Long Tail book party/concert in NYC

Next week the US book tour starts in New York City, featuring perhaps the coolest thing I'll do all year: the official book launch party on Wednesday, July 12th.

Rather than have the usual book party where a bunch of my friends stand around in a restaurant drinking wine, telling me I'm great and getting free books (while I squirm with embarrassment) we thought we'd do something new and far more appropriate to the book. So we're going to have an evening that goes from powerpoint to punk rock--something for everyone.

For those who like data, bad Justin Timberlake jokes and the Futura typeface, the party will start with my talk on the Long Tail. For those who would rather rock, the evening will continue with a cool DJ party/concert featuring some of my favorite Long Tail bands and musicians, including James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem/DFA and the Brazilian Girls.

Books will be available and I'll sign anything put in front of me. As USA Today's Kevin Maney notes, this is not business as usual. Special thanks to our cool friends at Flavorpill and Melanie Cornwell from my team at Wired for the idea, which promises to be the highlight of the tour.

The Long Tail way to do the event, of course, would be to open it to everyone. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a permit for a public concert, so we've had to make it invitation-only. This was disappointing, since the readers of this blog have been such an important part of the book research and creation process and I wanted to meet and thank as many of you as possible. But I think we've come up with a work-around that will at least allow some of you to join in the fun: a raffle.

I've got a couple dozen tickets to give away (the exact number will depend on how many plus-ones we get). If you're in the NYC area and would like to come, just email me with your name and the subject line "Party!" We'll pick the winners at random from all the entries I've got by the end of the day on Monday, July 10th. I figure I'll get a couple hundred responses for a couple dozen spots, so your odds are a lot better than most lotteries. And it's free!

The official invitation is above, with all details. Again, you must be on the guest list to get in (sorry!), but if you're a winner you'll get email confirmation by Tuesday morning. Hope to see as many of you as possible then. (I'll be posting on other US book tour events in the next day or two.)

Comments

[slater]

Chris, can we fairly call a Grammy nominee -- for the completely irrelevant to actual electronic music Best Electronic/Dance Album Category no less -- a Tail artist? For pete's sake, besides LCD, the nominations suggest that judges haven't listened to hit electronic musicians after ~1995.

I dig LCD too, and, to be fair, its nomination should be celebrated for the identity crisis hipster hissy fits that it caused. And this does raise an interesting question - what do we call people btwn the "Short Head" and the "Long Tail", btwn major hits and tiny tiny niches? I hesitate to call it the Torso.

[Tony Leach]

I was in Borders in Palo Alto last night (7/6) and saw The Long Tail on their New Release rack! Right in the center of the store! I thought the release date was 7/11 - can anyone confirm this? I would have bought it right then but have a gift certificate to Amazon I need to use...

[John Dodds]

Chris

Transport breakdowns prevented me from getting to the London geek event, so I'll have to ask my question here. You've queried the "long tail reducing choice" argument on the grounds of lack of subsidisation, but what about the idea that the least popular stuff will be given away and subsidised by an increased the price for the more popular stuff?

[David Saunders]

Thouroughly enjoyed the Long Tail book.

Thank you

David Saunders

Charlotte NC

[Bob T]

Chris, I was at the NYC party - had a good time, but where were the "Long Tail" beers?

http://www.brookston.org/beer/?p=259

All they served were Bud and Bud Light!! :)

[Mohan Iyer]

Hi Chris,
I am reading your book and I think you have done a great job. The principles and truths behind the long-tail phenomenon are slowly falling into place, in my mind.
I noticed that nowhere in the book you had produced a true 80-20 curve of the long tail phenomenon. Is it possible to have a one-column list of sales of any of the items you are talking about? I need not even know what that item is - books, or DVDs or music. I can produce a true 80-20 curve and I suspect that this would provide some insight.
Regards,
Thanks for your time.
Mohan