Well, that was pretty much as expected, apart from the entire store being a mobile phone dead zone, which killed my chances of Tweeting anything. But you know what a Neil Gaiman signing is like, don’t you.

There were hundreds of them. Probably over 500, though no one knows for sure as the store took a policy decision to let everyone in rather than mess with tickets. Neil, very wisely, insisted on a “one item per person” limit for the signing, and as a result he and Amanda got through the line in a little over 3 hours. For a Neil signing, that’s not bad. I’ve known him be signing for 6 or more hours.

But before that there were readings, and songs. The readings came from the forthcoming book, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, which will consist of a bunch of pictures of Amanda being dead in various ways, and stories by Neil as to how she got to be that way. Listen up, because the following is important.

1. The book is not yet available
2. The current plan is that only 10,000 signed copies will be produced
3. You will only be able to buy it online
4. You should pre-order, or you probably won’t get one

That’s what I understand the situation to be. If I’m wrong, I am sure that Neil or Amanda will be in touch fairly quickly to correct me.

Also Amanda sang three songs, with the help of her trusty ukelele. One of them was the old house song that I so loved last night. It gets better with repeated listening.

The venue looked good too. As Pádraig promised in the video, the store was transformed with drape. Someone had the smart idea of festooning it with a bunch of buttons. They had a life of their own, and every so often during the reading one of them would leap off and try to attack Neil. Fortunately they were only buttons, and having leaped, found themselves stuck on the floor, powerless. It was creepy though.

I have about an hour of video. It needs to be edited and uploaded to YouTube in byte-sized pieces. I will get on with it as quickly as I can. But not now, as I have to be up early to catch a plane.

Talking of planes, Amanda is headed for Australia and New Zealand. The tour dates and links for ticket purchase can be found here. I know that a lot of people from Oceania read this blog. I’m betting that a lot of you like good music. You should go and see Amanda while she is down your way. Because she is wonderful. Trust me on this.

And finally, I was really impressed with the staff at Chapters, most of whom came shyly forward after all of the punters had gone, offering their own copies of Neil’s books to be signed. Most of them had worked a 12-hour day, and they went home very happy. It is a very fine shop, staffed by people who love books. Dublin is very lucky to have it.

Update: Beth, who is on the business end of things rather than rushing around the world, writes to tell me that not all 10,000 copies will be signed, and that the pre-order isn’t actually live yet, but you can sign up to be notified as soon as it is.