Rapture (almost) Ready!
The official Rapture Ready! web site is here.
Or 50 percent here, anyway. Available now is all the stuff you'd usually find at a promo site for a book (although much more nicely designed and programmed, thanks to Pat Broderick and Kevin Shay): A short excerpt, reviews, schedule of events, etc.
Coming soon is the multimedia appendix, a resource that, as far as I know, is unique to Rapture Ready! The idea is that four pages of crappily-reproduced photos in the middle of a book makes no sense in this day and age. Instead, when you read about a person, place or metalcore band you just have to see for yourself, you can go to the site and get pictures, video, links, etc. It's so obvious once you think about it, that I'm pretty sure the only reason every non-fiction book doesn't have one is that it turns out to be really fracking time-consuming to put together. It will be done before the book comes out, however.
Speaking of which, don't pre-order the book just yet, unless you think you're going to forget in a month. I'm going to ask everyone to order on the same day (April 7, pub-date minus one) in order to manipulate the Amazon sales ranking. Don't worry, I asked Jesus, and he said that's totally not a sin.
By the way, the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the Rapture Ready! site is GetRaptureReady.com. RaptureReady.com has been taken for 20 years (if you can believe Wikipedia) by one of the most awesomely crazy sites in this whole series of tubes. I'm sure you've seen it. RaptureReady.com is the first result in a Google search for Rapture Ready, and that's not going to change, but I would like my site to get up to number two or three. So if you have an Internet blog and you feel like helping out, go ahead and link GetRaptureReady.com with the phrase "Rapture Ready!" Progress reports as warranted.
Comments
Thanks for expanding URL.
Posted by: Abe | March 3, 2008 5:32 AM
Really looking forward to the book. I like the Christian rock snob's line, "If they’re really a Christian band, and they’re trying to win people over to Christ, there’s no blurry lines." Win people over to Christ? Seriously now. No one goes to a Christian rock festival -- at least, Christian rock that's actively evangelical -- who isn't already Christian or is writing a book about Christians.
Posted by: Francis | March 3, 2008 11:49 PM
(I add the qualifier since, you know, when U2 sings about Jesus at a rock show, it's not quite the same thing.)
Posted by: Francis | March 3, 2008 11:51 PM
Of course that's the very beginning of the book. Adding qualifiers is pretty much the goal of the next 18 chapters, so that point is addressed from several angles.
By the way, I saw that U2 3D movie, more because I'm interested in the 3D stuff than because I'm a huge U2 fan, and I really enjoyed it. It's the first 3D movie that really makes sense in a lot of ways, and that has some genuine artistry.
However, I think I annoyed the U2 fans when I started laughing at Bono chanting "Jesus. Jew. Mohammed." That's not even correct parallelism, dude.
Posted by: radosh | March 4, 2008 9:07 AM
Seriously, at least make it "Jesus. Rabbi Schneerson. Mohammed."
Posted by: Francis | March 4, 2008 9:55 AM
Wow, raptureready is great! I love rapture stuff! I grew up in a church where they would show end of the world/mark of the beast type movies. I love that shit. Book of Revelations is a great read, particularly if you don't believe it because otherwise it's scary as hell.
As for me, I changed from the WWJD crowd to the Bart Simpson "life of sin followed by a deathbed confession" a long time ago, but I still love me a good rapture movie. Especially the one where the raptured people leave behind piles of clothes, and God is a big rolling cloud bank.
So, what's your book about?
Matt
Posted by: MAtt | March 4, 2008 11:47 PM
OK, I read the excerpt. I love it. Stryper? Priceless. I mentioned them as part of a joke the other day and no one had heard of them. Or Daniel Amos. I don't think Dustin would have liked Daniel Amos. Anyway, what he said about other Christian rock bands is straight out of South Park, where Cartman changes "girl" to "Jesus" in popular songs and sells 100,000 records.
Life is pretty goddamn funny when you don't take it too seriously.
Posted by: MAtt | March 4, 2008 11:56 PM
Haven't been here in a while (OT and all that) but read the excerpt yesterday. Can't wait to read the book. What I read was great! What will J. think when her see's "His second x-wife"!!! LOL! Hope he doesn't plan on a third strike!
Posted by: Lue | March 7, 2008 7:12 AM