death egg

in early september, i published Death Egg by nathaniel duggan via back patio press. this was the first back patio book since sad sad boy, which i published in March 2022.

background and editing

i had maintained a loose email correspondence with nathaniel starting sometime in 2020, i think based on him sending me a poem for the quaranzine. we talked about our lives and poetry and indie lit drama for a while after this. i had given him editorial feedback on various poems during this time and encouraged him, i think, to make a collection.

looking at my email, on february 3rd, i gave him editorial feedback including "these are just great. great poems", a suggestion to change the name to death egg, and general praise such as "i really really find the thematic preoccupations and imagery compelling. the deployment of sci-fi intergalactic, video game, deep see, apocalypse imagery all mesh well, different hues of a perfect purplish blue. i think it's perfectly executed - the video games are not reddity wining or pop culture genuflection but are used as something to comment, i feel, on the larger cultural fuckedness, the integration of escapism into the despair pondering that feels subtle, effective, and non-clichely contemporary -- video games as the 'television of today,' etc. i can't say praise right, ever, i sound insane saying nice things, but i hope this makes sense[...]thank you for letting me read it. whoever publishes it won't do it justice." he did not pay me for these edits; i have also edited various versions of his short story collection manuscript, which i think a bigger publisher should put out, because it's very good.

after back patio fell apart in 2021/2022, and after i published some books unrelated to back patio, i felt more confidence in restarting the press mostly without cavin, and asked nathaniel to publish his book. before this i had suggested another limited-run book like orz, but then felt like trying something new/normal. cavin gave me his blessing to reopen the press in may. i reached out to duggan in june, i think, over twitter DM, to confirm my interest in publishing it as a back patio book.

once he agreed, i edited the book some more over maybe 3 rounds of edits, and then later 2+ minor edit rounds to clean up formatting and stuff. most of my edits were about sequencing, minor punctuation changes, a couple additional lines (partly through talking over DM and misremembering things from the poems, which he thought were good changes/ideas). some edits include "what about an exclamation point at the end of the first line?" and "recommend replacing last period with ‘, etc.’"

i only later learned that death egg is also the name of a spaceship or something from sonic the hedgehog. i do not know if this was intentional when he wrote the poem/lines about a death egg. i think it's a good, evocative, hard-to-say title that made the book feel unique. the sonic connection is mostly funny, and resulted in some good riffing online.

design

i did the inside layout and cover design. i used ms word and ms powerpoint. we iterated on the cover, manically, for like two weeks, before settling on the general cover we ended up with. stylistic themes to drive this work included bear parade/classic alt lit minimalism and anime. for a while there was a cracked egg on the cover, but this was eventually scrapped.

he wanted it to be yellow because he liked gg rolland's book on clash, which is mostly yellow. some versions accidentally used the same pink and yellow and font as my band's cassette three trucks, which was funny, but unacceptable to me, but, frustratingly for nathaniel, one of his favorite versions.

early on he had shared with me an image of an anime title card that he liked the look of. this is what influenced the final typography on the cover - the mix of japanese and the severe all caps serif font. another source of inspiration was the dvd cover for FLCL, with its bold yellow and black. i did not have the budget or interest to get a custom-drawn manga-style cover. i remember struggling with recreating manga-style 'beam attacks' using a free picture of a satellite with powerpoint for a while, then giving up.

the drawing on the final cover is from the public domain, i think from some lost in space comic, or something. i used similar pictures for interstitial art in the quaranzines. i get most of my free graphics from publicdomainvectors.org

the japanese on the cover is mostly from google translate, but some of it is the direct translation used from sonic the hedgehog for 'death egg.' i don't know much about japanese. an early ARC version we sent out had a 'pretend bad translation' synopsis that was embarassing, and which i thought i didn't include in the ARCs i had printed. the arcs were, additionally, very poor quality paper-wise and had a lot of formatting errors, and made me laugh a lot.

we decided on sans serif fonts on the inside to evoke classic alt lit aesthetics, because of the lineage of the poems/style and our shared appreciation for early alt lit. these aren't alt lit poems in any classic sense but have many shared reference points. i imagine someone more engaging than me could write up a better analysis.

