In a perfect world, I would be writing “Snide Remarks” every week, and you would be reading it, and all would be edified. Our world is imperfect — but together we can take a step toward remedying that!
I’m excited to officially announce a Kickstarter campaign for A Year of Snide Remarks. It launched just before Christmas, but I wanted to wait until after the holidays to start the big push. THIS IS NOW THE BIG PUSH.
Here are the basics. I love writing “Snide Remarks” but can’t justify the time and energy it requires if it’s not producing income, because I’m a freelance writer and not independently wealthy. And since no reputable publication will pay me to write “Snide Remarks,” I now come to YOU, the readers, to be my employers.
For $5,000, I will write “Snide Remarks” every week for a year. (Well, 50 columns. I get two weeks off.) It’s unseemly to discuss financial matters in such a public fashion, but there it is. That’s my price. Five grand for 50 columns. Now you people, you pitch in, pass the virtual hat around, and collect $5,000.
Kickstarter works on an all-or-nothing basis. We have until Feb. 1 to raise $5,000 in pledges. If that money is raised by Feb. 1, then I’ll write “Snide Remarks” every week for a year, starting March 7. If we don’t get $5,000 in pledges by Feb. 1, nobody pays anything, no columns are written, and everyone is sad.
Is a year of “Snide Remarks” worth a dollar to you? Then pledge a dollar! As long as 4,999 other people do the same, we’re cool. Perhaps $10 is more like it? Then $10 it shall be! Do you find it distasteful to pay any amount of money, no matter how small, for online entertainment? Then pledge nothing! You’ll still be able to read the columns when (if) they come out!
I struggled with how to go about this. I was afraid it would look like I was being lazy and shiftless, asking the Internet to pay my bills so that I could write goofy columns and avoid “real” work. (For some reason — and despite all evidence to the contrary — I have this work ethic that makes me feel guilty for earning a living doing something that isn’t very hard.)
But then I looked at it another way. I’m a freelance writer. I’m contracted at Film.com, Cinematical, and Salt Lake City Weekly to write certain things for a certain amount of money. The terms were agreed upon before I took the gigs. A year of “Snide Remarks” is just another gig. The only differences are that 1) my “employers” are whoever donates money and 2) the details of my contract are public rather than private.
Besides, it’s not like $5,000 is enough to live on. It’s not like I’ll be sittin’ around, doing nothing but write “Snide Remarks” for a year. If I wanted $40,000 to do it, that would be lazy, and you’d be right to ignore me. But $5,000 is a reasonable amount for a job like this.
Here is the Kickstarter page where you can contribute. Here is the Kickstarter FAQ, which should answer any questions you have about the process. (They use Amazon’s payment system, so it’s safe and secure, yada yada.) In addition, here are a couple other answers to questions that I can imagine receiving:
Q: What if you raise more than $5,000? Will you write additional columns? Like, say, if you got $5,500, would you write 55 column instead of 50? Is my math correct?
A: Your math is good, but no, anything more than $5,000 will be considered a bonus. (Kickstarter and Amazon each take a small cut, so I guess any bonus would offset that.) I mean, if we raised a HUGE amount of money, WAY more than five grand, I’d do something special, sure. Pizza party for the whole class, something like that. But Kickstarter doesn’t require it.
Q: Since I’m paying for this stuff, does that mean I get a say in what you write? Can I have my contribution returned to me if I don’t think the new stuff is funny?
A: Well, no. If you pledge at least $100, you do get to choose the topic of one column, but not what angle I take or what opinions (if any) I express. (I’ll do my best to communicate with those donors and try to make them happy with their contributions, though.) The idea here is that you generally like the “Snide Remarks” column and want to enable me to write it, not that you want to have creative control over it.
Q: What if we fund the project and then you don’t write the column? Are you going to take our money and run away?
A: I will not take your money and run away. My obligation will be to write 50 columns between March 7, 2011, and Feb. 27, 2012. In the event of serious illness or injury putting me out of commission for several weeks, I would ask for an extension on the final deadline, but there would still be 50 columns. If something catastrophic were to happen that forced me to quit the project altogether, I would refund everyone’s money.
Q: That picture on the Kickstarter page. Is that you?
A: Yes, sadly. It was 1992. I was 17. Those were the eyeglasses I wore every day. Why didn’t anyone tell me they were so comically large?
We’re already a quarter of the way there. My thanks to everyone who has pledged so far. Please spread the word! Put it on your Facebooks and your Twitters and your iPhones and your CB radios. Remember, this is an all-or-nothing system! If we don’t get $5,000 in pledges by Feb. 1, no one pays anything, and the project doesn’t happen.
I’m excited about the prospect of bringing “Snide Remarks” back to the Internets! I am also excited about the prospect of spending all of February writing practice columns to get back into the groove. Anyone know what PETA’s been up to lately?
Oh my heavens, that picture alone is worth at LEAST $1. And I thought my husband’s high school glasses were bad. (Sorry, Dear.) You were Napoleon Dynamite before there WAS a Napoleon Dynamite! Tots, anyone?
I bet the pizza party will be in Utah………..which means no beer. What good is pizza without beer??
It’s still good for making you fat. It’s sure worked for me!
I’m in.
I’m so in.
