Today is the Final Full Day of the Kickstarter Campaign for The Fractured Mirror!

Tomorrow is the most important day of the year here at Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place because that is the day when the Kickstarter campaign for The Fractured Mirror book officially ends. 

That is tremendously exciting. And tremendously terrifying. When it comes to crowd-funding campaigns, only two days really matter: the first day and the last. The first day you find out how the universe feels about you and your idea. 

I was fortunate in that I had a very good first day. I raised thousands of dollars and came relatively close to meeting my fairly modest eight thousand dollar goal. 

Then comes an endless desert where pledges dry up completely and you begin to lose faith in yourself. Then comes the final day and with it, if you’re fortunate, a glorious closing burst of excitement, anticipation and money. 

I would love to get to over 300 patrons and 12,000 dollars by 6:00 PM tomorrow. Financing books through Kickstarter is liberating but tremendously expensive as well. Kickstarter gets its cut, as does my brilliant illustrator Felipe Sobreiro and then I need to pay a professional copy-editor and book designer. 

But that’s just the start of my expenses! I then need to pay for the printing of the book I’m publishing as well as all of the other books involved in the campaign as well. 

But that’s not all! I still need to pay for shipping for books when they’re sent to me and shipping for books when I send them out to patrons. 

It is, as you might imagine, an exhausting and almost prohibitively expensive way to do business. But I do not know any other way to do things independently. 

As I write this, I’ve raised nine thousand, seven hundred and sixteen dollars for the book. That’s not bad, but I will need to raise substantially more just to break even. 

The other, biggest cost, involves time. Though I did not realize it at the time, I have been working on The Fractured Mirror book for seven years, since the column began in 2015. 

I’ve written over a hundred pieces for the book that ran on TCM Backlot and/or The Happy Place but I still need to write up 200 or 300 more movies for it, and that takes time. Lots and lots of time.

The Fractured Mirror is an insanely time and labor intensive endeavor but I promise that it will be worth it and that if you trust me with your money and faith and belief, that faith will be rewarded tenfold. 

In conclusion (Jay Sherman voice) but my book! And the other ones I’ve self-published as well. They’re all great and, full disclosure, I desperately need the money. 

Check out the Kickstarter for The Happy Place’s next book, The Fractured Mirror: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to American Movies About the Film Industry here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdaccordiontoal/the-fractured-mirror?ref=project_build

The Joy of Trash, the Happy Place’s first non-"Weird Al” Yankovic-themed book is out! And it’s only 16.50, shipping, handling and taxes included, 30 bucks for two books, domestic only! 

PLUS, for a limited time only, get a FREE copy of The Weird A-Coloring to Al when you buy any other book in the Happy Place store! 

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 We just added a bunch of new tiers and merchandise AND a second daily blog just for patrons! 

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!