i think the final product looks good and am proud of how it turned out.

promotion - ARCS/blurbs

i asked duggan for a list of potential blurbers and reached out to folks on his behalf. everyone had kind things to say, even if they didn't end up blurbing in time for the final printing. i enjoyed corresponding with people that i think/assume dislike me to this end. maggie nelson responded, unexpectedly, and gave me an address to send a book to, but clarified she didn't really do any blurbs anymore.

i also sent ARCs/final copies to people who do podcasts/reviews, but so far we never heard from anyone about these, although one person posted a picture of the book on twitter. i included a small press release, which i confided to josh sherman as "embarassing to write," not because of the book, but because of the vapid futility of writing press releases for small press books. i sent an ARC to the heavy feather review, but it was returned to me because the editors moved/changed. i also sent a free copy of the book to ~3 authors who i just thought would enjoy it, without expectation of promotion.

Promotion - local media

i reached out to several local maine venues for promotion, including duggan's alma mater university creative writing program to organize a reading. i was ignored by all of these leads except one daily maine-based blog, who requested a physical copy. one of the venues, a local tv channel, automatically blocked my email address.

Promotion - piss

the back patio twitter account reached out to several internet sex workers asking to send them books to pee on, as a promotional video effort, but this corresponded to the same week, or possibly day, that twitter made DMing people a bluecheck option only by default, so it's possible no one ever got the messages. this also includes dasha, a podcaster i don't know anything about. but we didn't ask her to pee on any books; we just asked if she'd like a copy, because she had posted about the same anime that inspired the cover design.

we also tweeted asking for folks to pee on the book if we sent an extra copy. i had forgotten who replied to this/was unsure how serious anyone was and only sent out one extra book, to coleman bomar, who peed on it and posted a video. later someone else from tennessee ordered a book and asked for some of coleman's pee, which i do not have access to. i am unsure why pee was a central theme for the book promotion, but it worked out well, i think, and made me laugh a lot.

Promotion - preorder bundles

we also offered a bundle of a shirt, magnet, and book. the shirt making has been a shitty, still unresolved saga, wherein i tried to have them made locally to support local businesses and save money on shipping. but i ended up working with perhaps the shittiest shirt printer in the state, who would ignore my emails, ghost me, forget to email me, argue with me, etc. currently the shirts are in a store location i cannot access until friday, and they will likely not be open on friday. i regret not going through the florida-based printer we used for the liver mush shirts, who were professional and easy to work with. i opted to send the books/magnets separately from the shirts, losing ~$70 on redundant shipping costs. i ordered only 40 shirts after announcing 50 bundles, based on the total sales (~14), and will keep one for myself and send one to nathaniel. the shirts will ultimately, i feel, be a net loss, and i will probably eventually offer them for sale at cost just to not have them in my closet anymore.

Promotion - misc.

i posted links to a few excerpts from other magazines from the book via the back patio account. none of these resulted in the original publisher promoting the book or, seemingly, liking the posts. we later made tweets tagging magazines that hadn't published the poems, saying they published them, in an attempt to trick the publication into promoting the book for free and/or make people laugh. only one publication liked their corresponding tweet, but didn't retweet it.

i made a new website for back patio to collate the press/reviews materials and book descriptions. i then reached out to kevin at powell's who asked for just such a list, so i secured a small order of back patio books, including five copies of death egg, resulting in a small section of shelf space dedicated to back patio books. the tweet about this got high engagement. i should reach out to more cool stores.

i placed a quarter-page ad for the press, including a highlight for death egg, in maggot brain magazine, a print magazine published by third man records and edited by the guy who wrote the 33 1/3 book about loveless, which should be out around now. this cost me $187. i would be surprised if it ends up paying off, but it seemed like a fun thing to do, and i like the magazine a lot (i also get a free copy of this issue, apparently). some of the other ads are for punk/diy record labels based on bandcamp, which is cool, in my opinion.

