In case you didn’t know, Sir Richard Branson is a British entrepreneur who started his journey with a student magazine in the 70’s and most recently went to space - in his own space ship.

The first time I heard his name was at V2 Records in Holland Park where the office used to be (and my first internship). Part of my job was listening to demo CDs and taking them from one black bin and putting them in another black bin, unless of course the demo was half decent. Each day, I’d listen to over 100 CDs and one day I heard one that sounded pretty good. I took this particular CD to my A&R Manager Kevin who also felt it was a good one and show it to his boss the A&R director Malcom.

A few weeks later, I was told by Kevin that they had signed the band and as a congratulatory gift, I was able to go into “the CD cupboard” and take whatever I wanted. So, of course I took every Brendan Benson, Black Keys, Elbow, the Knife, Mercury Rev, Moby, Paul Weller, Stereophonics and White Stripes CD’s I could find!

Sir Richard sold Virgin Records, and then V2 Records to concentrate on his Virgin Atlantic airline and I moved on to Parlophone (Beatles, Radiohead, David Bowie, Queen, Coldplay etc) to try and scout more bands.

One of the Virgin slogans from Richard was “Screw it, let’s do it!” and whether its calculated risk or gut - I’ve always tried to have the confidence in my own abilities to just go for it. Depending on what “it” is of course.

This kind of of thinking has pushed me to start, write, collaborate and finish the book. I might not be in outer space but the conversations that I’ve had with some of the most amazing people have felt out of this world on more than one occasion.

We’ve got a list of 10 traditional publishers and one hybrid that I’d like to work together with on the book.

Last week, I reached out to number 1 and we followed up with a phone call together. This week, we will be finding out if they’re making an offer on the book.

Talk about aiming for the stars and you MIGHT get the moon!

If an offer is made, I’ll be sure to let you all know. If not, then we’ll move onto number 2 on the list.

Either way, I’ll let you know where things stand in a month's time.

Bing bong, Charles

P.S

The band was called Bloc Party.

The caliber of contributors who've joined this project truly humbles me. Here's the updated lineup shaping the Bing Bong Book:

Their contributions are outstanding and bring unparalleled expertise to the table that’s never existed in book publishing before.

The Bing Bong Book is organized into six dynamic parts:

We're at 53 interviews and counting. Here's a snapshot of some key contributors: