New here? Don't forget you can buy the book at Amazon. Thanks - Tanya x

Lawks-a-lordie, I’m on YouTube!

Thanks to the very lovely LJ at guardianjobs.co.uk, this fabulous little video feature of me yabbering on about careers is now knocking around cyberspace…

http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/careers/200775/664559/5/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0HMUDRHRRw

By all means give yourself a giggle, but do you think you could try not to judge me for:

- the horrific state of my roots. It seems impoverished writers must occasionally sacrifice the non-essentials, which my accountant insists DOES include honey-coloured highlights

- my manic and dizzying hand gestures. Just - WHY??

After some fabulous press in The Bookseller, The Independent and GLAMOUR, our spies at some of the country’s biggest media powerhouses suggest Dude? is about to start surfing its second wave of publicity.

Now that we’re well into July, it seems journalists at newspapers, magazines and TV shows are turning their minds to the 650,000 graduates who have just been unleashed onto the job market. Could it be that they have their own baffled graduate offspring camped out on their sofa - or coming back every night from brain-draining temp work? 

Either way, it seems the hacks have sniffed out a story - that Dude? is getting to the readers that other careers guides can’t reach!

Watch this space…

Well, well, well - it seems that little old Dude? is more than a match for the big boys on the student careers guide circuit.

For THREE WEEKS, the book has been perched on the top spot, seeing off competition from offerings from mega brands the Guardian, the Times and Virgin!

‘Dude?’ went down a storm at the Guardian London Graduate Fair. With over 100 people in the audience on both days, we had good sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. Big thanks to everyone who came along!

By the second day I confess I was getting pretty into it - roaming through the audience like Trisha! Sorry for anyone I startled.

Dude? is all set make its debut in workshop form, as I take to the stage at the Guardian’s London Graduate Fair (www.londongradfair.co.uk) on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 June.

If you’re planning to attend the event, you’ll find me in The Careers Group Zone, from 2.15-2.55pm both days. I’ll be the one miked up like Madonna.

The session is designed for grads who feel overwhelmed by the number of jobs on offer, don’t feel ‘grabbed’ by anything they’ve seen, or are just plain freaked out about the future. Seriously, your super-focussed peers can look after themselves - you guys are my people. Promise me that if you find yourself wandering aimlessly through the stands, asking yourself ‘Oh god, what on earth am I doing here?’, you’ll swing by? You’ll be among friends, I promise.

In the workshop, we’ll square up to the ten biggest myths about life after university - and I’ll arm you with the tools to tackle your job head-on. Oh, and you can buy the book for a bargainous reduced price… (No no, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Besides, I like living in a cardboard box…)

Let’s be honest - more often than not university ’speaker events’ are one giant yawn. A crusty expert drones on for 20 minutes, before a facilitator ‘throws it open to the floor!’ - and no-one has any questions. Excruciating.

Not so at the University of London’s ‘Getting into media’ event yesterday, where I joined a panel of fabulously feisty guests - and we couldn’t shut our audience up.

Uber-conscious of my status as a ‘fluffy’ features journalist (as well as working on Dude?, I write for Glamour, Grazia, Eve and thelondonpaper), I found myself in impressive and high-powered company. On the panel alongside me was the charisma-packed Darren Burn (news reporter for ITN), the uber-knowledgeable Hannah Clements (careers adviser from the University of the Arts ), and the super-experienced (and PS - how chic?!) Kelli Hughes (Head of HR at Twentieth Century Fox).

For 40 minutes, our audience of 50 grads and soon-to-be-grads pelted us with genuinely challenging questions about careers in film, TV and journalism. We covered CVs, interviews, work experience, freelancing, vacancies… Jeezus, I’m telling you, these people just it went on and on and on…

And I had an absolute blast! So huge thanks to everyone who came along and for taking such an interest our experience (and laughing politely at our tragic little media jokes).

Oh, and as you may have noticed, I’m not quite down with this whole ‘flogging the book’ thing yet, but you really will find stacks more useful info packed into my new book Dude?, so do click on the ‘Order at Amazon’ box above, or get down to your local Waterstones to have a flick through - you’ll find Dude? in the Careers section. In particular, those who want careers in media will love the sections on ‘The Maverick Methods’ of job-hunting (Chapter 6) and ’Work experience’ (Chapter 8)… Good luck! x

Huge news, folks - Dude? has whupped the competition, and is now officially the top selling student careers guide on Amazon.co.uk!

