Q. I have far too many friends to be able to invite them all to my forthcoming book launch. How can I cull the numbers without causing grave offence?
— Name withheld, Edinburgh
A. Ask the publisher’s PR to send invitations from her own email address. The subject box should read ‘Invitation to a party to launch…’ followed by the title of your book, which, usually, will leave insufficient room for your name. Those who bother to click open the attachment will see that the invitation concerns you, but chances are that busy people will consign the email to spam or simply scroll past it without opening. Thus were the numbers unintentionally culled at the recent party in the ballroom of the RAF club for Elisa Segrave’s book
The Girl from Station X, yet also kept to manageable levels. It’s a benign form of culling, because those who miss out can be reassured retrospectively that they were asked.
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