You knew it was coming sooner or later; I’ve been dropping hints here and there. But with the New Year upon us, we (Bob Burg and I) thought the only gentlemanly thing to do was provide something more substantial than hints — so here it is:

(Note to the romantically inclined: that’s four days after Valentine’s Day.)

Here is a link to our secretive, highly classified sneak preview site, which is so secretive at this point that it doesn’t even reveal the book’s title. We could tell you, but then we’d have to … well, you know.

What it does give you is a link for preordering your own copy on Amazon. (At which point you will of course see the title. Okay, perhaps “secretive” is not what we do best.) You’ll also see a few of the nice things people like Spencer Johnson, David Bach and Marshall Goldsmith are saying about the book.)

The new book is not a parable or story — that is, not exactly a sequel to The Go-Giver. (A “real” sequel to the story is also in the works, but that’s going to be a surprise for 2011.)

Instead, this book is more like a Go-Giver Companion. Just a bit longer than the first book, it is a set of short, essay-like chapters about applying the Go-Giver principles to real-world situations, especially in the context of sales and selling. The book is also punctuated by several dozen real-life stories of people we know who live these principles.

In other words, by several dozen of you.

So, ready for the surprise?

For New Years Eve, we decided to put up a link where you can download the complete Introduction and Chapter 1.

So, break out the champagne, noisemakers and funny hats, pull up a chair, and have a little read (while you stay indoors avoiding the loopy traffic on the streets out there). Hope you enjoy it!

Have a fabulous — dare I say, stratospheric — New Year! May 2010 be your best year yet.

Some of you will remember a post I wrote last summer, when Ana was traveling the globe and I sat at home on our deck in central Massachusetts, eating good meals and watching the garden with Ana’s mom, Sylvia.

The post was about a story Sylvia told me one evening, about one of her early experiences as a nurse.

I say “Some of you will remember” because that one post got more comments from you than any single post I’d written since I posted our wedding pictures the previous summer!

In fact, here is Sylvia on that particularly auspicious day:

So, I wanted to give you all an update on Sylvia and how she’s doing this holiday season.

A few weeks before Christmas, she fell ill and went into the hospital. Surgery followed, which went swimmingly, and so did convalescence—for a few days. Then complications ensued, requiring a second surgery a short week after the first.

This second operation was tough, and the docs were glum about her prospects. We got quite a circle of friends sending her prayers, fond thoughts and good vibes. Amazingly, she blew away everyone’s projections and came through operation #2 with flying colors, albeit recovery has been excruciatingly slow. As I write, she is in the ICU, recovering her health and strength by inches, every increment a cause for celebration for her assembled family (that’s Ana, Kaia and me here at her home in Florida).

For a few days following the second operation, she had a breathing tube in her throat and couldn’t talk. One day, she seemed to be urgently trying to say something. It was impossible to make out what it was. Ana asked if she wanted a pad and pen to write with. She did. Ana fetched a pad, gave it to her, and she scrawled a short sentence. It wasn’t easy to make out, but when Ana deciphered the words, here is was it said:

Tell everyone, Thank you.

Keep those prayers, fond thoughts and good vibes coming. And, from Sylvia, Thank you.

What a feeling: elation, exuberance, exhilaration!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a chapter. One chapter. I mean, one chapter, for weeks — that’s plural, more than one, weeks!

Here’s what happened. I’m working on a book on leadership, working with a major author who has held White House positions and Harvard directorships and all sorts of major stuff and such. The finished draft was due this fall; we finished the finished draft. Met with the editor, a wonderful and brilliant man, with whom I’ve worked before and I trust implicitly and totally. He liked the manuscript, liked it a lot — but Chapter 1 had to go. Part of it worked, but the truth was, we pretty much needed to scrap it and write a new Chapter 1.

He was absolutely right: we did.

So we started. But the thing would not cooperate.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been applying myself to an exercise that has felt very much like what it must feel like to be an ant taking a stroll and suddenly finding oneself hip-deep in a tureen of molasses.

Toward the end of the day, Ana would call down to my office: “How’s it going?” she would say, cheerily, encouragingly, believing-in-me-utterlyly. “Good,” I would reply—most unconvincingly. At dinner I would tell the truth: “I made progress … I think. But progress measured in inches.” And what I needed, as we both knew, was progress not in inches, not in yards, but in miles.

So every day, a few more inches.

And then last night, something wild happened: miles.

It started to feel like it was going somewhere, like we might actually have some flow to this thing. And tonight, it’s finished. Just wrote the last word—at midnight.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

You probably will not see this book or read this chapter till a year from now — but when you do, remember this moment, because it’s when Page 1 started to work.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”

Yesterday I had lightning bug. Today I think I hit lightning.

Last Saturday’s edition of the National Post, Canada’s conservative-leaning newspaper, ran a substantial excerpt from The Secret Language of Money, under the title “Navigating the Money Minefield” and bylined David Krueger and yours truly.

What a delightful and unexpected honor. And here’s a funny thing: it ran, not in the Business section (nor in the paper’s sister-publication Financial Post) but in the Sports section! (When you read the opening scene, you’ll see why.)

One thing, before you actually read the piece itself: the excerpt opens with a line — “Something strange was going on, all right.” — that appears to come out of nowhere. This opening makes more sense when you have the context: this is actually the opening line of the book, where it is preceded by this epigraph:

If there’s something strange in the neighborhood,
Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!
If there’s something weird and it don’t look good,
Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!
Theme song to Ghostbusters, music and lyrics by Ray Parker, Jr.

Enjoy the excerpt!

Yes, evidently it’s true; this name that I’ve always thought of as “mine” turns out to be not a thing I own at all, but a resource that I share with others.

Or at least, one other: a young Baltimorean who authors a blog called “Mann’s Search for Meaning.” (Doesn’t that sound like a title John David Mann would have come up with?) Here he is:

You won’t find the “David” anywhere on his site, by the way — the only reason I know that’s his name is that he wrote to me and told me so, after stumbling upon my posts in the blogosphere.

I haven’t read a great deal of John’s blog yet, but enough to know that we both share a fondness for our diminutive pooch-companions (note here and here), and both have a penchant for shooting deer — with cameras (see here and here and here).

And, that we both enjoy putting words together.

Hmm. The age-old chicken-and-egg question, with a twist: which came first, the name, or the person who uses it?