I awoke early one morning last week to a notification from Twitter that I had been tagged in a post. Being that this had never happened to me before, I was intrigued to see if it was real or spam. To my wild surprise a complete stranger had taken it upon himself to create a 3D render of pepe in a pepe robe with pepe slippers happily thumbing through a copy of my book, “The Rarest Sets!” And behind him was a bookshelf full of my books. I immediately reached out to psyfrogger to thank him. As we chatted I learned that he wasn’t even an artist. 3D modeling was his hobby and he loves Pepe so he created the image as a fun learning experience.

Since that time, several buyers of the book have created tweets about it, often placing my book(s) in scenes with other Pepe memorabilia. These naturally occurring tweets have begun to bring my book to meme status and I couldn’t be more pleased.

From the account of the artist Chrome Void.

Did you know that page numbering in books had a standard? I didn’t, until the printer kicked back my order with the message “Page numbering should be even on the left, and odd on the right. Yours is the opposite.” In my mind, the first page with content would be page 1. In the case of my books, that was the page on the left side. It made sense to me, but I am brand new to the publishing world. Upon further research, this is common knowledge. According to Formax printing solutions “When a book is opened, pages on the right hand side (known as recto) should always have an odd page number (1, 67, 213)…whereas pages on the left hand side (known as verso) should always have an even page number (2, 68, 214). Not adhering to this standard will have a negative impact on the appearance of the book.”

What did that mean for me? It meant another reformat! I have lost count at this point but it is probably my fifth or sixth revision. All these little hiccups really slow down the process of getting a book into peoples hands but I wanted my books to be as perfect as possible in terms of looks, durability, and format. I think I’ve finally accomplished that task and the first batch of books are now on their way to my doorstep.

My first hard copy arrived from Ingram Spark and it was not great. The trimming was bad, the cover was off center, the interior pages look like they were printed on an early 1990’s ink jet printer, and it was too thick. So I had to go back to the internet and find a new printer. My first stop was Lulu. They did not offer the size I created, so I had to reformat the whole book. Also, they had a page limit of 800 which means I had to cut 100 pages from my first draft. This was very difficult and time consuming. I had already put so much time and effort into curating what I felt were the best sets and I didn’t want to loose any of them. But lose some I did, and I finally got to the new size and length required. I went to upload my manuscript and was met with multiple errors. Just like Ingram Spark, Lulu does not have a phone number to call. So I filled out a support ticket and waited 2 days for a response. Of course the first response was no help at all so I sent back additional information. Another 2 days and I get the response that they don’t know why I got the error or what to do about it. That was the end of my relationship with Lulu.

Next, I found BookBaby. They did not offer the original book size I had created OR the size I had created for Lulu. This meant I had to edit the entire book for a third time. But I knew this was how it had to be and I got it done. BookBaby allows 40 more pages than Lulu (840 vs. 800) but I just couldn’t bring myself to go back and recreate 40 pages worth of sets which would cause a 4th revision. I felt good about the length and the sets that I ended up with so I kept it at 800 pages. The final book size became 8″ x 10″. I was pleasantly surprised to see that BookBaby offered both hardcover and gloss paper. This was going to be a far superior version if all went as planed. And the best part – they actually have a phone number and a human answers the phone when you call!

Today version 2.0 of my book arrived and I couldn’t be happier. It looks and feels like a real book and it is something I can be proud to present to the public. I am now in talks with a distributor. I should have some more news to share very soon.

Today represents the end of the first chapter in my quest to write my first book. I began thinking about writing this book in October 2021. It took me until April 2022 to actually research the logistics of self-publishing a book and begin the process of writing. Today I placed an order for 1 copy of the book I spent nearly 5 months working on. It will be a huge high when it arrives in 5 to 7 business days and I hold the thing in my hands. Up to now it has just been another electronic document like so many others I have worked on in the past. But this is different. This is physical, and it will exist in the world, and it will have my (real) name on it. 

The process of writing this book was not easy for me. I had to carve out time to work on it while still working my day job and spending time with my family. I found it very difficult to balance the demand of finishing the book with my every day life. Even when I wasn’t in front of my computer, it was always on my mind. I struggled with the format, the content, the length, the font, the cover, and a hundred other little things. It was the first thing I thought about when I woke up, and the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep. There were times that I wanted to quit. There was just too much to be done, and it was difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Did I mention what I wrote yet? It is called “The Rarest Sets”, and it is a book about the first community driven art project on the blockchain. It may seem silly to most people, but this project is the reason why there are NFT’s today. The project is called Rare Pepes and it was built on the CounterParty  platform which runs on top of the most secure blockchain in history – Bitcoin. The project ran from 2016 to 2018 and contains 1,774 unique pieces of art created by artists from all around the world. 

I am not the first to create a book of Rare Pepes. That was Eleanora Brizi and Louis Parker. They wrote “The Rarest Book” in 2018. They only printed 300 copies and each came with a CounterParty token which serves a proof of ownership. The difference between their book and mine is the presentation of the cards. The Rarest Book presented them in order based on series number. Mine presents them in themed sets such as politics, art, television, sports, etc. I give full credit to Eleanora and Louis for providing the template and inspiration for me to create my own book. 

My next task will be to proof read the hard copy when it arrives and then decide on the quantity to produce and the means of distribution. Stay tuned for more information. You can also visit therarestsets.com for up-to-date information.