Regarding the Theater Hopper – Year Three pre-sale, I’ve gotten some feedback that the store is not working and people cannot complete their orders.

I guess if you live in the States, it asks for your zip code, but can’t figure out the shipping rates and won’t let you complete the order. However, at the same time, I have received ordered from people outside of the U.S. with no problem.

I’m attempting to troubleshoot the issue. I just need to know if I’m on the right track.

Has anyone else who has attempted to pre-order the book experienced this problem? Please let me know in the comments below.

If you visited the site yesterday, you would have seen the blog entry where I was discussing problems I was having with the store and pre-order for Theater Hopper – Year Three. I was getting international orders, but orders within the United States were not being completed. There was some kind of error when the shopping cart tried to calculate shipping and the order could not be submitted.

I could go into all the boneheaded things I did that contributed to this problem, but it’s boring and it’s technical and you don’t want to hear it.

What’s important is that the problem is fixed. And, to celebrate (as well as make up for any potentially lost business), I am offering a 15% discount on everything in the store!

All you have to do is input the coupon code “dummy” into the Promotions and Discounts field at checkout and the discount will be applied.

The coupon will be effective from now until Friday, February 6 – one week. So if you want to take advantage of my stupidity, now is the time!

Thanks again for your support!

Just a friendly reminder to pre-order Theater Hopper – Year Three.

Check out this 10-page preview of Year Three for a taste of what to expect from over 200 pages of Theater Hopper goodness!

Don’t forget that there is a 15% discount on EVERYTHING in the store from now until Friday. Just use the coupon code “dummy” at checkout to save big!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone that today is the last day that you can get 15% off your purchases in the store.

As part of a coding screw up that prevented people from completing their orders, I offered a 15% discount for one week. To take advantage of it, simply type “dummy” into the promotions and coupon field at checkout. (I am the dummy in question).

I would especially like to encourage to pre-order Theater Hopper – Year Three. It was my hope to take copies of the book to the Emerald City Comic Con in April. But, unfortunately, the estimate I recently got back from the printer was much higher than the previous editions of the book I have published. I suppose, like everyone else, their costs have gone up. But it was still a bit of a shock.

We’re received some orders that put us closer to our goal, but if there is not an increase in orders soon, I might have to push the project back and wait for advertising revenue to back fill the cost. Worst case scenario, I might have to shelf the project completely and refund the pre-orders I’ve already received.

We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks. If it gets bad, I might promote a little “$X to Goal” sliding bar to help people visualize things and spur orders. But after today, I won’t be offering any more discounts. So if you want to catch a break, today is your last chance to do so.

Thanks again to all of you who have already placed your orders. It will be a great thrill for me personally to put Theater Hopper – Year Three in your hands. I think it’s the best of my books so far and a lot of work went into making the commentary in the book extra special.

I appreciate your support!

Hey, guys. Don’t forget that I’m taking pre-orders for my new shirt Spoiler Alert! now until Wednesday, April 22. If you’re thinking about ordering one, please place your order now as it will help me to determine how many of each size to request from the printer!

Thanks!

Just wanted to remind everyone that today is the last day to pre-order our new shirt Spoiler Alert! After today, I’ll be sending the order to the printer. Pre-ordering now helps me to determine how large the order should be and what sizes will be most popular. So if you’re thinking about picking this up, now would be the best time!

Incidentally, I’m trying to add as many bundling options as I can for those of you who want to take advantage of a deal by ordering more than one item. There’s some pretty significant savings going on, so you might want to check out the bundled offers before placing your order!

Thanks!

Okay, this was the post that you were meant to read this morning, but the one I couldn’t get to until I put Henry down for his afternoon nap.

Regarding Transformers, that can wait. I’m going to be talking about it all week, so there’s no need to dive neck-deep into it now.

Although, I must confess today’s strip is autobiographical. I’m less interested in seeing the movie than I am in finding out how they wrote Shia LaBeouf’s hand injury into the storyline. I anticipate that it will be richly satisfying.

Anyway… onto business.

As you know, a few weeks ago I lost my job. This came at a bad time for a lot of reasons, but one among the myriad of reasons is that I was about to send my registration for Artist Alley at Wizard World Chicago, August 6 – 9. Losing my job halted that action in it’s tracks.

Although Theater Hopper is its own entity and has its own money, I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to attend a convention when I might have to dip into that money once my severance is gone.

I won’t bore you with the mental tug-of-war I put myself in the middle of. But, eventually, when I talked to Cami about it, she didn’t see where there was a problem and told me to go for it. Bless her for being as supportive as she is.

So, long story short, I’m going. I’m sharing a table with Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey, hanging out with the guys from Digital Pimp Online and hopefully selling some new merchandise.

Ah, but there’s the rub. I don’t exactly HAVE any new merchandise.

People who pre-ordered Theater Hopper: Year Three know this. I’ve been sitting on a finished draft of that book for months, but I haven’t had the money to have it printed up. Pre-orders stalled and I’m still trying to raise funds.

I thought I would bolster that effort by designing a new shirt – Spoiler Alert! – in hopes that the revenue from the sale of those shirts would help bridge the gap on the funds I need to print the book.

That didn’t happen, either.

I’m not pointing fingers at anyone but myself. In all honesty, I haven’t been talking about Year Three or the new shirt. So, beyond the intifada announcement, why would I expect there to be any orders? I haven’t been talking about it, so people haven’t been ordering. It’s really that simple.

Well, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to kick my plan back into gear and I’m trying to push the Spoiler Alert! tees hard before I go to Wizard World Chicago. I’m confident that this design will be a big seller in Chicago and I want to get this shirt to the printer before I leave for the convention.

With your help, I can raise the money I need to get the shirts printed up, take to Chicago and produce the profit I need to put Year Three back on track for publication.

To help us with our goal, I’ve created this handy bar graph:

As you can see, I need a minimum of 50 shirt orders before July 31 to make this work. If I can sell more than that, great. If the sale of merchandise extends beyond the Spoiler Alert! shirt and into the Spoiler 1 and 2 shirts, the Theater Hopper: Year One or Year Two books… that’d be great as well! Every little bit helps! What’s important is that we inch that bar to the left as far as we can before July 31.

I’ve been gun shy about this kind of promotion since Theater Hopper: Year Two came out in the fall of 2007. Well, I can’t afford to sit on my hands any longer. I’ve set a goal for myself and I need your help! So let’s see what we can do about racking up some pre-orders!!!

As always, I appreciate your support, patience and enthusiasm. Thanks again and I will talk to you soon!

Last Monday I posted to the site my goal of selling some merchandise to help me raise the money I need to send the Spoiler Alert t-shirt design to the printer. Consequentially, I would complete the pre-orders and take the rest of the inventory to Wizard World Chicago on August 6 and take the profits made from the convention to help bankroll the production of Theater Hopper: Year Three.

I created a little graphic that went into the blog posts but realized pretty quickly that a visual aid such as this was easy to ignore. So I made a little cosmetic change to the header of the site in hopes of strongly reinforcing my goal and the progress made so far.

Please help me meet my goal of selling 50 shirts by July 31. It doesn’t have to be the Spoiler Alert shirt. It can be any of the shirts. They all cost the same and the money goes to the same goal.

Thousands of you come to the site every day. I only need a fraction of you to help make this possible. If you’ve been thinking at all about buying a book or a shirt, now is the time to do it.

I appreciate your support.