For some time now I saw in the Amazon statistics of my English book that, after the US and the UK, Germany is the biggest buyer of my book. I also received regular messages from German readers, asking if the book would also be published in German. They would like to let their families read it, for example, but then again, they are not very good at English….

So I thought: Let’s do it!

I decided to ask around in my network, and soon found a professional translator. Together with Lucie, I made the promo video in Korea: I recited the text my translator had written, in my best German. For the occasion I had rented a “self studio”, a Korean concept where you can rent photo/film sets with all the trimmings for an hourly rate. I put the video together and then…. Then Japan opened up.

Yes, I have a talent for Kickstarter timing – last time the corona typhus broke out. Okay, so all of a sudden I had to move, and I was so stressed/excited that working wasn’t really an option anymore. So I thought, that will come later in Japan. But because I want to release the book somewhere around autism week, or at least autism month of April, I put the campaign online as soon as I landed in Japan. With such mediocre pocket internet, that after uploading the video, I was squeezed down to 1995-speed for two days.

Of course, I had a lot to take care of in Japan, and that took a lot more time than I had imagined. I don’t know why I thought it was easy, maybe because I ended up in a comfy Sakura House room before, and now in a bare house with no wifi, furniture or um, oh yeah, freedom. But that’s fodder for another blog. Back to the Kickstarter. See below for the video we made.

Honestly: it’s not going well enough yet. And that’s because of me. I still have a list of German-speaking autism-Instagrammers that I want to email with the preview of the first chapter (which I also only got yesterday, my fault), the proposal to give them a book as a gift and the question if they want to pay attention to the campaign. I could also write to the relevant press, but I still have to dig into that too. Anyway, in the meantime I have optical fiber internet, a table and an office chair, so if the earth can stop shaking for a while I can hopefully finally start working hard this coming week.

Would you like to support the Kickstarter? There are several ways to do so. First of all (and preferably) of course through the Kickstarter page. You can choose the book, the autographed book or the book with your name in the thank you section. With your order you can also order a T-shirt or totebag.

Friends, family, anyone who has had something to do with my Dutch or English book…. Please, support this project. Even if your knowledge of German does not go beyond Scheiße. With this project, we will make sure that more people hear about autism from people who are autistic themselves, and hopefully help to eliminate prejudices from the German-speaking world as well.