josh sherman invited me and nathaniel, and other people, to read at his chapbook release reading as part of misery loves company, which we hijacked, to comedic effect, i think, to promote death egg. nathaniel did a good job reading and i posted the order page a few times when people were talking about josh's book, which made me laugh. we got ~3 book sales during the reading. we've also scheduled a back patio mlc reading for 9/29, which will include, nathaniel, cav, dan, graham, kurt, tj, and troy.

i regret not reaching out to more internet and irl places early on for reviews/interviews. however, this time period corresponded to a family crisis which resulted in me taking time off of work and not doing anything much aside from acting in 'crisis mode' for my family for over a month. i spent ~1-2 hours/week during this time working on death egg. to this end i feel guilt about not being able to do more for the book/nathaniel.

finally, we opened the magazine for web subs just prior to announcing the book. this was a partly cynical/manipulative move to drive up engagement for the press and potentially sell more books. however, i am unsure this resulted in any sales we wouldn't have otherwise gotten. but overall it was good for everyone. we all enjoyed reading and editing the pieces we got and we have published, and will continue to publish, some really cool writing. i'm glad we reopened and we will probably do it again in january. i owe kurt a lot for taking on a lot of this effort when my life fell apart in august.

sales - preorders

we announced preorders sometime in august and i shipped the preorder books around september 7th. there were 62 preorders at the time, 12 of which were for tshirt + book bundles. we have since sold a few more of each.

the free promotional stickers for orders included random mixes of black and white stickers ("i love shitty poetry", "alternative literature", "death egg cover", and "back patio press logo"), glitter stickers ("back patio in barbie font on a gun"), holographic stickers (misc. "cyberwriter" series, featuring sebastian, derek, bram, and nathaniel), and a bold yellow (but small) "ask me about the death egg" sticker. i used sticker guy for the black and white stickers and sticker mule for the fancier ones. sticker guy is very cheap but slow, and their website is difficult to navigate. sticker mule can be expensive, but offers interesting products and has frequent sales.

only 3 of the death egg orders included other books/items: one person bought my book bundle, one person bought liver mush, and one person bought good at drugs.

i sent free back patio books to ~10 random orders, and gave free art or bonus stickers to people i know/like from online. as far as i can tell this resulted in ~3 promotional twitter pictures and one goodreads review for non-death egg books.

around september 7th i sent nathaniel $301 in royalties.

sales - amazon

around when i started shipping books, i sent nathaniel all the raw book files and manically worked with him to set up the book on amazon kdp as a print and ebook. amazon kdp/ebook setup is a pain in the ass and required several different types of files and arbitrary changes. for the ebook, i had to manually add page breaks (instead of using the keyboard shortcut, for some reason) to get them to register. we set up the amazon book using his own account such that he'd by default receive all the amazon royalty payments. this approach was modeled after sebastian castillo's book SALMON and inspired by the fact that it's a huge pain in the as to do amazon royalties (especially after taking over for cavin - setting up a new bank account, etc etc). in exchange nathaniel gets a smaller royalty split on the books that i sell. since being put on amazon, we've sold 2 copies of the book through flat dog distro but seemingly many on amazon. i hope nathaniel considers the money aspect equitable.

the book peaked at #53 in the contemporary fiction (books) category on amazon, spurred on by duggan's manic promotional tweeting and "post weird twitter" networking. he had also purchased twitter blue in anticipation of the promotion cycle, which he claims de creased his post engagement, ironically.

nathaniel says he's sold 45 copies on amazon since we uploaded it, which is impressive, i feel.

sales - conclusion

so far we've sold a little over 100 books during the first few weeks and gave away ~10, which is, in my opinion. very good numbers for indie poetry that doesn't take institutional promotion tactics very seriously. incidentally, unrelated, i saw that clash had sold over 12,000 copies of some stupid looking horror novel during this time. i hope that people who may or may not be seething about the death egg hype cycle, its participants, and its aura of success consider this disparity when subtweeting/shittalking those involved.

i anticipate the book selling more copies over time, especially if we see continued press interest from local or online avenues, and natural interest in the book as people talk or post about it. it currently has 3 amazon reviews and 8 goodreads reviews.

