Author: Artist Rafi Perez

So… I released a book! YAY!
And we had a Book Release Party Stream, and holy heck, it was awesome. Seeing all of you awesome humans pop in, chat, laugh, and celebrate with us! That moment was pure gold. I may or may not have ugly-cried off-camera (don’t judge).

There’s something incredible about spending months (okay, years) sweating over words, punctuation, and coffee stains, only to finally see the book out in the world. It’s like raising a kid who finally moves out… except the kid is made of paper and crippling self-doubt. It’s amazing seeing the thing you wrestled into existence finally out there. You spend months hunched over a laptop, muttering at Word documents and threatening your spell checker, and then one day… boom ! It’s a real book!

Let’s be honest, I feel like I have a handle on creating art and sculpture. Paint? Metal? Wood? No problem. Writing? Pfft. Total mystery. I’ve published four books now, and I still have no idea what I’m doing.

Like, I’ll sit there thinking, “Ah yes, I’ll write a profound paragraph that will move humanity.”
Three hours later: “Why does every sentence sound like I’m trying to explain taxes to a squirrel?”

The learning curve for me has looked like this:

• Book 1: “What’s a copyright?”
• Book 2: “Wait, I have to format this myself?”
• Book 3: “Why do I hate every word I’ve ever written?”
• Book 4: “Okay, maybe I’m getting the hang of this?” (Narrator: he is not.)

Let me paint a picture of my writing process so you understand where I’m coming from and how I’ve come to grips with writing:

1. Stage One: Confidence. “I’ve got this. I’m an author now.”
2. Stage Two: Doubt. “Wait… why does this sound like a grocery list?”
3. Stage Three: Despair. “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
4. Stage Four: Delusion. “Actually, this might be genius!”
5. Stage Five: Editing. “Who wrote this garbage?? Oh right, me.”

It happens every time. It’s funny when I think about it. This pretty much describes my creative process. For example, in book writing adventures, here’s what I’ve experienced:

• I once spent two days trying to decide whether “artist’s” or “artists’” had the right number of apostrophes.
• I re-read entire chapters out loud just to realize I’d used the word actually 27 times.
• My inner critic doesn’t even whisper anymore… it shows up in a bathrobe, eating chips, and says, “You sure this isn’t just word salad with feelings?”
• Half my first drafts read like I’m trying to win an argument with myself.
• Don’t even get me started on formatting. Every time I export a file for print, it’s like opening a book report full of red marks.

That being said, I started to notice something familiar in the chaos. The insecurity, the trial and error, the weird joy when something finally clicks. Writing a book isn’t that different from creating art.

When I paint or sculpt, there’s that ugly middle stage. You know, when everything looks wrong and you question your life choices. Writing has that too. You stare at the screen thinking, This makes no sense. I’m a fraud. I should go sell fruit baskets by the highway.

Then, just like in art, you keep showing up. You move things around. You trust that eventually, the mess will start making sense. It’s that same mix of doubt and wonder that keeps you going, the same muscle that turns chaos into creation.

At this point, I’m convinced writing a book is 20 percent inspiration and 80 percent figuring out what you did wrong after you hit publish. One of the biggest issues I ran into after publishing my book is ISBNs.

Oh, the glamorous world of ISBNs. You know those little numbers on the back of books? Yeah, those. They come from a company called Bowker, and they’ve been running the ISBN racket since the late 1800s.

It started with a guy named Frederick Leypoldt, a publisher who apparently thought, “You know what would make books more fun? Numbers!” Then R. R. Bowker took over and turned it into a business. And not just any business, a business that has been charging authors for numbers for over 145 years. I’m not saying it’s a monopoly, but… okay, it’s totally a monopoly.

Here’s how it works:

• 1 ISBN = $125
• 10 ISBNs = $295
• 100 ISBNs = $575

It’s like a Costco membership for book numbers that make no sense. Buy in bulk, or pay the “I only need one” sucker price. And you need a separate ISBN for every format: paperback, hardcover, e-book, audiobook, second edition, third edition, even that “slightly-different-cover-because-I-changed-my-mind” edition. Each one needs a different ISBN.

This is where I’m running into my next conundrum. The audiobook and e-book for Dear Artist is done and ready to go, but I don’t have any ISBNs to publish them under.

Honestly, it’s wild. I feel like Bowker could release a board game: “Guess how many ISBNs you forgot to buy!” Winner gets anxiety and a lighter wallet.

So yeah, I released the soft cover during the Book Release Party (woohoo!) and now I’m running a little fundraiser sale to raise money for the next batch of ISBNs. The goal? Get 100 of them so I don’t run out before I die or write another four books that I “accidentally” format wrong. The sale works like this, buy an original book drawing, poster, or signed copy of the dear artist book and we set that aside for a new batch of ISBNs. Everything is on sale to make it more irresistible.

We’re 42 percent of the way there (which feels like the perfect “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” number).

If you want to help us get there:
Buy an original drawing, poster, or signed book.
Every purchase helps me avoid future ISBN shortages, artistic meltdowns, and potential caffeine overdoses.

To everyone who tuned in to the book release stream. thank you. You made the whole thing unforgettable. I can’t tell you how good it felt to share that moment with you instead of just screaming triumphantly alone in my studio (though, to be fair, that has also happened).

You guys make this crazy ride worth it. You remind me why I keep writing, even when I feel like I’m wrestling with grammar and losing.

So here’s to doing it wrong, learning as we go, and celebrating every weird, wonderful victory along the way. I may still be winging it, but I’m winging it with style.

— Rafi