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OK, I MESSED UP.

2025-05-09 · letter vlog · Hank · 6:08 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Projects · mode: Personal update · tags: self promotion, self correction

Hank breaks the fiction of the Book of Good Times, which he and John wrote by 2021 and released in 2024 after delays and his cancer, and confesses two mistakes: the printer fixed a deliberate typo, and a lapsed bill gave the book's phone number to a trucking company, so second-edition copies get a sticker with the right number. He says the immersion still works on him and plugs the second printing.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Hank is mad at himself; recap of the Book of Good Times and breaking its fiction, fiction that blurs reality constructively

  • ★★ Hank says he doesn't love this one: it could be worse and no one seems actually mad at him about it, but he is mad at himself. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Breaking the illusion for the first time, Hank says he did not actually find a book that was trying to become a person. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank loves when fiction brushes up against reality and you aren't sure what's going on, naming Kilgore Trout, Peter Van Houten and S. Morgenstern. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Hank wanted a tool that blurs the edge of reality constructively rather than destructively, since so much reality is being blurred destructively now. — 00:00:43

00:00:58 — The book's history: 2020 email to John, written by 2021, delays, cancer, the 2024 push and the Kickstarter

  • ★★ Hank first emailed John the idea in 2020; John liked it, they wrote it together, and the book was done by 2021. — 00:00:58 · John Green
  • ★★ Amid much else, publication kept getting pushed back, frustrating Hank, who felt the book was more necessary every day. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ After Hank got cancer and finished treatment, most of 2024 was his 'I'm not dead, I must do everything' year, and he pushed to get the book out. (playful) — 00:01:31 · cancer
  • ★★ Everyone came together fast: an illustrated map, a friend's layout, websites, email addresses and a phone number for one prompt; Hank made it quite complicated. — 00:01:31

00:02:01 — The mistakes: the auto-corrected typo, the lapsed phone number now ringing a trucking company, the sticker fix, the bouncing email

  • ★★ The Kickstarter did amazingly and everything shipped perfectly on time, which Hank has never done with a Kickstarter before. — 00:02:01 · Kickstarter
  • ★★★ A typo the book references and needs was automatically fixed by the printer, so it was missing from the first edition. — 00:02:29
  • ★★★ The typo is restored in the second printing, available now; the book had so far only been available during the Kickstarter. — 00:02:29 · Kickstarter
  • ★★ Hank calls it Hank Green ambition in a bottle: he decides something must be possible, does it, calls it done, and forgets things take maintenance. (playful) — 00:02:29
  • ★★★ Hank set up the book's answering-machine line without auto-pay; the unpaid-bill emails went to his spam folder, so the company cancelled his account. — 00:02:58
  • ★★★ The number went immediately to a shipping company that runs trucks, which now gets a lot of very weird phone calls. — 00:03:27
  • ★★ They learned of it only after printing the second edition, which now has the wrong number in sealed, packaged copies Hank won't unpack. — 00:03:27
  • ★★★ The fix is a sticker on the packaging giving the actual phone number to call. — 00:03:56
  • ★★ Messages left on the old number were deleted when Hank didn't pay the bill. — 00:03:56
  • ★★ Hank invites those who called to call again if they want, at the number on the website, but only as part of going through the book. — 00:03:56
  • ★★ Hank says he wanted to create a super immersive experience and broke it twice. — 00:03:56
  • ★ The book's email address was also set up wrong and bounced; it is fixed and the book now receives emails. — 00:03:56

00:04:37 — Why the book still feels special and immersive; please call the website number

  • ★★ Hank says he thinks he and John just want to do something really weird, interesting, different and creative in a new way. — 00:04:37 · John Green
  • ★★★ Though he co-wrote and proofread it, going through the book Hank still felt immersed, which is why it felt special and worth releasing. — 00:04:37
  • ★ The people running the shipping company seem jovial about it; Hank feels really bad for them. — 00:05:07
  • ★★★ Hank asks people not to call the number in the book but the number on the website. — 00:05:07
  • ★★ Hank is very proud of the project; responses from the moments where the book reaches into the social internet or email come in regularly and feel really special. — 00:05:07

00:05:36 — Thanks to buyers, second printing available, thanks to John for their first co-authored book; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank thanks buyers and says copies are available now via the link in the description. — 00:05:36
  • ★★ Since the immersion still worked on him as co-writer and proofreader, Hank thinks it will still work despite the error in the second edition. (hedged) — 00:05:36
  • ★★ Hank thanks John for helping write their first co-authored project and hopes they do another. — 00:05:36 · John Green

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: The Book of Good Times

Also: cancer · Kickstarter · Kilgore Trout · Peter Van Houten · S. Morgenstern · typographical error

Only in the description or credits: DFTBA Records

Also centred on The Book of Good Times: Put a little bit of cinnamon in it

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