishing much new material on my site for the next year. But I am not going to leave you hanging: I like to get feedback from my readers, so what I am going to do is provide an email list you can sign-up for and get rough draft previews of the stories. Go here and enter a valid email address, and at some point over the next six months you may receive an email from me with the rough draft of one of my new stories from Assholes Finish First. I'll provide instructions in the email, and all I ask is that you give me some feedback. I did something this with my last book and it worked great, except last time I charged people to see the rough drafts which I am NOT going to do this time. I was poor as shit when I was writing my last book, but I think I am doing OK now.

NOTE: The mailserver is getting hammered right now, so if your email address doesn't go through, try again later. Sorry about this, my tech guy is doing his best, it'll be working smoothly soon.

EDIT: Media Bistro doesn't seem to know the difference between one book deals and two book deals.