🙂
It was just before you first introduced the “Year of Snide Remarks” that I went back in the archives and noticed how long it has been since you’ve written them regularly. I miss my weekly fix.
Your Year of Snide Remarks will my blog’s “Awesome Product” post for this week. Apologies at the use of the word awesome. I know you think it’s overused. Alas, it is the title of a weekly post, and my fans want what my fans want. Just so you know, you’re beating out the Flip Camera for the spot, and the Flip Camera is pretty darned cool. 🙂 (It just doesn’t have comically large glasses.)
In the event of a bonus funded pizza party in Utah, I will bring the root beer.
I’m actually really enjoying coming back to the site every few hours to watch the numbers rise….and I’m not even the one getting the money.
I will gladly contribute since I do love me some Snide Remarks, but I do wonder something. If you didn’t have time for SR before, which is quite understandable as you have a ton of crap on your plate and there are only so many hours in the day, how would $5000 mean you suddenly DO have time for SR? If you don’t have more time to write, then you don’t have more time to write, you know? How will more money create more hours in the day and suddenly allow you to do something you wish you could before but never had time for? If it was a matter of “I have five hours to kill and I have a choice between writing SR or watching reruns of ‘Cheers,’ but I don’t really feel like making that effort to write so you’d better pay me to create some incentive for me to do so,” I get that. THAT I understand. And if you need a few bucks from me to get you to turn off the tube and write something for me to laugh at I most certainly will. But “I have zero time for this so I need some money so I can get more time for this” I don’t. How will money create time? I worry that after this commitment you will find you don’t have enough time for all the things you’ve been “contracted” to do and it will be SR that suffers.
If you go back and read what he says, he doesn’t say he doesn’t have the time. He can’t justify taking the time to write SR if it’s not making him money. As a freelance writer/editor, I can really relate. There are hours in a day that I can work on pet projects and more fun writing, but I can’t justify that when there’s writing or editing I can do that will actually put food on the table. It’s why my professional blog is updated a lot more often than my personal blog.
Eric I think you’re going to make it and then some.
I’m so in. Not nearly enough to pick a topic, but every little bit helps, right?! Keep it up!
I’d give a crisp new dollar if you included your book list in the media inventory.
Those are glasses? I seriously thought they were goggles. Maybe I need my eyes checked.
Turkey: That’s a valid question, and I thought a lot about it when I was pondering the situation. Is this something that I can make time for, or is there simply not enough time?
The answer is basically what Sarah said. I made a list of my current work-related obligations, determined how much time is involved for each of them, determined what could be streamlined or eliminated, and determined that yes, indeed, there are enough waking hours in the day to do “Snide Remarks.” It will require a little bit of restructuring, but that’s a good thing anyway.
I’m taking the gig very, very seriously, as if it were a new job I’ve been hired to do. (Because, you know, it is. Only instead of having one boss who will be mad if I fail to deliver, I’ll have a hundred or so bosses.) It looks like the pledges are going to come through — I’m amazed at the quick response so far!! — and I’m very excited to get crackin’ again.
“Having” the time and “Taking” the time are 2 different things.
I seriously doubt Eric will let SR suffer from a cluttered work schedule.
I’m getting so excited to read the first official article from Snide Remarks 2: Electric Boogaloo!
Wow, there were a lot of donations today! Any particular reason for the sudden influx of backers? Anyway, that’s great to see.
Wohoo! Less than 1K to go!
So I think it’s time to figure out what to do with the overage. Maybe you can write another Snide Remarks for each additional hundred you get? So it’ll be a year and 5/6 of Snide Remarks?
Only $400ish to go, which means that it’ll probably hit $5000 before the end of the weekend. I think this is going to be surprisingly easy. I can’t wait to have Snide Remarks back.
I wish I got this kind of confirmation that what I do is valued. Way to go, Eric. I hope you go over enough to do something great for yourself.
Nice, I’m glad that this is going to work out – should fill in the gap left by the lack of blog entries recently. I wish that I could have donated but I *did* buy both Snide Remarks books back in the day, so I’m hoping I can call it somewhat even. Looking forward to the new columns!
I have just proved you bring me more joy than a pack of gum.
Wow, I turn my head for a couple weeks and it’s only $150 away from the goal. Nicely done EricDSnider fans. Way to support the man.
Looks like you managed it! Am so looking forward to “Snider Remarks 2.5: The Revenge: This time it’s REALLY personal!”
YAAAY!! And there was much rejoicing!
😀
We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you go over 5000 dollars is your mom going to ask for her money back?
Wow, it’s funded already! There might be enough extra money to get that pizza party in Vegas 🙂
Congrats! I’m really looking forward to reading fresh material from you, although I’m unsure if I can intake two times the normal dose of D.Snide every week. It’s kind of like eating too many beans in one sitting.
Clarification question – is the letters to Raven series considered part of the SR family of articles, or are they distinct? As a followup, is the series dead because of her failure to produce any work over the last few years? As a followup to the followup, have you considered starting a letters to series?
Dustin: Yes.
I thought so Momma Snider. You have given him enough, it is time he started paying you back.
Thank goodness I came late to the party. Now I get to enjoy snide remarks for free rather than having to dole out thousands of dollars to meet the goal.
Hey Eric, I totally spaced donating and though the goal was reached, I still want to pledge a little support. Any way to do that?