Revolutions - Fundraiser! 14 Dec 2014 - 21 Jan 2015!

Episode Date: December 15, 2014

Check it out! Buy the Five-Sided Cross! And then buy everything else! http://revolutionspodcastfundraiser.com

Hello, and welcome to the Revolutions podcast Fundraiser Announcement and Details Extravaganza. This is coming to you live-ish, or at least unscripted. It is December the 14th, 2014. It is 11.13 a.m. Here, Central Standard Time. And I will be opening the store for business here when I post this in just a couple of hours. So the object here is to get me a little bit of breathing room for the next year or hopefully longer so that I can keep doing this as my job full time. Since revolution started, this has been what I do. When I was doing the history of Rome, I did have a day job for all of that. But when we moved and started revolutions, I was going to commit myself to this full time. So taking the opportunity to support me now means not just sort of rewarding me for the stuff that I've done in the past and then continuing to do the show in the future.

But also, you know, there are other projects out there that I think I would be able to get into that you guys would enjoy. I'm currently in negotiations to finally turn the history of Rome transcripts into a book. That legend has it video. I really feel like it should maybe be more than just some one-off student film. So take this moment now to support the show, and if you do, I'll be able to do all that stuff for you, which is, I think, what you want me to do. So this fundraiser is going to run from today, December the 14th, 2014, through January the 21st, 2015. Why January the 21st? Well, it's the anniversary of the execution of Louis the 16th, and that seemed like a fine enough time to cut it off. So everything that's available in the store at Revolutionspodcastfundraiser.com, all the stuff I'm about to go through, is going to be available for this limited time.

So supporting the show right now, not only will keep me going for the next year or hopefully more, but it'll get you access to what is essentially limited edition stuff that will never be available again. So this is your opportunity to get in and get this stuff. Okay, so the store is housed at Revolutionspodcastfundraiser.com, Revolutionspodcastfundraiser.com, and if that's a little bit too long, you can also just go to Revolutionspodcast.com and click the link that'll take you over to the store. Now, what is available in the store? If you want, you can pause this right now, go open up the store, and I'll just walk you through it step by step. Okay, are you on the page?

Good. Okay, what you see first there. at the $10 level is something called the five-sided cross. Now, what the five-sided cross is, is a little book that I wrote for the three-day novel contest a couple of years ago. It is a hard-boiled detective noir story, but kind of a spoof on hard-boiled detective noir stories. When I was preparing for it, I read a lot of Raymond Chandler, I read a lot of Dachal Hammett, and then I spent a lot of time bouncing around in TV tropes to make sure that I could mash in as many different tropes as possible into this one kind of goofy story.

So what I've done is recorded it as an audiobook. I mean, I'm an audio entertainment guy. You guys are audio entertainment listeners. So I recorded it as an audiobook. This is the simplest thing you can do to support the shell. You just take the five-sided cross and put it in your cart as soon as you get to Revolutions podcastfundracer.com and then come back and look at everything else. Because for $10, you're going to get, oh, I think it's like three and a half

hours of a fairly entertaining story, I think. So every single person that's listening to this, at a minimum, should come to Revolution's podcast fundraiser and buy the five-sided cross. It's only ten bucks. Everybody's got ten bucks. You'll get this story. You'll be helping me out. Okay, so do that, at a minimum. Once you're done putting the five-sided cross in your cart, then you can come back and check out the T-shirts. Now, of course, the history of Rome, revolutions, neither of them have ever had merchandise. So this is the five-sided. So this is the first time I've ever offered anything like that. And what we have is four t-shirts for sale at the $35 level. The illustrations for these t-shirts were done by my good friend and illustrator

Jason Novak. And if any of you have been to Revolutionspodcast.com and seen the cartoons that we did last year doing historical context for current events, Jason was the one who was doing all the art for that. So I've gotten him to do four great designs for these t-shirts. So first up, representing the American Revolution is Gentleman Johnny's Party Train, North American Tour 1777. Next, representing the English Revolution is the Diggers. God told me to tell you that property is theft. Then representing the history of Rome is Livia did it.

And finally, for the French Revolution, the Revolution will devour its children. So these shirts come in both men's and women's cuts. they are going to be American Apparel is the manufacturer of the shirt itself. And I'm just going to throw out there that everything I've read says that American Apparel shirts tend to run a little bit small. So if you're ordering a shirt, you should probably just go ahead and bump up your size. Now, the way that this is going to work is that I've partnered with a professional t-shirt printing company and also a fulfiller. So they're going to do both. This is all going to be handled fairly professionally.

but I have to wait until the orders come in before I can get a handle on the magnitude of the order. I really have no idea how many shirts I'm about to sell. So this is really going to run on a pre-order basis. If you're looking for instant gratification, the five-sided cross is right there. You can buy it for $10 and immediately download the book. These shirts, however, are probably not going to start shipping out until the fundraiser closes on January the 21st. Once I've got all the orders in hand, that way I can just make more. one big bulk order and cut down on costs. So once the orders do get placed and everything starts

getting shipped out, that's all going to be handled on a fairly professional basis. It's not just me sitting in the basement trying to get these things out the door to everybody. Okay, so that's the t-shirts. But wait, there's more. I have in my possession two a signan. That is the actual paper French currency that was used in the French Revolution. I have two of these. And what I want to do, is every person who purchases a t-shirt will be entered to win one of these two, Asin-Yan. Okay? So whether you order one T-shirt or four, it doesn't matter, buy a shirt, get entered to win an

auceignan. When the fundraiser closes, I'll just pick two names at random, and you might win a cool little historical artifact just for having bought a shirt. Okay, but wait, there's one more thing. I was going back through looking at the number of episodes, podcast episodes that I've produced in my whole career. Not counting little supplementals, we are honing in on my 250th episode between the 189 episodes of the history of Rome and then however many episodes I've done in revolution so far. I always have trouble keeping track of it. But I think in about two months,