Of course, everything can change in a heartbeat on Amazon - we’ve probably dropped to 10th by the time you read this - but for a large portion of today at least, we reign supreme!

I’m off to the pub to celebrate, before it changes - x

Troubled times at Dude? HQ - I’ve developed a horrific case of Amazonitis, checking my sales ranking hourly.

Alright, alright - jeezus, what is this? - I’m lying, I’m lying… Yes, it’s much more like half-hourly.

What’s a sales ranking? You’ve probably never noticed this number - and why would you? - but it sits below the ‘Average Customer Review’ line and is well known as being ‘crack cocaine for authors’, who obsessively check it to see how their book is selling. Addiction to this lethal practice means signing up for a lifetime of pain-slash-pleasure, revelling in the glorious highs of a rise - and squirming from the punishing shame-spiral that follows a dip.

Updated hourly by the Amazon Oompa Loompas, this little number is a rare peek at whether Dude? is flying off the shelves - or being left to gather dust in a damp basement boxroom. (All publishers take yonks to get this information - don’t ask me why).

Happily, today was a good day. I had my highest ranking so far - coming in at an impressive 10,596.

Was it a computer glitch? Had my mum just placed another bulk order? Who cares! For the 60 minutes that followed this momentous news, I basked in the glory that comes with knowing that you are the 10,596th biggest-selling author on Amazon.co.uk.

In my excitement, I even printed out the page, in order to capture the moment on paper.

This has got to stop.

At long last, I’m back-back-back on party circuit! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved writing Dude?, but a girl’s got to slap on some face and get out of the house sometime. Much as I love my jim-jams, they cannot be classed as an ‘outfit’.

Last night, I had the honour of rubbing shoulders with the primped, coiffed, bouffed and stre-e-e-tched glitterati at Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards (www.glamourmagazine.co.uk). Having written a fair few articles for them this year, the mag’s generous, hilarious and occasionally downright wicked (in its traditional sense) features editor wangled me a stiff silver invite to the do (loving your work, Corrie!). Party-starved for so long, I snapped her hand off, replying both in writing and via email. Goddam it, my name so would be down, and I so would be coming in.

Except, I nearly didn’t. Ask anyone - I’d been pathetically excited about this bash for weeks. So why, 15 minutes before kick-off, was I hyperventilating? Was it my dress (’vintage’ Warehouse, circa Spring ‘07)? No, I looked hot to trot. Was it the rain, that threatened to attack my locks like a nuclear frizz-bomb? Nope, I had a strong brolly and plenty of cab money.

I now know I was experiencing my first red carpet panic attack. Matters didn’t improve when I arrived (solo) at the ma-moosive marquee in London’s Berkeley Square and discovered that Yes madam, there is only one entrance. And - gulp - Emma Bunton was just going through it and - double gulp - Mark Ronson and Daisy Lowe were just drawing up in a cab, with Jonathan Ross behind them. Er, how exactly was a Nelly Nobody like me going to get in to the party without being crushed like red carpet roadkill?

In the end, I sensed a lull in the star-traffic and grabbed my moment, cruising in like I was born to it. It went on to be a bloody brilliant night. The freelancers’ table was predictably raucous - I sat with photographers Fiona Freund (www.fionafreund.com) and Ben Wright (www.benwrightphotograhpy.co.uk), food writer Jo Pratt and fellow features writer Wersha Bharadwa. Oh, how we laughed like drains.

I also happened upon my old classmate Sophie Ellis Bextor, who (thank the lord) remembered me from school, was totally charming and introduced me to her man Richard and Dan Gillespie-Wotnot from The Feeling. (Although, not being a muso, I was shamefully lacking in ‘hanging with the band’ chat. ‘Oh, I’ve heard some of your songs on Heart’ did not seem like the cool thing to say…)

Alexa Chung, Fearne Cotton, Keeley Hawes and Kate Beckinsale were all Oh-sod-it-why-did-I-even-bother beautiful, Matthew McFadyen is seriously hot, Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie was as dashing as his character Marc, but (mercifully) far calmer… and Beth Ditto and Lily Allen were both surprisingly endearing. But the fashion pack are still my favourites. After all, you’ve got to love anyone who genuinely thinks, ‘Mwahs, darlings’ is an acceptable way to draw a conversation to a close… Love it.

My official on-sale date isn’t until Monday, but already I’m on the shelves of my local Waterstones -
HUZZAH!

Dude?’s cover looks ace too. Puts everyone else’s yawnsome designs to shame.

Now fly, my pretty, FLY!