thank you to everyone who has purchased the book.

brief book reviews

have been living through the worst period of my life and have been physically and mentally exhausted every day, but was able to finish reading some books:

everything like before by kjell askildsen (archipelago press): looked up books that had one the same norwegian literary prize that uncle kok's first book won and found this guy. unsure if this is the book that won, however. short story collection about sad norwegian people in complicated relationships. interested in its emphasis on older/elderly people. noticed a trend in sort of revealing that a given character was involved in killing someone toward the end of a story, but liked it as a conceit - exploring things like how people would, realistically, handle learning that someone they're starting to get to know is actually a convicted murderer. also enjoyed the 'classic lit fic' stories about couples in doomed/bad relationships, being passive-aggressive with one another, feeling sorry for themselves, etc., but with less self-importance or pity, maybe. also like the norwegian-style emphasis on stilted/awkward conversation, people saying things strangely/self-consciously, etc. noticed that several of the stories are more or less riffs on the same exact idea, e.g. 3+ stories about different couples going on vacation in greece and suffering infidelity problems. enjoyed most the stories where people sort of accidentally do/say really shitty things and struggle to communicate. would recommend, interested in reading more by him.

hunts in dreams by tom drury: read after enjoying the black brook. this one is much shorter and takes place over a long weekend, basically, through four alternative POVs but within each POV extends to follow some other people in their orbit. enjoyed more than the black brook. enjoyed the general vibe, flow, setting, and characters. nothing really terrible or dramatic happens. everyone seems more or less normal and relatable in spite of their unique neuroses. enjoyed the early 2000s, rural midwest setting, sort of like the end of the small town world. people wander into each other, take their time doing stuff, go out into nature, watch tv. enjoyed its joy williamsian quirkiness without the joy williamsian drama. found myself looking forward to reading it and inhabiting its world when i wasn't reading it.

the end of vandalism by tom drury: turns out this is his debut and technically involves most of the characters from hunts in dreams, but is readable out of sequence. less concise and polished than his later books but i still liked it a lot, especially the meandering slowness of the various character arcs and random scenes, the extended nature/home writing passages, and the various little jokes such as introducing the high school health teacher as someone who infamously confused a whole class of 9th graders by describing the penis, during intercourse, as "hard and crusty." cried briefly on the train during the unexpected stillbirth scene. would highly recommend tom drury, based on having read and enjoyed three of his books; lent it to my mother because it's set in iowa, and she later returned it to me while grimacing, noting she had only read a little bit of it and hated it.

nightwood by djunba barnes: bought at a used book sale because of it being described as a contemporary/modern feeling lesbian love story from the 30s. not a big fan of the style, but laughed a lot at the absurdity of the first several chapters focusing entirely on "the jewish moral character" and some loser dude, with no women or lesbian sex anywhere. skipped around and still didn't like the prose, gave up.

replacement by tor ulven (dalkey archive): had this on the shelf for a while. it's currently the only ulven novel translated into english, and comes with a big afterword by stig saeterbakken, who is an author i like a lot. it's a sort of fragmentary narrative that unceremoniously moves between different, sometimes vaguely overlapping, characters/perspectives, and shifts from third to second person early on, then back again at the end. the style emphasizes mundane lists and prolonged meditations on physical descriptions of scenes or objects, such as how the light shines through a curtained window for ~3 pages at a time, but which never feels boring or uninteresting. as such there isn't really an overarching plot, but threads between sections are alluded to, and the individual narratives are almost all separately very compelling -- enjoyed thinking of how the various sections could have been shuffled in any order and probably result in a just as compelling book, which i typically would consider kind of lame, but i think the strength of the writing here sets it apart. especially enjoyed the confidence to move perspectives without having to have some kind of third act reveal or clever framework to define/explain it. enjoyed the details and specifics of most individual character arcs, the varying levels of standard norwegian litfic personal bleakness, and the times when an image or idea is referenced across different arcs. would recommend. hoping more of his work is translated sometime soon.

