Lovely news and lovelier news!

First, and most wonderfully, huge congratulations to friend, fellow writer and blogger Women Rule Writer (aka Nuala) and her partner on the arrival of their daughter, Juno, a brother to the boys, born on Thursday. And, just as a little icing on the cake, Nuala has also been shortlisted by the Irish judges for the European Prize for Literature. Not bad, eh?? Surprising and delightful, I would say.

Salt are also having a better week than they were, thanks to all of you wonderful writers, readers and book-buyers! If you haven't heard about Salt's Buy One Book campaign, read my earlier blog post. Here, as Chris talks about today in his post entitled "Get by with a little help...the Just One Book campaign spreads" on the Salt blog, is what happened after he launched the Just One Book campaign on Wednesday:

In the next eight hours, I receive hundreds of notes of support. We receive 122 orders and sales begin to grow, around £2,600 before we switch off our lights and close the bedroom laptops. Something extraordinary is beginning.

Thursday, 21 May, Jen can’t wait to see Tom’s face in the office. It’s the largest number of orders we’ve had in a day......

....Hundreds more orders have come in. Everyone is picking books from the shelves, packing and franking post. There’s a system emerging. Tom handles the UK, Jen is drop shipping orders in the US, Charlotte is handling unusual and awkward orders where stocks are in multiple locations. I’m given the task to spread the word. By the end of the day we’ve taken a further 260 orders and the news of Salt’s plight is going global. ...Hits to the Web site explode.

Friday 22 May, the team have managed to catch up with the previous afternoon’s orders. The Bookseller pick up on the story. The phone doesn’t stop ringing. During the course of the day, a further 157 orders come in. Twitter is full of the news, our authors are picking up on the story. It seems as if everyone we’ve known is pulling together to save Salt. We’re overwhelmed. All I can think of is the closing scenes of Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life and Jen and I are James Stewart and Donna Reed. I wonder if it will continue, if it does, in 18 days we’ll be saved, in 30 we’ll be able to take the business forward.

Saturday 23 May. A further 51 orders have come in this morning. We’ve vowed to stop drinking in the evenings. We need all our wits. ...I soft launch the new author portal. I cycle back to feed the kids and swap over with Jen. She heads off to package up more orders. We’re overwhelmed, astonished, humbled. Humbled. How often do we use that word in business?

This is fantastic news... a number of us have hit Amazon UK's Bestselling Short Stories list, orders are flooding in. But it's not over. Don't stop. As Chris says: " in 18 days we’ll be saved, in 30 we’ll be able to take the business forward."

Let's take this all the way, let's enable a small independent publisher who promotes short stories and poetry like no-one else to stand on its feet, to operate as a business that doesn't have to plead for salvation. They produce beautiful books, they champion great writing. They want to grow. Yes, books are not cheap, but a world without Salt and other wonderful small presses who do what no-one else will do would be a sorry one indeed.

Salt changed my life. Salt made my dream come true. So, buy one book. Just one. Poetry. Short Stories. Not just directly from Salt - from Amazon, the Book depository, Waterstones... your local bookshop! And pass the message on.