Introducing The Joy of Positivity III: Can't Stop Won't Stop
A few months back I introduced a promotion to promote hardcover copies of my book The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition where I would sign (along with my illustrator Felipe Sobreiro) and number 100 books AND hand-write a personal recommendation for something as good as the entertainment I write about in the book is godawful.
I was very pleasantly surprised when the promotion proved a big success. I sold out of the 100 books and launched a sequel called The Joy of Positivity II: The New Batch, this time with 50 signed and numbered books with personalized hand-written recommendations that also sold out.
I love The Joy of Trash, particularly the extended version, because I love making this website and I love the people who have found an online home here.
I believed in The Joy of Trash so its failure hit me hard. It was devastating. I hoped that the extended version would give it a new life and a new opportunity to find an audience and lead new people to the site.
Yet outside of the two Joy of Positivity promotions the book has sold just as poorly as the original. I’ve sold 155 hardcover copies of The Joy of Trash in the six months since its release and about 15 copies of the paperback.
The paperback is VERY good. It was specifically designed to be a fun paperback you could stick in your backpack and read during lunch or in bed. So I was disappointed that pretty much no one chose the paperback option even though it was cheaper and came with a free signed “Weird Al” Yankovic coloring book, a 12 dollar value, free. Even the PDF proved more popular than the paperback.
When you do something and it works ten times better than something else you’d be a fool to stop doing it.
To that end I am tardily announcing that the Joy of Positivity will return with The Joy of Positivity III: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. These promotions are seemingly the only way I can sell books through this site’s shop.
I have discovered, much to my chagrin, that if I don’t aggressively promote my books here and through social media they sell literally nothing but if I DO promote my books then they sell next to nothing, which isn’t good but is better than nothing.
I had hoped that because I have written so many books I would be able to monetize both my back catalog and my new books. Instead in the average week I sell none of my wonderful old books and for good measure don’t sell any new ones either.
I’ve sold, I think, one book in the last two weeks.
So please do consider taking advantage of Joy of Positivity III: Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. I’ve been using my hand-written recommendations from the book as the basis for a trice-weekly feature for paid subscribers on my Substack newsletter Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas, which I very much encourage you to subscribe to.
Get positive! God knows that I need a whole lot of positivity in my life right now. It’s not too early to buy one of these utterly unique babies for a friend for Christmas. Who knows, you could actually turn someone else onto the site.
In the book’s two years of existence not a single person has written to me to say that they got into the site through The Joy of Trash. If, by some crazy chance, that happened with you, please let me know. I desperately need the validation right now. I am not doing well.
I’m planning to make the third iteration of this promotion the final one so if you want to get in on an amazing offer do so now! For just twenty-five dollars, shipping and handling included, you get a hardcover signed (by my brilliant illustrator Felipe Sobreiro and myself) and numbered (to 50) along with a hand-written recommendation and a free signed 120 page “Weird Al” Yankovic coloring book, shipping and taxes included.
I wish that I didn’t have to do all sorts of extra work in order to sell books but I’d rather do that than sell no books at all.
I’ve also got plenty of copies of Postal (signed by my co-author Brock Wilbur and myself), You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me lying around, as well as the books that I have written about, and with, “Weird Al” Yankovic.
In conclusion, (Jay Sherman voice) buy my books!
Help choose the movies I write about here by becoming a paid subscriber at https://nathanrabin.substack.com or by pledging the site’s Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace
Pre-order The Fractured Mirror, my next book, a massive, 650 page exploration of the long and distinguished history of American movies about the film industry at https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Check out The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop and get a free, signed "Weird Al” Yankovic-themed coloring book for free! Just 18.75, shipping and taxes included! Or, for just 25 dollars, you can get a hardcover “Joy of Positivity 3: Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” edition signed (by Felipe and myself) and numbered (to 50) copy with a hand-written recommendation from me within its pages. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind collectible!
I’ve also written multiple versions of my many books about “Weird Al” Yankovic that you can buy here: https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Trash-Nathan-Definitive-Everything/dp/B09NR9NTB4/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= but why would you want to do that?