we're going to be at the 250th episode. And for the 250th episode, I am going to do a big question time again, just like we did for the 100th episode of the history of Rome. If you would like to ask a question for the 250th episode question extravaganza, what you need to do is hit the $150 level. That basically means buying all four shirts and the five-sided cross, or one of the couple of items I'm about to get to next. So hit the $150 level. You also get to ask a question for the 250th episode and you're entered to run the Osseigne, and you've got four T-shirts, and you've got the five-sided cross. That's a pretty sweet package. So up from there, right, we enter into another tier of stuff where we sort of leave just the merchandise

behind and move into something that if I was going to have to put a keyword on it, I would call it memorabilia. But basically, if you want to own a piece of the history of Rome, now is your time to do that. And what you see there are the books from my History of Rome Library. These are the actual books that I use to write the history of Rome from. At the $250 level, You start with the modern sources. These are all my imperial biographies, my Cambridge companions to this or that era, the book that I read that made me fall so in love with Aurelian. You click on the link there, and it'll take you, and it'll show you the list of everything that's available. I think there's about 50 of them.

You buy one, it's yours. $250. And I will, of course, autograph every single one of these. Now, up from there are the ancient sources that I used, and this is my ancient source library. These are the books that really had the most to do with the show being what it was, because this was always the core of the show. So these are all my Penguin Classics. These are, this is my Tacitus, my Polybius, my Plutarch, all of those. Now, these books mean an awful lot to me, and I'm hoping that if you're clicking on these things, that they would mean an awful lot to you, too, that you would take it home and you would put it up on your bookshelf, and you would always know that that right there was one copy of one book that I used to write the history of Rome from.

So after that, we get into the sort of pie in the sky stuff. And right after the History of Rome ancient sources, you see the history of Rome, the books that started at all. Now, these books mean a lot to me, and I have put them at the relatively insane $10,000 level, because I figure if you give me $10,000, I'll get over whatever sentimental attachment I have to them. Now, these three books are Scytonius's 12 Caesars, Livy's Early History of Rome, and Livy's the War with Hannibal. Now, the way that it went is that I was at Goodwill one day, and I picked up a copy of Sweetanus's Twelve Caesars. Now, at this point, I had never really read any of the Latin or Greek histories. It just looked like something that might be interesting. And ironically enough, at the same

time, the same purchase, I also got de Tocqueville's Ancian regime and the French Revolution. So that was a fairly auspicious trip to Goodwill for me. So that copy of Twelve Caesars was the one that really sparked my curiosity and my interest in reading these old Latin and Greek histories. And this got me down the road. Now, when I finished 12 Caesars, I looked on my bookshelf, and the only thing I had of the same genre was Livy's early history of Rome that I believe I pilfered from a roommate of mine back in college. He didn't want it, and I did, so I took it. And then it just sat on my bookshelf for years and years, and I never touched it. But after I read the 12 Caesars, I went and I read Livy's early history of Rome, and I absolutely

fell in love with that. From there, I spent the next couple of months doing nothing but reading these old histories. I think after that I did Ducydides' Peloponnesian War. I fast forward a little bit, and I'm engrossed in Livy's, the War with Hannibal, when I first came across 12 Byzantine rulers by Lars Brownworth. And so it was in the middle of Livy's War with Hannibal that I first conceived of doing the History of Rome podcast. So these three books, Suttonius' 12 Cesar's, Livy's Early History of Rome and Livy's the War with Hannibal are the three books that more than anything else got me started on this entire crazy podcasting adventure. They are the reason the history of Rome exists. So obviously I have a lot of sentimental attachment to these three books, but for

$10,000, I'll get over it. Now finally, you'll see there at the bottom, at the $25,000 level, is pick a revolution, any revolution. That pretty much means exactly. what you think it means. For $25,000, you can pick a revolution for me to cover. Now, I can tell you, I'm going to do the Haitian revolution whenever we finish the French Revolution. I'm also guaranteed to do the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Revolution. But other than that, it's pretty much fair game. Now, I, of course, do political revolutions, so let's not do, like, the Industrial Revolution or the Scientific Revolution. I mean, I know those are insanely important revolutions, but I do political revolutions. Now, obviously,

obviously, the vast majority of you have tuned me out at this point because you're not going to spend $25,000 to pick a revolution, any revolution. But, uh, hey, if you're one of those Silicon Valley millionaires who's sitting around listening to the show and enjoy it and you want to make sure that I cover one of your favorite revolutions, by all means, send me an email and let's make sure what you want me to do is doable. And then for $25,000, you can pick a revolution, any revolution. Okay, so that's the lot of it. Let's some this thing up. The first thing to do is go to Revolutionspodcastfundraiser.com. When you're there, just take the five-sided cross and put it in your cart. It's $10. You get three and a half hours

worth of a pretty cool story. Then come back and look at the t-shirts. Everybody who buys a t-shirt gets entered to win one of the Asinia that I have in my possession. Then if you crest over the $150 level, which is essentially buying all four shirts and the five-sided cross, or buying a piece of the history of Rome Library, then you get to ask a question for the 250th episode. This stuff is only going to be available until January the 21st, 2015. After that, it won't be available ever again. If this is successful, and I do wind up doing another fundraiser down the road, just know there will be T-shirts, but they're not going to be these four t-shirts. If you want the Gentleman Johnny's Party train, the Diggers, Livia did it, or the

French Revolution shirt, this is going to be the one and only time that you can get it. Okay, so thank you very much. Thank you for your support in advance. And let's all get together and make sure that I do this and only this forever, which is, I think, what we both want.