It's been a hot minute since my last book. 

I'd planned to launch it in March 2020, just as I was getting ready for my first fitness competition. But by April we were all in lockdown, my gym was closed, and I was at home with a heavy kettlebell and a whole lot of time on my hands. The ending of the book was going to be talking about what happened at the competition, but that all went sideways.

Instead, I ended up learning how to coach. 

If you'd told me as a crabby sport-loathing teenager that in my middle age I'd not only love going to the gym (well, mostly; not running, not burpees), but would actually be coaching, I would have laughed in your face. I still kind of laugh in my own face whenever I get to put punk rock on the stereo for a workout, honestly, but the more I coach, the more I dig it.

But more than anything I love deadlifts.

For my last few projects I've created longer form books and collections, usually themed, but all with a spine. But I've been feeling really pulled to return to independent publishing, like the Trees & Hills days where we'd not only publish collections on themes like time, play, and food, but use each issue as a chance to create cool-looking covers, where we'd stamp an apple as a print or emboss a print of a drop of water so it looked wet.

So I decided to combine them. Must Love Deadlifts is imagined as an eventual series where each issue is about 30ish pages and includes some interesting or innovative cover design as well as a little bit of autobio storytelling and maybe even a workout or two (I promise I won't make you do burpees). They'll be signed and numbered in the initial print run (anywhere from 50 to 100 copies), and I wanted to use this series as a way to return to issue-based publishing but in a new size format (MLD will be half-size -- 5.5 wide by 8.5 long). I loved publishing booty but didn't love the headache of managing a regular publishing schedule, keeping up with subscriptions and mailing lists, and so forth.

That said, in the years since booty went on hiatus, I've published three books: What You Don't Get, Big Bad Best of Booty, and So You're A Ref? all of which were successfully crowdfunded. 

Initial projections suggest that each issue will cost about $5 to $6 in materials and labor to produce and mail, and ideally I'd like to create an ongoing series, so this fundraising will help springboard initial production and hopefully get me into a regular enough publishing schedule (I'm planning for twice yearly, but we'll see how it goes). A portion of the crowdfunding of course will go to cover platform fees and assorted other costs of running the campaign on this platform.

Scheduling goals are to produce and print MLD #1 by the end of this year, and then MLD #2 by spring; eventually moving into a twice-yearly publishing schedule.