And so we smash into the new year with a bang and a crash and an ooohahhhthat'saprettyonewow. With the exception of the stupid ones that just go up and go bang, which are the only ones our neighbours ever buy, I like fireworks because they're exciting and you don't get to watch people play with explosives very often, especially not that close to the Houses of Parliament where they generally frown upon that manner of thing. They are also a good symbolic way of blowing up the last year leaving it all fresh for the future. I've got to say, though, that there wasn't much in 2006 that I wanted to blow up. We won a prize, we published some excellent, award winning books like The Romanian (which you should buy on principle to celebrate same country's accesssion to the EU today) and we published books that people tell us they reallly loved, like Plotting for Beginners, The Other Eden and the Crafter's Companion. I tell you, it's really wonderful when - without being prompted - people just email you to say how great your books are. In 2006 we also planned all of our 2007 books, which you don't know much about yet but ooh, I can't wait to share them with you because YOU WILL LOVE THEM. At least some of them, anyway - Ground Fighting might not be everyone's cup of tea, I admit.

But even though 2006 was pretty darned super, it's still hard-coded into my DNA to make new year resolutions. So here they are. I'm going to summarise the personal ones into one because they're boring.

1) Lose weight, drink more water, train more, pass the first year of my open university degree (I've enrolled to study politics, philosophy and economics because I need to know more about these things), be more patient, be less scathing to people who bug me, find a way to express why I loathe George Bush et al without resorting to expletives. Personal ones over.

2) Win some award or other for the company. I think it's a good goal.

3) Win some award or other for one of our books. Hot tips: The Red Men, Taking the Plunge, Deep Hanging Out, Needle in the Blood and Lint.

4) Get absolutely flawless IT, including upgrading the website, perfecting our ONIX processes and making sure computers do as much of our jobs as possible, so we don't have to.

5) SELL MORE BOOKS.

6) Find a way to help unpublished writers more than we do at the moment without going bust or spending every waking hour critiquing their work.

7) Engage more with readers and don't rely on anecdote to decide whether people like our books or not.

8) NO MORE ADVERTISING. I promised I'd report back; turns out it doesn't work.

9) Try not to worry so much.

10) SELL MORE BOOKS.

If I can find this post this time next year I'll see how I did. Happy new year and thanks, sincerely, for being so nice to us in 2006. Please don't stop.