Holy Blasphemy

So it’s official. In a couple of months I will pack up, sell or throw away most of my possessions and hit the circuit of cheap international cities that offer good living for internet entrepreneurs. It’s scary. I’m not quite at a comfortable, waterfall of money level but I make enough online to support myself; but getting rid of our Taipei apartment really pushes me to get my game together.

And the absolute freedom of not having a place to live will allow me to do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: like join Skepticon 5, one of the largest free skeptic conventions in the USA, which will be held in Springfield, MO on November 9th–11th.

This fall I plan to finish writing my next book (and PhD Dissertation) “Satan is my Hero.” But I know now that even if it’s brilliant, I can’t market it the way I want to without real, personal relationships and friends who offer support.

And that’s why I’m so excited about Skepticon 5. I’m excited because, as someone who is critical of organized religion, I often feel like I’m the sourpuss, dark cloud skeptic asshole. The people who respond to my posts are often abusive or mean.

Although I’ve been blogging for a few years, living abroad has made it hard to really get involved in the burgeoning community of Atheists, Agnostics and Skeptics who are out having a good time resisting religion together.

The Skepticon team seems so friendly, nice and funny, and I’ll finally get to meet some of the popular bloggers I’ve been reading for years.

I can’t wait to be a part of that.

But I need to get my shit together

Having a deadline looming also heightens my focus and prompts me to pull the trigger on some projects I’ve been meaning to get to for months (or years). Although I’m not speaking at the convention, I will have a table, which puts me in a great position to interact with people. Here are some of my plans:

1. I’ll have some copies of my previous book, Jesus Potter Harry Christ, for sale, along with lots of free posters and postcards.
2. I’ll have some real irreligious oil paintings that I think the crowd will love, and would like to print out some free postcards/prints for people to take. I also need to finish making an Art Book of all my work, so I can have some copies there.
3. To promote Satan is my Hero, I’ve commissioned a talented artist to sculpt a Satan+Superman figure, which I plan to turn into a Satan Hero Action Figure, outsourced to China for production and packaging. I would love to be able to have a few at the convention.
4. Barring that, I’ll have some keychains or little Satan Hero figures, posters of my cover art, which is pretty awesome, etc. Though the book isn’t finished, I’d like to have several chapters up online and get a bunch of people to sign up as beta readers to get a free copy.
5. My next book, Jesus is my Vampire Lover, won’t be ready for a year or two, but if I can finish the cover art and make it amazing, I think people would enjoy getting a poster of it.

Basically I want to giveaway a lot of cool free shit, build a huge network of people who enjoy my work, so that getting the word out about future books will be easier. But mostly, I just want to have fun.