sunflower by tex gresham (spaceboy books): a large book, physically, that evokes david foster wallace in both its physical largeness and writing. stylewise, it leverages chapter-by-chapter shifts in perspective/character to disorientingly describe a conspiracy involving film, aliens, murder, and nutritional supplements set in the near future. includes a lot of things i associate with david foster wallace and other postmodernists like pynchon: it is vaguely sci-fi adjacent (set in the near future to allow for fantastical/satirical cultural changes, as a form of social and pop cultural commentary), long dialogues between people with arcane passions, silly names, people with quirky/irreal character habits/traits (a guy with two ears on the side of his head, a woman who wears long read gloves to cover horrific scars, a fucked up dwarf kinda guy, a guy without a tongue, etc), and people starting sentences with variations of "and but so." in spite of this (or because of it) i generally enjoyed it, felt curious about how the plot would resolve, and considered the settings and scenes both interesting and vividly described. i felt like the jokes/ideas based on its near-future setting were a mixed bag -- there's mention of Chairman Musk and SpaceX, 'the obama assassination,' an earthquake having physically split apart california, some sort of concentration campification of fat camps, ad drones, and lots of vaping. there's also -- because it's tex -- a lot of references to film, which i mostly didn't get or care about, but never felt like were pivotal to generally enjoying the book. unlike wallace i felt like the tangents into things outside tex's purview were under-researched and less immersive when they touch on things a reader may be more familiar with -- in my case it was the bullshit jargon used to talk about programing and machine learning, so i assume this may be the case for other things. my understanding is that wallace was able to (afford to, may be key here, by way of major press advances) fully research the complex scientific/mathematical/fiduciary/literary/philosophical concepts that made the arcane digressions/obsessions in his books famous and compelling, whereas tex instead usually brushes over this with some wonky jargon and allusions to move the plot forward. also unlike wallace (or specifically infinite jest), the chapters are shorter, so the changes in perspective feel more frequent and jarring, vs. the way that infinite jest will spend a good deal of page count immersing you in the new perspective/setting/character before making oblique references to the rest of the work to connect things. here it is more condensed -- while it's a long book, i felt like it probably could/should have been longer and really explore the space and setting of everything, especially since the writing itself is good, an effective blend of moving plot and description, engaging action, interesting characters, etc.; I basically didn't think that the emphasis on quickly alluding to the overarching conspiracy plot and action sequences was required to keep me interested chapter by chapter. but maybe this is also due to shifts in literary norms, or editorial advice to sell more copies, or a meta-commentary on pop culture, or tex's love of schlocky film, or something. anyway, i'm feeling like it's unfair to knock the book by contrasting it with books by david foster wallace, but it also feels inevitable -- writing a book so deeply in conversation with another work like this will invariably force it to be scrutinized in terms of where it innovates or distinguishes itself (or doesn't). but i think it's a good book and scratches similar itches without trying to hard to seem clever, which to me is a positive. made it halfway through then lost interest, possibly due to not having read it fast enough to retain the plot/characters in my head. would recommend/have recommended to others.

memoirs of a polar bear by yoko tawada: have enjoyed other books by tawada. this one is about a polar bear who can talk and write and who writes a memoir. not a big fan of the whimsical style or constant necessity of emphasizing that the narrator is a polar bear interacting with the world, which is sort of the entire conceit. not super compelling plot or stylewise. probably won't finish.

popul vuh: bought based on a tweet i saw saying it's crazy and cool, and it is. unsure if it's the effect of the translation but i found a lot of interesting effects in the way it's told, with the frequent deployment of "just" and "only" and "right there," this sort of mix of immediacy and flippancy, combined with the strange pacing and various other details, such as the names (trash master, pus master, etc) and seemingly nonsensical things presented without comment, such as a "spherical knife" and the way in which various people are "defeated." enjoyed the odd logic in things like a guy's random ability to to transform into an eagle, a jaguar, and "a pool of blood, just a pool of blood on the ground" being framed as proof of his "genius." liked the first half, about the creation myths and the tricksters, more than the second half, which emphasizes lineages and important people. would recommend, enjoyed reading passages out loud to close friends.