It's been a long road with several hiccups along the way, but my book, "Tobacco of the Emperor," has arrived at the distributor and is now currently shipping to customers.
I've been humbled by the amount of support I've received for this project. I never would have thought that there would be so much interest in a topic as niche as Japanese Imperial tobacco.
It's been an absolutely great experience working with my publisher, Headstamp Publishing as well as Ian McCollum, Nic Jenzen-Jones, and James Rupley. All these guys have been gracious and supportive of myself and the project as a whole.
This past week, I had the pleasure of inviting some close friends over for dinner (steak and crab legs... it was amazing). They brought their copy of "Tobacco of the Emperor," and I had the extreme pleasure of being able to sign my very first copy of the book. I truly am surrounded by great people and very supportive friends and family.
The past two years have been a real whirlwind. I graduated from college, started a new and exciting career, and wrote and published a book. I also was able to publish an academic paper, a dream I've always had. I've also been able to have three magazine articles published. I never would have believed you if you told me I would have several writing projects published just a few short years ago.
So what comes next?
I have several exciting plans coming up for the near future. First and foremost, I plan to continue writing. I am currently working on a new book about Japanese medals from the Imperial period. This book will cover all the medals, badges, and awards of the Japanese Empire from the 1860s until the end of the Second World War in 1945, and will even touch upon current awards.
I also have several other writing projects that are floating around in my head. These projects will still sit on the back burner for a while until I can fully devote 100% of myself to them. I truly strive to produce in-depth and accurate content. The advantage to this is that I can focus on one project and take the time to delve deep into the details to fully tell the story. The downside to this is that it takes up a lot of time. By my nature, I need to finish one project at a time, or else the results just don't pass my bar, and I wouldn't want to ever bring you subpar content.
Second, I plan on getting into video and producing content for my long-neglected YouTube channel, Banzai! It's important for me to be able to bring historical Japanese content to people around the world. That was one major motivation for writing Tobacco of the Emperor, and I feel that being able to present content in video form will greatly benefit our understanding of history and the objects that helped to shape the world.
Third, I plan to build up my collection of militaria items. My goal is to find rare, strange, and obscure objects so that I can research and present them to you in a way that has never been done before. Many of these items are so rare or hard to get that they almost never leave private collections or remain buried within the storage facilities of museums. My hope is to find these items and tell their story in both text and video formats so that everyone around the world can learn about and enjoy them.
A part of this process will be the creation of a Patreon account. On Patreon, users can choose to donate a small amount of money every month to a creator. This does several things; first, it allows for creators to afford to create and present their content. Second, Patreon members get exclusive access to content such as members-only videos as well as other things like access to Discord servers, video chats, and live Q&As. Once I feel that the YouTube channel is ready to go with good content, I will send out updates, post a video schedule, and create a Patreon account.
Finally, thank you to everyone who has supported me through these past several years and thank you to everyone who has recently subscribed and enjoys my work. Without your support, I wouldn't be able to do what I love and present interesting Japanese WW2 history for everyone to enjoy.
If you appreciate WW2 history and would like to contine to support my work, please share Risingsunhistory.com with your friends and subscribe for real time updates, news, and to be notified for new content. Also, be sure to check out Tobacco of the Emperor and other awesome books at https://www.headstamppublishing.com/purchase/tobacco.
Thanks again!
Patrick.