  Two things following on from my post about urlLink Nanowrimo last week; firstly, having jabbered on about it to a few people and noted their aghast expressions ("50,000 words in one month!? " ), I feel compelled to direct the reader on to the following quote from an FAQ on the Nanowrimo site.
&nbsp; "Did you know there is a group in Vancouver that writes novels in a weekend? Yes, and they are fools. Everyone knows that any deep and lasting work of art takes an entire month to make" Well, quite. Elsewhere, and more seriously, I remembered reading an article in The Guardian a while back about urlLink self-publishing and the new opportunities offered by print on demand technology, and it seems relavent in relation to the above, despite the notion of 'vanity' publishers being a well-publicised black hole. Nevertheless, urlLink Publish and Be Damned offer a bespoke publishing service which is unique for being straight-forward and good value.
In essence, the principle is this; you send them a ready-to-print manuscript (in other words, your freshly completed Nanowrimo novel) and they print you a copy which you, or indeed anyone, can purchase. The only condition on your part is that you buy ten copies at 6.99 each. There doesn't seem to be any other catch, other than the fact that you'll have to send 6 copies to the British Library System (or 2 if you're reading this in the States) and that, if you want to sell it commercially, you need to purchase an ISBN. But it's a wonderful idea. So if you fancy writing a novel in November in time for publication for Christmas... Pete had the great idea that each one of Assistant should write a Nanowrimo novel and when it comes to releasing an Assistant record it'll come accompanied by the latest novel by your favourite member.
Now that's what I call a concept album. 
