The Puppy is Just to Get Your Attention

     Oh, don't look at me like that. I never almost never use puppies for such cynical means.
     But to get serious for a moment, this is about my Indiegogo campaign. Right now it's deader than Newt Gingrich's political career.
     Now, I've made mention of late of the ridiculous and downright cruel campaigns that have amassed anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars ranging from anti porn campaigns to one idiot that got over 50 grand for a potato salad to the two highly successful Go Fund Me campaigns set up for Darren Wilson, the racist pig who shot Michael Brown on August 9th. Turns out that wasn't the only Go Fund Me campaign set up for an asshole cop: Just yesterday, I found out Go Fund Me had, until recently, allowed a page to be set up for Daniel Holtzclaw, a former Oklahoma City cop who's been charged with raping eight African American women (I'm sure GFM still took their 5% cut from the $7,000+ that had been raised).
     Undeterred, his deluded sister set up a Facebook page for his defense fund, since Facebook hasn't discovered a way to monetize that and, as with Darren Wilson's racist friends, they too are selling tee shirts.

     The point I'm making is that hundreds of thousands have been raised this past year alone for racists, killers, rapists and con artists who lied about getting stiffed on a tip and fabricated evidence for that claim to women lying about their kids having cancer to get sympathy bucks. (Yeah, there's been more than one in the last couple of years, believe it or not.)
     So, yeah, I guess I'm as bad as them for using a puppy but at least I didn't say he has cancer.
     All told, these killers and con artists had raked in countless hundreds of thousands of dollars and these people are the dregs of society, to put it charitably because they were able to make their lies and crimes tap into deep, rich veins of stupidity, ignorance and racism. In other words, the one thing they had on me was they knew how to go viral. My campaign, by contrast, has netted exactly $5. You don't believe me? Click on the link and check it out for yourself.
     The difference between the aforementioned scum and yours truly is that my book actually exists and I'm working on it even as you read this. I have a beta reader who's doing a line edit, over 130 literary agencies have seen it and an agent even invited me to resubmit it after I trimmed it down. I've contacted a voice over artist to narrate the trailer. Unlike the fictional cancer of those miscreants, Tatterdemalion exists. And I've offered some interesting incentives.
     But I guess incentives aren't good enough.
     A friend of mine emailed me last night to ask why I was still working on my novel since my Indiegogo campaign fell flatter than John Boehner on a weekend bender. Well, the campaign isn't the book any more than the wedding is the marriage. I told him that if the campaign dies an ignominious death in 43 days with just the $5, I'm going to go ahead with a scaled-down version of my marketing platform. I'm still hiring the voice over artist and I'm still going to hire publicists and take out ads when the book's ready to go to market (that is, considering it'll continue getting rejected and I'll have to go the self-publishing route).
     As with any business, the publishing biz is filled with morons and self-interested sociopaths looking for the next JK Rowling and EL James. But giving up is the only true failure and I will not die a failure. I realize, at this point, I'm tilting at windmills but so did a hapless bastard in La Mancha. I'm not going to bury my face in my hands and bitterly weep at how cruel and unjust the world is, although you and I both know it is, and give up when I'm so close to finishing this book.
     So, if I have to spend my dwindling funds that are currently earmarked for rent and our other bills, then so be it. That's how much I believe in Tatterdemalion. But I could really use some more help. And it drives me crazy that racist killers and con artists get exponentially more money than me when all I'm trying to do is bring something positive to the world and make myself more self-sufficient. Doesn't it drive you nuts, too?
     Ergo, if you've already contributed to Pottersville within the last month or so, don't worry about it. But if you're a regular reader who hasn't or one of my erstwhile readers from NBC Universal or the various financial groups, law firms and Ivy League colleges and universities that surf in here on a fairly regular basis, you may want to consider unprying a few shekels and taking advantage of my incentives.