Our latest book - The Mumsnet Rules - is out!

[JustineMumsnet]

We're very excited that an early copy of the Mumsnet Rules has arrived at the Towers and looks marvellous we think. The Rules contains all the wit and wisdom we've garnered from Mumsnet Talk over the years and its goal is the goal of the Rules is make you into the person you would be if you had had two or three children to practise on before the ones you actually have. Here's the foreword.

So please, please tell everyone you know, pre-order many copies, and generally bore on about it to friends, relations and complete strangers.

ps You can get a sneak preview in the Sunday Times today and again next Sunday and more about.

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

I am on a budget, can someone convince me that I am in it should buy it?

[Threadworm8]

Is the dead-pet haiku from the dead guinea pig thread, pagwatch? I can't remember a haiku there, though there were lots of brilliant poems.

[Rulescoauthor]

Oh, it really is ironic, and not just in the Alanis Morissette (sp?)sense! tortoise, I am pretty sure you are there, will go look...

[Rulescoauthor]

Hassled, your haiku is there

[Rulescoauthor]

Tortoise, your very lovely mini-memoir of growing up with a single mum is early on, one of my absolute favourite bits.

[Rulescoauthor]

I don't know, bran, I hadn't even noticed that bit! As a fellow pedant, I would be most glad to hear about errors in the main text. There's a couple I spotted which have given me the horrors...

[Threadworm8]

People who have signed books off for the typesetters DO NOT want to hear about mistakes like that. They would rather have heated pins inserted in their eyeballs.

[OvO]

It should be called The Pagwatch Rules.



I may have flicked through every single page while in Waterstones and noticed that Paggy is on every third page. I may be miffed that I am on none of the pages. I may be plotting to make a Pagwatch voodoo doll.

[Rulescoauthor]

It's funny OvO, I really only noticed the ubiquity of pagwatch when I saw the finished article. She really should have a co-writing credit. There's a lot of OrmIrian too and some vintage custardo. Also long-lost oldies like Enid and wickedwaterwitch. Although there are also some posters I hardly recognised who said one brilliant thing on one occasion. I have also quoted myself under at least two posting names, which is mildly shaming.

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Oooh, oooh, I am excited like a schoolgirl and will now go and spend money I don't have so I can pretend to be famous.

...God, Mumsnet is totally onto a brilliant business model here, aren't they? We say it for free, you lot print it and sell it for money, the SAME PEOPLE buy it to read their own words.

[Rulescoauthor]

Tortoise, don't buy it yet, I'm after a copy for you. I love that quote about your mum, it actually brings tears to my eyes.

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Are you serious?

You have no idea how ridiculously pleased that would make me , but do bear in mind that I live in Australia, so I would happily pay for the shipping.

[Rulescoauthor]

Totally serious. That was the first rule we did and it was reading your bit and a few others which made it all gel (for me anyway). And it sort of sums up what the whole thing is supposed to be about. You should write more! I'll get back to you this afternoon with news about your copy.

[Rulescoauthor]

Have pmed you, tortoise.

[Pagwatch]

Well it all sounds good until one realises that my quotes include my sensitive and intelligent "now off you fuck" poem.

Quantity does not mean quality folks

Lovely quote tortoise.

[BrainSurgeon]

Just ordered it, I literally can't wait to get it, am jumping every time I hear steps outside hoping it's the delivery guy

So do people appear in it with their nicknames just like here?

[Rulescoauthor]

Yes, nicknames. Hope you are not disappointed, BrainSurgeon. Great name btw.

[Jux]

Why is the paperback more expensive than the hardback? I'm too weak to hold or carry hardbacks, or indeed hold them open while reading. Usually the hb is more expensive........ It's not faaaaaaaaaaaaaair mummy [wail]

[nickelbabe]

in this case, i would imagine that the paperback is an airport edition.
as there is not a paperback listed on books available in this country

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Book Depository (where I always shop because of the free shipping to Australia) has the paperback on advance order with a waiting period of about nine months. It's a lot cheaper, but...nine months. You could grow an entire person in that time.

[nickelbabe]

I see - so the paperback is the international edition then.

i always forget you're down there

[TheOriginalFAB]

Am I in it?

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Nickel, are you talking to me? No, book depository is an English store, it just does free international shipping. I don't think there's an international edition, I only meant that the standard paperback isn't out for aaaaaages yet. No idea where Jux is getting one!