Skip to content

I Just Can't Do It Anymore

2024-12-31 · letter vlog · John · 5:07 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

John says a wrist and shoulder injury from signing tip-in sheets for Everything Is Tuberculosis means he can no longer sign; he reflects that signing was his individualized way of thanking readers and a sign of his relentless drive to work, and says he must find other ways to express that gratitude.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The tip-in signing process for 100,000 copies, the Lectrojogger, Sharpie colours, and the injury that stops him signing

  • ★★ John is signing 100,000 copies of Everything Is Tuberculosis: he signs tip-in sheets (about 45,000 are behind him) that a printer in Virginia binds into the books. — 00:00:03 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★ John calls his Lectrojogger, which aligns stacks of signed sheets, the greatest feat of engineering in human history. (playful) — 00:00:20
  • ★★★ About 50,000 sheets into the signing, John developed pain in his wrist and especially his shoulder that kept getting worse. — 00:00:38 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★ John has changed Sharpie colours about every 10,000 signatures, from green through blues, berry and purple to odd colours, so readers can tell roughly when their copy was signed. — 00:00:50 · Sharpie
  • ★★★ After the pain worsened John saw a doctor and it got worse still; without giving medical details, he says he can no longer sign and is not allowed to. — 00:01:12

00:01:27 — The loss of signing after 700,000 sheets and what a thousand hours of signing taught him

  • ★★ John says signing has been a significant part of his life for 12 years, ever since he signed the first printing of The Fault in Our Stars. — 00:01:30 · The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★★ John says losing signing kind of sucks, but it helps that something that hurts every time you do it makes you want to do it less. — 00:01:37
  • ★★ John has signed 700,000 tip-in sheets over his career, is attached to the process and his Lectrojogger, and says it is a bummer that he will not be able to after this. — 00:01:44
  • ★ In over a thousand hours of signing, John learned the causes of the French Revolution from a 38-hour audiobook on the topic. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ John says that signing taught him that on the other side of boredom there is a kind of blissful flow state. — 00:02:10

00:02:25 — Why he signs: early empty signings, gratitude to readers, his drive to work, and finding other ways to say thank you

  • ★★ In the first three years of his writing career no more than six people came to John's events; at hour-long signings two or three came and he chatted with a bookseller losing money on him. — 00:02:25
  • ★★ John says poorly attended signings are common: all authors have signing horror stories, and a book called Mortifications collects them. — 00:02:41
  • ★★★ John says one reason he has signed so much over 13 years is to express gratitude that more than four people want his signature. — 00:02:54
  • ★★ John has wanted anyone who wants an autographed book to be able to get one without overpaying. — 00:02:59
  • ★★ On Amazon the signed edition of Everything Is Tuberculosis currently costs $7 less than the unsigned one, so, John jokes, his signature is technically worth negative $7. (playful) — 00:03:05 · Amazon, Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John admits he is very driven and hates being outworked: he wants to do everything to make his books good and reach many readers, and signing helps with that. — 00:03:15
  • ★★★ John says his relentless always-working habit has benefited his work but not other parts of his life, including his right shoulder, and the injury has him rethinking his relationship with work. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ John calls Everything Is Tuberculosis the culmination of three years of his obsession with tuberculosis, its ongoing prevalence, and what that says about the world. — 00:03:53 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, tuberculosis
  • ★★ John feels fortunate to publish a book about tuberculosis, thanks to support from his family and from readers who believe in his work even when it differs from his earlier books. — 00:04:08
  • ★★★ John says signing was his individualized way of thanking readers: a page touched by both reader and author, representing reading as a true, deep commingling. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ John says he will have to find other ways to support his work and express his gratitude, because he can no longer sign. — 00:04:36
  • ★★ John says his family sometimes says they are not growing old so much as continuing to grow up, and this is part of growing up. — 00:04:46

00:04:51 — Release date and signed pre-orders of Everything Is Tuberculosis; sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Everything Is Tuberculosis · gratitude

Also: Works: Mortification · The Fault in Our Stars

Organizations: Amazon

Concepts: adulthood · audiobook · boredom · flow (psychology) · tuberculosis

Places: Virginia

Events: French Revolution

Products: Lectrojog · Sharpie

Also centred on gratitude: The Things that People Do (Thoughts from New York City) (Pizzamas Day 7) · We Could All Use a Little Change · My Greatest Tool Against Vaccine Misinformation · I am Grateful for My Worry · On Balance · My Deathday

← Previous: Cats are Better than Dogs, I Proved It. (PG-13) · Next → My 2025 Bingo Card