VHS ATE MY BRAIN – 5TH ANNIVERSARY AND NEW EDITION NEWS

Wow... already? VHS Ate My Brain, which was my 7th book and which also spawned the column in Scream Magazine (which I wrote for a year before leaving – it continues with a different hack at the keyboard), is now five years old. I never once thought that my little book about mad old films on an obsolete format would last this long, but it still sells and I still get the occasional message from across the globe in which another like-minded individual shares memories of their wasted video youth.

This is massively humbling, so thank you from the bottom of my cynical, blackened heart.

The VHS Ate My Brain book has become something of a calling card for me. It's by far my most successful self-published book, to the extent that I really wish I'd had the foresight – and the budget – to give it the edit that it deserved. Reviews often mentioned typos, and I don't blame them.

Back when I was writing it in 2012-2013 I figured it would be my own little keepsake of the scene I'd found myself in. The VHS collectors I was in touch with at the time were almost exclusively in the US, and I felt isolated by that and wanted to stale my claim to a bit of the hobby for myself. I threw it together and put it our there.

I quickly discovered that it wouldn't just be a thing for me to have and file away. It took off, and my inbox was quickly filled with messages and questions. The book's popularity was helped massively by the wonderful cover by Josh Schafer of Lunchmeat, which made it both stick out and look way more professional than I was capable of doing myself. I'm hugely grateful to the book and the VHS community.

Which brings me to some 5th anniversary news.

Work is well underway on a revised edition of VHS Ate My Brain. A brand new chapter is complete and has been added to the text, and the text is being revised in full. A few things are being moved around and the layout is being tweaked, plus additional photos missing from the original version will be included. This revised edition will feature a new cover, as Josh's amazing artwork was for the original and I figure he's way too famous and busy now for another. Plus I'm broke. Sigh. VHS Ate My Brain: Revised Edition will get an official release date soon. Thanks for everything, tapeheads!