Woo Hoo! I Have Officially Fulfilled the Crowd-Funding Campaigns for The Joy of Trash and The Weird A-Coloring to Al in Their Entirety
Today is a big day for Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s publishing division, Declan-Haven Books, because I have now officially sent out every last book that was pre-ordered through the Kickstarter and Backerkit campaigns for The Weird A-Coloring to Al/The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition.
Woo hoo! Go me! This was, as you might imagine a fuck ton of work. I knew going in that sending out the books would take a fuck ton of effort, time and most importantly and unfortunately, money, but I did not realize just how much effort, time and money it would take.
For example, when I saw that something in the area of 400 people pre-ordered the print version of The Joy of Trash I was overjoyed and naturally assumed that I would need to print up 400 copies for patrons.
What I foolishly did not realize was that some of you beautiful people ordered more than one copy, so that 400 books was actually more like 460 to 480. If you factor in the soul-crushingly modest number of people who bought the book from me after its publication, that number rises to 520 or so.
The same is true of The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition. A lot of you lovely folks pre-ordered more than one copy of the coloring book and colored-in book Felipe Sobreiro and myself put together, so I similarly regularly ran out of books.
Also, it takes Amazon about a month to publish a full-color, hardcover book like The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition and we are famously experiencing supply chain issues. So it took me a VERY long time to finally get sent all my damn books so I could send them all out.
For weeks upon weeks I’ve loaded up dozens upon dozens of packages containing books into my trusty black bin and got to the post office at eight o’clock, right when it opened and was least busy.
Oh, but the ladies at the post office got an opportunity to know me and my wares!
At various points I ran out of every damn book I’ve published and had to buy more copies of my own books. At this point I’m both the author and the biggest consumer of You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me, which I had to buy in bulk from a bulk bookstore.
I am relieved to have finished the campaigns for The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Joy of Trash. First and foremost, I’m glad that I won’t have to buy hundreds of copies of my books going forward because I have no money, have gone into considerable credit card debt and have tapped into my 401K from my years working for The A.V. Club on more than one occasion.
But I have done it! I told the world that I would publish two to three great books in 2021 and I fucking did it! They turned out even better than I had imagined! And I ended up giving out more than I promised because “Weird Al” Yankovic was nice enough to sign 40 cards for me to send to people who bought the hardcover version of The Weird A-Coloring to Al.
The Weird A-Coloring to Al did extraordinarily well and sold thousands of copies, although that deservedly benefited Felipe Sobreiro, its primary creator, more than me.
Now I have several hours a day that I can devote to endeavors other than sending out something in the area of 750 to 900 books to kind-hearted patrons who believe in me, my literary career and my dreams.
What am I going to do with that time? I’d love to be able to work more in advance and to write different kinds of posts, not just The Big Whoop/Travolta/Cage and Control Nathan Rabin 4.0. I think Talking About Bruno, the column where I write up all seven movies Bruce Willis put out in 2021, is a good model for the stuff I’d like to do in the future.
I also want to work on strengthening the site’s Patreon. I introduced a daily secret blog two and a half weeks ago whose name changes every day and that has been a wonderful challenge that has dramatically increased the level of engagement.
I’d love to put out a book every year so I have a very good idea of want to do for my next book and how I want to fund it. Look for that in about a month and please do join the Patreon. I came very close to reaching my goal of increasing the page’s Patreon count from 470 to 500. It gave me the confidence to set a new goal of 600 followers by my birthday, April 24th.
Will I succeed? Probably not, but hopefully I’ll gain a substantial amount of followers, and that would be huge for me right now.
At this point you might be saying, “Why didn’t you find a way to make this whole process easier, cheaper and less time-intensive, possibly by using stamps.com?"
That is an excellent question. I did in fact, sign up for stamps.com but couldn’t figure it out and change of any kind, even the positive variety, induces intense anxiety within my perpetually frazzled brain.
Also, there’s something seriously wrong with me beyond all of the other things that are clearly seriously wrong with me. I’m stubborn enough that I’d rather do things the hard way doing something I know how to do than make things easier by embracing change and help.
In conclusion, thank you for buying my book, and/or books. And if you have not, please do so via my shop! I just dropped the price of The Joy of Trash from 18.50 to 16.50 signed, with shipping, handling and taxes included and will throw in a fun card to sweeten the deal.
And you can buy You Don’t Know Me But You Don’r Like Me from me now, signed, so you don’t have any excuse not to buy and read that gloriously self-indulgent exploration of my long-ago transformation into a Juggalo and Phish Phan!
The Joy of Trash is out and it is magnificent!
Buy The Joy of Trash, The Weird Accordion to Al and the The Weird Accordion to Al in both paperback and hardcover and The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition signed from me personally (recommended) over at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash here and The Weird A-Coloring to Al here and The Weird Accordion to Al here
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 I just added a patron-only blog to make it even more appealing!
Alternately you can buy The Weird Accordion to Al, signed, for just 19.50, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here.
I make my living exclusively through book sales and Patreon so please support independent media and one man’s dream and kick in a shekel or two!