It's Thanksgiving morning...and yesterday "American Grunt" reached the 250 preorder threshold needed to entice small publishers to take a look. In the end, this is somewhat remarkable considering I don't have a massive social media presence or ya know...really any name recognition whatsoever in the wider world.

Convincing anyone outside my circle to preorder the book proved much, much more difficult than I imagined. I hoped that maybe the premise would connect with people on a base level and they'd take a chance but in the end there's so much information and so many things vying for our attention and our limited dollars that even though it went out to almost 200,000 people, it mostly got lost in the chaos.

Which left everyone that I've met and interacted with along the way. From elementary school friends through Greensburg Central Catholic, Flagler, Penn State, UC-Riverside, Laramie, the ultimate frisbee community, True Believer Jiu Jitsu, my Point Park students, people I've met on random films...it was all of YOU that made this possible. Something like 96% of the orders were from people I know personally.

Specific mentions go out to Samantha Gallagher, Jason Tetlak, Adam McDivitt, Tad Wissel, Beth Hemmer, Chris Luccy, Angela Rose, Aaron Pressburg, Chloe Persian Mills, Ryan Sullivan, Diane Bell, Matt Weiss, Robin Russin, Chris Lang, my sister Kelly and my wonderful wife Jessi for going above and beyond helping to get the word out.

I have a lot to be thankful for as I reflect today. Near the top of that list is the incredible amount of amazing people I've been blessed to meet along the way.

The campaign isn't over. There's still a week left and I'd love to push it over 300 if possible. In the end, publishers are looking at their bottom line as much as the quality of the work so each order helps. Please keep letting people know. But I truly, truly am amazed and humbled that you've all helped me get this far. Thank you.