It actually happened, contrary to the opinion of several nay-sayers of my acquaintance, and I will tell you that the launch event was one of the most awesome experiences of my professional life.
In case you've been asleep for the past couple of months, and missed all the earlier announcements, you can read about the book here:
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/archive/2009/09/30/sql-server-mvps-give-away-their-royalties.aspx
PASS, Microsoft, Manning Publications and about 20 MVP authors worked together to make the launch an incredible reality. Manning had shipped 200 early-printing copies of the book straight to the conference, and they sold out! Wednesday at 11:30, at the PASS Spotlight Theater, Paul Nielsen talked about the genesis of the project, I talked about how the WarChild charity was chosen, Suzanna Moran talked about the MVP program, and Heather Newman organized a mass book-signing. Most of the authors present at the conference lined up along one side of a long table and anyone wanting to get almost two dozen signatures walked along the other side. We signed books for well over an hour. Some people coming through the line had several copies of the book! We also signed books for many of the SQL Server supporters at Microsoft, including Steve Ballmer and BillG himself!
As an extra bonus for those people who bought their book at the conference, the early printing included a typo in my last name, only on the spine of the book. My name is spelled correctly on the front cover, the back cover and the inside, but the spine shows my last name as "Dalaney". (I'm just glad they didn't spell it "Duhlaney" <g>) The next printing, which will include the books shipped from Amazon and directly from Manning, should have that corrected. So these first 200 copies of the book are real collector's items.
Here is a photo of the authors/editors who participated in signing…
Thank YOU to everyone who made this book a reality, including everyone who bought the book!!
~Kalen