It's Not Over Until It's Over or Buy My Books!
I can’t remember the first time I assumed, incorrectly, as it turned out, that my career as an author was over. But I was definitely still in my mid-twenties when I whipped up a book proposal about direct to video movies with a co-worker at The A.V. Club that hit a brick wall when our agent said he didn’t think he could sell it.
I was devastated, and convinced that that was the end for me and books: I gave it a shot, failed, and that was it. It was all over for me before it had even really begun!
The next time I was convinced that my career as an author was over was when I wrote a manuscript based on my experiences filming Movie Club with John Ridley, a poorly rated, increasingly reputable basic cable panel show in Los Angeles called My Television Business and it got no takers.
I remember my agent very candidly telling me that some editors really liked me and my voice, but didn’t think that My Television Business could sell, and some editors just plain didn’t like me.
My very accomplished, very talented agent thought the manuscript had real potential. He saw it as Running With Scissors by way of The Devil’s Candy but discovered that no one wants to buy or publish a book about a television show nobody has heard of.
I was convinced that I had one good story and I had blown it but from the ashes of My Television Business came The Big Rewind, a memoir that not only found a publisher but one of the best and most respected in the business in Scribner.
Scribner paid one hundred thousand dollars for The Big Rewind and saw tremendous potential in it. It got a rave review in The New York Times and was covered seemingly everywhere. So you can imagine how I felt when I finally mustered up the courage to ask my editor how the book had sold and he said that in the first six months or so it had sold a couple thousand copies, which was not bad for a first time author in a tough market.
I was once again distraught. My book had flopped and now it was all over for me! Granted, I had already sold my next book, My Year of Flops, but that somehow did not keep me from thinking my authorial career had ended prematurely.
If the story that I was born to tell, the story that won me a six figure advance, didn’t find a substantive audience then what chance would any subsequent books have?
The next time I thought it was all over for me as an author was when I tried to sell my Simpsons Decade idea as a book in 2014 or 2015 and was once again spectacularly unsuccessful. I'd had my run as an author on major publishers like Scribner and Abrams Image and now it was all over for me.
After all, what was I going to do at that point? Crowd-fund? Self-publish?
Well, actually, yes! Crowd-funding and self-publishing gave me back my career as an author. I discovered, to my delight, that with the right help, I was capable of self-publishing a book every bit as good and professional as the ones I’d published with a Simon & Schuster imprint.
Thanks to you beautiful people, my illustrator Felipe Sobreiro, and my amazing book designer Mariana The Weird Accordion to Al was as good as anything I'd put out and reached a big, receptive audience despite not having a promotional budget or really anything in the way of promotion beyond frantic tweeting and regular reminders of my literary endeavors on this website.
That’s why I am going to channel Jay Sherman here and admonish you to buy my books! I have so many that I stand to benefit from, financially and professionally, and I want you to buy them all! Or at least one!
First up is the five-hundred page version of The Weird Accordion to Al, which you can buy autographed directly from me at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop for a mere 23 dollars and I’ll throw in this awesome autographed card for free!
More pressingly I just launched the Backerkit campaign for The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Limited Edition Special Edition, the coloring book and art-book spin-off of The Weird Accordion to Al that I am doing with Felipe and Mariana.
Holy moly is it ever beautiful! Y’all are going to love The Weird A-Coloring to Al and its limited edition, signed and numbered hard-cover edition. We’re creating 270 signed and numbered sets for the hardcover, full-color version of The Weird A-Coloring to Al Colored In Edition and each will feature one of ten signed (by Felipe as well as myself) and numbered cards (27 each) collectively known as The Weird A-Coloring to Al Hardcover Collection-Private Selection.
It’s first come, first serve for these cards and we are nearly out of “Dare To Be Stupid” cards so if you’re interested, act soon before they’re all out!
But that’s not all! If you pre-order The Joy of Trash through Backerkit, as I very strongly encourage you to do, you get awesome signed cards AND access to every new article I write for it INSTANTLY.
So far that means
The “That’s swell, Tom, but right now your brother is standing in the middle of Afghanistan!” scene in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Adrien Brody’s in-character introduction of Sean Paul on Saturday Night Live
Shasta McNasty in its entirety
The entire first season of Baywatch Nights
The entire second season of Baywatch Nights.
If that’s not enough for a pre-order I don’t know what is, but I’ve got six more original pieces to write and they will all be doozies.
In conclusion, buy my books! They’re great and I need them to do well in order to keep a roof over my head and food on my table.
Missed out on the Kickstarter campaign for The Weird A-Coloring to Al/The Weird A-Coloring to Al-Colored In Edition? You’re in luck, because you can still pre-order the books, and get all manner of nifty exclusives, by pledging over at https://the-weird-a-coloring-to-al-coloring-colored-in-books.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
AND of course you can also pledge to this site and help keep the lights on at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace
Pre-order The Joy of Trash, the Happy Place’s upcoming book about the very best of the very worst and get instant access to all of the original pieces I’m writing for them AS I write them (there are five so far, including Shasta McNasty and the second season of Baywatch Nights) AND, as a bonus, monthly write-ups of the first season Baywatch Nights you can’t get anywhere else (other than my Patreon feed) at https://the-joy-of-trash.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders