Paulo Coelho

Update December 16

a] I am going to post the 10 questions before the end of this week, around 6:00 PM (Paris time).
b] five of the questions will be about my books, five will be general questions
c] I will annouce in the same day in my blog, Twitter and Facebook.
d] please read the posts below, to understand what an “invitation” means.
e] My friends Andreas Salcher, Paul von Austria, Rosa de los Vientos are helping me. The party will take place in Melk Abbey, but of course you don’t need to be a Catholic to attend!
f] no press is allowed. But personal photos and book signings are more than welcome.

Update: November 22

a] As I do every year, God willing I will host my annual party, on March 19, 2010, this time in the Austrian countryside (about 1 hr. from Vienna)
b] my guests are: my close friends (90), regulars from this blog (10 people) and 20 readers/followers from one of the social communities I am currently participating. Total: 120 guests.
c] In the previous parties (Spain and France), the selection was made on the first come/first served basis. But the selection was made in less than 1 minute, as I immediately got the answers, and the main factor was the person being connected to the computer at the moment I posted the invitation. As now I have over 1 million friends in all the communities, I decided to hold a contest.
d] the contest will be a series of 10 questions. The first 20 to answer all of them will be invited.
e] by “invited” I mean: to say one prayer together, then have dinner, fun, and music. I am not covering costs of travelling and hotels.
f] no journalists allowed. But of course all the guests can take as many photos as they want. And I will gladly sign any books they bring to be signed.
g] I will post the questions before the end of the year. And I will let everybody know, using Twitter and Facebook, when and at what time I will do this
h] I am going to post this page again at least twice in the next two weeks.

Below you have Rudolf (Scorpions) and I having a lot of fun this year. You also have the text posted for the 2008 party. Please note that the rules are different this year.

Having fun in Saint Joseph’s Party 2009

Invitation for Saint Joseph’s Party 2008

A Sunday afternoon, one year 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. 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.
You can see the photos of the party at Flickr
That was when I only had a WordPress blog. I still have a blog, but I am now also in Myspace and Facebook. Meaning: when I release this invitation, it will be read by close to 20.000 people.
Lotteries don’t work. And this 19th March, the party will be held in Paris: I am hiring a boat so we can have a good seated dinner, an amazing sightseeing of Paris by night, music and dance to complete the fun.
But the boat has a limitation of 120 people. Considering that I am inviting 90 personal friends (that attend this party for close to 10/20 years), we have 30 places for the readers.
Therefore:
A] if you want to come, please send an email to […] with a link to your page or your blog.
B] please take into consideration that March 19th is in the middle of the Holy Week, and may be difficult to find air tickets and hotels.
C] put in the subject the month you are born, and the social community ( for example: myspace/ April or blog/August)
D] I will select randomly one reader for each month (and we can squeeze two tables, so we can have 36 readers, 12 from each community – Myspace, Facebook, Blog)
E] So, if you REALLY can come, send your email during this weekend. 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.
F] If you can come, you understand that the invitation is only for the party, and for one person.
Love,
Paulo