As you can imagine, removing all my videos from YouTube didn't exactly thrill people. But hey ho, never mind! Onwards and upwards! I will be re-launching the book in 2009 (absolutely not via YouTube!), and while the songs will remain the same, I will be dropping that 'The Musical' sub-title. I have a few things in mind to replace it, but it has to go. It says little about the book's content and one or two people even told me how I'd got it all wrong, that for it a be a musical the songs inside should be linked together with a story, that that's how 'real' musicals work. Except of course that the book isn't a musical, and was never intended to be one. It's a book of songs from musicals. And so, yes, the sub-title is misleading. It's gone.

The hot favourite (today at least) is to call the book Blasphemy! Anthems for Atheists. I like the word 'anthems' because it's generic enough to cover both songs and poetry (and of course the book is both), as well as beginning with the letter 'A' - gotta love that alliteration! Putting the word 'atheist' in the title may also bring in people who would search on major book sites for books about atheism.

If you've already bought the book, no need to buy it again for something which simply has a new title/cover. You will of course own a book which has a very exclusive distribution, so if I ever hit the big time, hold onto those rare copies of the first edition!

I'll be redesigning the web site soon. In a past life I was a web designer and computer programmer, so I think I'm up to the task. There's already lots of hidden technical wizardy delivering the site to you, but I will try to spice things up a little. The best ideas always come from looking at other sites which work well and 'borrowing' their ideas. Can anyone say 'evolution'?! That will all come when I decide what to actually do with this web site, of course. I will be promoting my books a little more prominently, and certainly this blog is a key part of the site. Everything else can go! Er, just kidding!

Also in 2009 I will be writing a follow-up to Blasphemy! Anthems for Atheists (yep, I'm liking it already) with exactly the same idea - famous songs given new, atheist-targeted lyrics. I haven't decided what genre of songs to use next time, but it may well be musicals again, or perhaps famous pop songs. I enjoyed writing the Michael Jackson parody so who knows, that may even be one of the songs in the new book. Another way I could go is to do exactly what the old title suggests - a book with a theme, a storyline. That would be much more challenging and perhaps far more restricting in some respects, but I'll give it some thought.

Does it concern me that my second book wasn't well-received by my YouTube audience? Of course it does. But it's also kicked away that crutch, the 'assumed support' of a previous audience. A post-launch reality check tells me that I had only 6000 (rapidly dwindling!) subscribers anyway. That's not exactly a world stage is it? I should aim higher. So that's the plan for 2009. All change!