In eight weeks, my last traditional book project hits the street.

I have 32 co-authors this time and 100% of our royalties go to charity.

This time, we’re shooting for the big time. And we need your help.

The book is called: The Big Moo by The Group of 33. Our goal is to sell a million copies before the end of the year and to raise millions for three worthy charities. Our bigger goal is to transform thousands of organizations–corporations, non-profits, community groups, whatever.

Here’s where you come in.

I’ve found that most business books don’t get bought. Those that do, don’t get read. Those that do, make a difference, but only for those that read them. Every once in a while, a business book breaks through because organizations buy it by the truckoad. When a group buys 100 or 1,000 copies of a book, it gets talked about. It becomes a touchstone, something that people can refer to, use as a shorthand and take as a common foundation.

When I pitched Tom Peters, Malcolm Gladwell, Guy Kawasaki, April Armstrong, Julie Anixter, Marcia Hart and dozens of other big thinkers on contributing to a book that was designed to change the way organizations dealt with being remarkable, they all said yes. No hesitation, just yes.

Now it’s your turn to say, "yes."

For the first time that I’m aware of, we’re selling the galleys to a book. The galley is the very expensive pre-publication not-quite-paperback version of a hardcover book. The galley is created to give reviewers a chance to read the book before everyone else. I persuaded my publisher to print 10,000 galleys, a huge number. And we’re selling them at cost.

Here’s the catch: I only want to sell the galleys (50 at a time) to people who will give them to people who will buy a lot of the $15 hardcover. (Sell isn’t really accurate. The fine print is that we’re actually giving them away, but you need to spend $100 on postage and handling to get them… we promise to handle them very carefully.)

That’s complicated, so I’ll type it slowly:

I only want to give the 50 pack of galleys ($2 a copy s&h) to people who will turn around and give galleys to people in organizations with the will and the ability to pre-order a dozen or more copies of the final hardcover.

This means that if you buy a bunch of galleys and give them to people who don’t do anything, you’ve killed the project and turned me into a publishing pariah.

If, on the other hand, I’m right and every galley turns into 10 or a hundred pre-sales, we just hit a home run.

So, there’s only 100 or so sets of these galleys left (my co-authors bought most of them to distribute) so I apologize in advance if Jack at 800 CEO READ runs out. If he does, don’t despair… just pre-order the hardcover. Not for me, for you. For you and your organization and your friends and our charities.

Here’s that address again: The Big Moo by The Group of 33.* Please don’t order a set unless you know the right sneezers/connectors/influencers. And thanks.

*At the site above, you can order galleys, pre-order the hardcover
from various sites, see the bios of the authors and read about our
charities. (Did I mention that Hugh Macleod is doing the illustrations?)