I spent the morning working on the outline of the book. Let me run it past you. It isn’t cast in stone. In fact, you’re going to be seeing a lot of bad ideas and draft material in the coming months. That’s normal for book-writing. Back in the Old Publishing Days (hereinafter the OPD), readers never saw the lousy first drafts of the books they bought. They saw polished, glossy hardcovers, arrayed in shining rows in the bookstore, looking like they sprang fully-formed from the head of Zeus.

Now I will reveal the truth: They didn’t.

I share this secret with you, because now you have a need to know. My first, second, third, fourth, and fifth drafts are always lousy. By draft six maybe I’m getting somewhere.

I’m stunned by how much support you’ve given this project. I’m honestly astonished. Thank you. I don’t know if I can even explain how much it means to me and why. Suffice to say, it means a great deal.

Here’s the first thing I did with the money. I spent an experimental $7.49 on a Pressfolio site to see whether Pressfolio’s easy to use and whether it might be a good way to keep all of the coming year’s reporting in one place. Pressfolio gets an A+ from me for design and simplicity (putting that up took me all of an hour), but it fails “multimedia-friendly.” There’s no easy way to add video or audio unless you host it somewhere else. That might be okay, though: Having an easy-to-use, visually pleasing place to put for “finished essays” might be worth $7.49 a month. What do you think?

Now — to Europe. Thought I’d share a few items that caught my eye this morning.

Yesterday I posted an idea for a reader-funded project to write a sequel to the book I wrote about Europe ten years ago.

I just wanted to know if anyone here thought the idea could work. I figured Ricochet members would have useful suggestions, good business sense, and the honesty to tell me if they thought the project wasn’t feasible. I had no idea the responsive would be so positive. Last night, I said to the Yeti, “Wow. They’re really encouraging. They like this idea.” But I had no intention of asking for money right away. I planned to study your comments, think about them carefully, and come back to you with a serious and detailed business plan, worked out to the last penny. (And obviously, I’m still planning to do that.)

But first I need to thank you.