Kickstarter #3: Breaking Bad Book
I am a huge Breaking Bad fan. I mean borderline-psychotic. Don’t believe me? Check out the contest I won to be in a commercial for the show. I also reference it quite a bit on this site. I’ve converted friends.
Vince Gilligan’s epic show asks more questions than it answers. (For those of you who don’t know here’s the show in a nutshell. Walter White is a 50-year old law-abiding high school chemistry teacher who finds out that he has terminal lung cancer. His wife is pregnant and his son has CP. He decides to “break bad” and manufacture crystal meth. Things get very interesting from there.)
The acting is nothing short of extraordinary. Ditto the writing and cinematography.
About the Book
I have many thoughts about this fascinating show and the fundamental questions that it asks, including:
What does it mean to be a man?
How far should you go to protect your family?
Where do you draw the line between right and wrong?
Does Walter White exist in all of us?
I want to write a book about the show and attempt to answer these questions–at least as much as I can. As I’ve done in my previous books, I’ll be pulling from interviews, conducting my own, and offering my own analysis and interpretation.
Like my other books, I expect this one to come in at about 300 pages. This will be no pamphlet, I assure you.
About Me
I’ve worked with traditional publishers on my first two books: Why New Systems Fail and The Next Wave of Technologies. For my third and fourth books (The New Small and The Age of the Platform, respectively), I started Kickstarter projects. The results were amazing. I had much different (read: better) experiences. I’m all about platforms these days, and Kickstarter is perhaps the coolest funding platform out there today. Aside from generating funds and awareness for my own books, I enjoy backing other projects in which I believe.
About the Funds
You may be thinking that $10,000 seems like overkill to create a book these days. After all, isn’t it easier and cheaper than ever to publish a book? Well, yes and no. Let me explain.
I’ve run four books through my publishing company and know what it takes to create a professional book. Quality editors, cover designers, graphic designers, proofreaders, and production folks aren’t cheap. As with anything in life, you get what you pay for. I won’t put my name on a book unless it is completely professional. I’ve seen quite a few self-published books of questionable quality from subsidy presses like Lulu and iUniverse.
Like The New Small and The Age of the Platform, the Breaking Bad book will look and feel just as professional as any title released by a “proper” publisher. My goal: that the quality of the book measures up to the quality of the show and its acting and writing. In short, quality costs money.
About the Process
In my prior two Kickstarter projects, I involved the community in key design elements of the book, including the cover. I’ll be doing the same thing here. I’ll be reaching out through polls and for individual suggestions. Even the title is hardly settled at this point; I can do much better than “Breaking Bad Book.”
About the Publishing Team
I’ll be working with the following publishing professionals. I’ve worked with these folks before and have nothing but great things to say about them.
A Word of Thanks
While I’ve written four other books and am proud of all of them, this one is different: to me this is a complete passion project. Thank you for considering backing it.
