Now That's What I Call Content Volume 2: Adventures in VHS

It seems impossible to comprehend now, but a few years back I apparently didn't have enough things to fill my day. As well as being a copywriter for a large media agency, I was helping to run a rather successful film website, hosting and co-hosting various podcasts, and even co-organising an annual film festival. And yet, somehow, this wasn't enough.

I'd been writing a series of articles for the aforementioned website Eat Sleep Live Film, which had given me the chance to look back at some of the weird, wonderful and formative cult movies of my childhood. Along the way, I'd discovered there was a whole personal story I also wanted to tell around the films, the format and even the independent rental store that put these highly inappropriate flicks in my living room. And there it was. My new project. I was going to write a book.

As someone who'd been working in digital media for some time by this point, I'd heard various people talk about the 'death of print media'. And, with the dawn of the Kindle, iPad and subsequent tablet revolution ushering in yet another 'year of mobile' every passing 12 months, the future for traditional books looked bleak. And yet, I still thought it would be a good idea to turn my back on the website (and even the film festival) to focus on a new kind of content development... something that could actually live in the physical world.

The project itself involved researching my childhood rental store and the birth of home video, while sourcing hundreds of big box, ex-rental VHS tapes from forums, online auctions, car boot sales and charity shops. I picked up an old Panasonic VCR and 21" Bang & Olufsen TV (the kind I dreamed of as a kid but could now pick up for next to nothing on eBay) and the adventures began. Along the way, I got to interview childhood movie making heroes of mine, even somehow convincing one of them (Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder and president of Troma Entertainment) to write me a foreword.

But while 'Adventures in VHS' (a working title for the project that stuck) was ostensibly an analogue project, it very quickly became a marriage between old technology and new. As well as a 16-episode podcast, downloaded about 28,000 times in over 40 countries, the book-in-progress had a healthy social media presence. There were guest posts, news stories and example chapters on other influential film blogs, as well as regular tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram pics showing off my latest VHS acquisitions. I used all of these platforms to update potential buyers on the status, got a bit of newspaper coverage and even had the book listed on a university degree reading list... all before it was finished.

And now, after all the articles, podcasts, photos, infographics, videos, emails, design work, proofing, editing, reproofing, re-editing and shouting into the online void about a theoretical book, it's actually here. I've managed to create an audience big enough for it that, through crowdfunding, it's now a physical thing I can hold in my hands. And I can tell you, it's a very different feeling to posting a blog on WordPress.

It's been a huge learning curve stepping outside of digital and into the print realm - and it's not always been easy. But thanks to my familiarity with online, I feel like I've been able to will this project into existence. 

Would I do it again? Well, that's another question entirely...

Adventures in VHS is now available in both hardback and eBook formats here.