Holy Moly, The Joy of Trash Kickstarter is Doing Great!

I would not be a professional writer if I did not doubt myself at every turn. So even though I was really excited about introducing my upcoming book The Joy of Trash to the universe through its Kickstarter campaign part of me worried that the success of my previous book and Kickstarter campaign, The Weird Accordion to Al, was one hundred percent attributable to the book buying public’s bottomless love for its subject, “Weird Al” Yankovic. 

Everybody loves “Weird Al” Yankovic. Why wouldn’t they? He’s literally the greatest. The same is not true of me. The universe is forever humbling me. Just today my Patreon plunged to its lowest point in years. I don’t want to tell tales out of school but after nearly four years in business, the Happy Place is on track to make about thirty thousand dollars this year, or about half of what I need to get by.

What if I launched the Kickstarter for The Joy of Trash, a collection of pieces from this website about the very worst and weirdest the world has to offer, with a generous selection of new pieces created specifically for the book, and it got no response, or at least a muted response compared to The Weird Accordion to Al? 

What if my Kickstarter stumbled out of the gate and then flatlined? Would I be able to handle it? A man can only take so much rejection in one lifetime and at this point I don’t just want The Joy of Trash to succeed: I need it to succeed.

Thankfully the Kickstarter for The Joy of Trash has gone really well so far. I’m writing this two thirds of the way through the book’s 30 day campaign and so far we’ve raised 11,809 dollars from 318 backers. 

That’s good! That’s real good. That’s on track to meet or exceed The Weird Accordion to Al’s tally of 16,052 dollars from 390 backers as long as I close strong and have a really good final day. 

With campaigns like this the first day is of extraordinary importance, as is the final day, and then everything in between is a bit of a wilderness. That’s why I just introduced some new stretch goals: if we hit 12,500 dollars then I promise to read and write about Ben Shapiro’s novel True Allegiance. If we hit 15,000, meanwhile, I will cover something I’ve been obsessed with for a while but that’s way too time and labor intensive to make sense as a mere online article: watching and writing about all 22 episodes of the second season of Baywatch Nights, when the Baywatch spin-off decided to chase the popularity of The X-Files and become a supernatural detective show.

Did it work? Of course not.

So even though the rational part of me knows that there are peaks and valleys written into the system, the irrational part of me is convinced that a slowdown in new backers is incontrovertible proof that the universe does, in fact, hate me and wants me and all of my projects to fail miserably. 

Then I have to reassure myself that the campaign is already a success in many ways, and that even if that number, that magical number, does not increase substantially it’s still an eminently respectable haul for an independent, grassroots project like this. 

When I did the Kickstarter for The Weird Accordion to Al and I looked at the amount raised all I saw was a beautiful, beautiful, incredibly validating sum that would not only allow me to do the book the right way but would also sustain me through a pretty brutal stretch in my career. 

When I look at the Kickstarter total for The Joy of Trash I still see a beautiful, incredibly validating sum that will allow me to publish a professional, visually dynamic book and sustain me through a steep post-COVID downturn in Patreon money but I also see all of the expense involved as well. 

I’m not just talking about money for the printing and distribution of the books themselves. I’m also talking the cost of buying the additional books featured in the campaign, and the cost of printing up cards as bonuses and Kickstarter’s cut and money to pay my amazing book designer and brilliant illustrator Felipe Sobreiro. 

I’m still unbelievably grateful for the support and generosity and enthusiasm but I’m also very cognizant of just how many expenses go into publishing a book yourself. 

I was going to wait until the campaign was over to start communicating with patrons and writing original pieces for the book that I will share with backers in embryonic form but I’m just too goddamned excited to wait. 

So I’ve already written my first original article for The Joy of Trash— an epic deep dive into Adrien Brody’s in-character introduction of Sean Paul as a Rasta character on Saturday Night Live—and shared it with my band of Kickstarter backers.

Oh, and because the world keeps giving me fascinatingly terrible shit to write about, I also very much plan to write about Claudia Conway’s stint on American Idol. 

I can’t wait to write these pieces and share them with you, in both embryonic and finished form, just as I shared all of the Weird Al Show and fifth season Comedy Bang! Bang! write-ups that I did for the extended version of The Weird Accordion to Al with people who contributed to its Kickstarter campaign and Happy Place patrons as well.

My dream is to have not just a book or two but a bona fide publishing house that cranks out a new title every year for a receptive, loyal audience that loves my work but also believes in supporting independent media and publishing. 

Because that’s what you’re doing when you contribute to a crowd-funding campaign like mine: going above and beyond to very directly support a creator you feel passionately about when it matters the most and makes the biggest impact. It’s not just a matter of pre-ordering a book: it’s about believing in someone and their vision.

I want to have a catalog of books in circulation bringing in regular income even after they’ve been out for a while. 

If you’ve contributed to the campaign, thank you! I intend to justify your faith in me by writing something really special, something that embodies all of the qualities that make the Happy Place a safe haven of originality and creativity in a pop culture realm where those things are in short supply. 

If you haven’t, then by all means get onboard! I am eager to spread word of the book and the campaign before it ends on March 5th, 2021 so if you would like me to be a guest on your podcast or would like to interview me about my endeavors email me at nathanrabin@sbcglobal.net or nathanrabinauthor@gmail.com 

Writing and publishing a book is a long journey, a marathon rather than a sprint. But I could not be more pleased that The Joy of Trash’s path towards literary immortality has gotten off to a rip-roaring start. 

Pre-order The Joy of Trash: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to the Very Worst of Everything here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdaccordiontoal/the-joy-of-trash?ref=project_build

Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

Also, BUY the RIDICULOUSLY SELF-INDULGENT, ILL-ADVISED VANITY EDITION of  THE WEIRD ACCORDION TO AL, the Happy Place’s first book. This 500 page extended edition features an introduction from Al himself (who I co-wrote 2012’s Weird Al: The Book with), who also copy-edited and fact-checked, as well as over 80 illustrations from Felipe Sobreiro on entries covering every facet of Al’s career, including his complete discography, The Compleat Al, UHF, the 2018 tour that gives the book its subtitle and EVERY episode of The Weird Al Show and Al’s season as the band-leader on Comedy Bang! Bang! 

Only 23 dollars signed, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here