Paulo Coelho

A Sunday afternoon, two years ago, I was reading my blog and thinking how intelligent my readers are. So I thought: why not invite some of them to the party I held every March 19, in honor of my patron, Saint Joseph? Acting on an impulse (as I normally do) I posted the invitation for 10 people on the first come/first served basis. We got over 500 emails, and the first were from different parts of the world. However, the party was to be held in the middle of the Road to Santiago, (Puente la Reina, Spain).

Then I asked myself: did these readers understand the invitation? It is only for a party, I am not paying the air ticket, hotel, etc. And it is not easy to get to Puente la Reina. I sent a second email to them, and all said that they fully understood. Thanks to this, I had the pleasure to meet wonderful people, most of them now in my top friends in Myspace, and all of them very close to my heart.
I repeated this experience in 2008. Again, the readers were invited, and we had a fantastic time together in a boat on the Seine.

You can see the photos of the first party clicking here, and watch the video of the second party by clicking here.

Again, this 19th March, the party will be held in Paris: I am closing a small brasserie, so we can meet once more. To allow some conversation, I limited the invitation to 120 people, being 90 of my long time friends (that came to the party for the past 20 years), and 30 readers. From that 30 readers, I already invited 10, either because they became personal friends, or because they are constantly present in my social communities (like Vanhacker, Paul from Austria, Jessica, Thelma, Aditya,etc).
So we have 20 places left. Therefore:

A] if you want to come, please send an email to [email protected] with a link to your page or your blog. We are going to select on the first come/first served basis.

B] Send your email during this week. If you don’t hear back from me, that means that either you are in the waiting list (the extra guests) or we need to find another opportunity to meet.

G] If you can come, you understand that the invitation is only for the party, and for one person.

Thank you for your understanding that I cannot invite all of you, even if I want to.

UP-DATE 04.02.09

Thank you very much for your quick answer. We already had the first 20 guests less than 1/2 after we posted the information. At this point, we have close to 1.316 emails. So we have to close the invitation, and find another time to meet.

To the first ones, I still did not have time to answer you. But I will do that either tomorrow or Friday- therefore, if you did not receive the email, that does not mean that you are not invited.
Love
Paulo