Call it a Comeback! The Joy of Trash is Back and Better, Longer and Trashier Than Ever!
It’s hard to overstate just how excited I was to share The Joy of Trash with the world way back in the long ago days of late 2021. I’m proud of all of my books, and the hard work and passion that goes into each of them but I really thought The Joy of Trash was special.
It was funny. It was smart. It was commercial. It was tight and uncharacteristically non-self-indulgent. It reflected my aesthetic and creative vision in its best, purest form.
Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place isn’t for everyone. It’s weird. It’s personal. It’s self-indulgent. It’s riddled with typos and myriad other deeply human imperfections. That’s not true of The Joy of Trash, thankfully. I took my time and got everything right.
Then it came time to put out the book and I did everything wrong. To put things in The Best Show terms, I pulled a real choke job.
I put out the book at the worst possible time, in the middle of December, when the whole world was either on vacation or about to go on vacation. I was so dispirited by its initial non-reception that I sunk into a deep, months-long depression that kept me from promoting it aggressively.
If you put out a book independently and do not promote it it will not sell. I did not promote The Joy of Trash. It did not sell.
As of this writing The Joy of Trash has sold roughly one tenth of The Weird Accordion to Al, my very big book about “Weird Al” Yankovic’s life’s work.
I had hoped that The Joy of Trash would bring people to the website and help with its perpetually struggling Patreon. It did not. A year and a half later, the Patreon for this website hovers near an all-time low.
Thankfully the universe sometimes gives you a second chance. So I am pleased to announce that The Joy of Trash is back and hungry for redemption!
I just put out the Flaming Garbage Fire extended edition of The Joy of Trash. It’s a beaut!
The Flaming Garbage Fire extended edition of The Joy of Trash combines brand new pieces on the notorious Easy Rider sequel Easy Rider: The Ride Back and the infamous Kelsey Grammer vehicle Gary the Rat with classics from the Happy Place archives on everything from a coffee table book celebrating kiddie cigarette pitchman Joe Camel to John Kricfalusi’s reviled “Adult” Spike TV Ren & Stimpy reboot to a lengthy closing essay that uses an ill-fated Blues Brothers convention to explore multi-generational depression, the blues and my complicated feelings about my hometown of Chicago.
The Flaming Garbage Fire extended edition of The Joy of Trash has an amazing new cover from Felipe Sobreiro along with fifty or sixty pages of additional material, including two completely original essays.
As my disastrous experiences with the original version of The Joy of Trash illustrated I need help in making the book a success.
That’s where YOU come in! What can you do to help? I’m glad you asked.
Buy the book!
I don’t want to get too Jay Sherman here but the most obvious way to support The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Edition is by buying the book, preferably from me!
It means the world to me every time someone buys one of my books through my store. It legit makes my day in part because it happens so infrequently. It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve probably sold about six copies of my books through the site’s shop this year because if I’m not aggressively promoting my books they get ignored and forgotten.
I try to make buying books from me as easy and appealing as possible so I am including an autographed copy of Cynical Movie Cash-In extended edition of The Weird A-Coloring to Al , the 120 page “Weird Al” Yankovic-themed coloring book I created with Felipe Sobreiro, with the purchase of every purchase of The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition.
But that’s not all! I try to be as positive as possible given the circumstances and since my book is about terrible people and terrible entertainment only I should have to experience I’m including a feature in this sale called The Joy of Positivity.
I am going to create a signed (by myself and my brilliant illustrator Felipe Sobreiro) and numbered (to 100) set of hardcover copies of The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition that each feature a DIFFERENT hand-written recommendation. These will be on the short side, obviously, but they will be sincere and enthusiastic.
What a deal! PLUS you get a free “Weird Al” Yankovic-themed coloring book that will provide you with literally tens of hours of enjoyment.
2. Write a nice review of the book on Amazon!
There is a very direct cause and effect relationship between the number of times a book has been reviewed on Amazon and how many copies it sells and how much attention it gets outside of Amazon. So it did not bode well for the original The Joy of Trash that it only got 32 overwhelmingly positive reviews.
I am extremely grateful for those 32 reviews but I don’t think it’s coincidental that the various iterations of The Weird Accordion to Al were reviewed 254 times and sold way more copies than The Joy of Trash.
Even The Weird A-Coloring to Al, a coloring book that would seemingly not give reviewers a whole lot to write about has been reviewed a 122 times, or roughly four times as often as The Joy of Trash
3. Write about The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition!
Do you have a blog? Or a Substack? Or a Tumblr? Or maybe a website? Are you on social media? Then I would love, love, love it if you would write about the new, improved version of The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition for it. With a book like this word of mouth is incredibly important and I will need y’all to help me get out the word about the Flaming Garbage Fire extended edition if it’s going to be a success.
And when you do write GLOWINGLY about my wonderful book please tag me so that I know that people are talking about me and my book! It helps tremendously with the anxiety that comes with every book launch. Also, I have a very intense need for validation and approval and my self-esteem is very fragile.
4. Invite me on your podcast!
Do you have a podcast? You do? That’s great! Why not invite me on to talk about The Joy of Trash or any of the other things in my long and intermittently distinguished career: “Weird Al” Yankovic, Manic Pixie Dream Girls, John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, cinematic failure, movies about movies, depression, Baywatch Nights, Insane Clown Posse, Phish, The A.V. Club, The Dissolve, that time I hung out at Robert Evans’ house, the list goes on and on! Seriously, I am a VERY interesting person and podcast guest. Email me at nathanrabinauthor@gmail.com and we will make the magic happen.
5. Do you have a bookstore or coffee shop or dispensary or whatnot? Have me do a reading there!
I used to do a fair number of signings and readings. Then Scribner dropped me in 2013 and COVID hit. I’ve done, I think, one event in the last decade, at Dynasty Typewriter back in 2020, and would love to do more readings now that I have a whole BUNCH of books to sign, including the many that I have written about, and with, “Weird Al” Yankovic.
If you have any questions about The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition send them to me at the email address above.
I can’t wait for y’all to get your hands on the new version of my book and I sincerely hope that this time it attracts readers and patrons to this site as well.
As much I love having twelve lovely commenters who have wonderful, intelligent conversations here every day I would love it if the site became successful enough to allow me to make a decent living off it without struggling mightily.
A lot of folks understandably seem to think that I passed away or stopped writing shortly after being laid off from The Dissolve in 2015. In some ways that is not true and I would love for The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition to remind people that I am, for the most part, still alive and also doing the best work of my long and checkered career.
The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire is this website in book form. I for one think that is a VERY good thing. Hopefully you agree.
You can help me spread the gospel of this wonderful site and score a nifty literary treat in the process.
I need this to be a good day on the Internet and I need your passion, kindness and enthusiasm to make that happen.
Buy The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Check out my new Substack at https://nathanrabin.substack.com/
And we would love it if you would pledge to the site’s Patreon as well. https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace