Being Santa Claus – Fan Film Factor

Please HELP SANTA CLAUS this Christmas by buying his book…

Ho, ho, ho, everybody! I realize that this blog isn’t Star Trek or fan film related—other than “SANTA” SAL LIZARD having been the president of STARFLEET, The International Star Trek Fan Association from 2008-2011—but I’d still like to take a few moments for a special message to all of you.

In case you ween’t aware, I helped Santa Sal write a book full of his wonderful memoirs of having been a professional, real-bearded Santa Claus for (at the time) more than two decades. BEING SANTA CLAUS was first published in 2012 by Gotham Books, a division of Penguin Publishing. A few years ago, Sal and I reacquired the rights to the book and published a new expanded edition, with additional heartwarming true stories and photos, available in hardcover, paperback, kindle, and even audiobook formats. (I narrated the audio version.)

It was a happy and exciting time for both of us as the world was emerging from lockdown. But then Sal’s wife Linda passed away suddenly from brain cancer around the same time that Sal himself had a trio of mini-strokes that left his left side too weak to support children on his lap. Sal’s days of being Santa Claus were effectively over.

With the passing of Sal’s wife, whose job as a nurse administrator was their primarily source of income beyond Sal’s annual Santa gigs and the occasional Ubering, Sal has been reduced to living solely on social security, barely enough to get by. The one thing he has to look forward to are royalties on book sales…which aren’t much. The books clear about $4-5/purchase (depending on the format sold), with monthly royalties in the dozens of dollars at best. So, sadly, not too much.

But this is the one time of year when the book sells a little bit better—hence, this blog. I’m trying to help my friend-in-need by encouraging my other friends to purchase Being Santa Claus in any format. If you order now, the book will likely arrive by Christmas (or instantaneously if you order the Kindle or Audible version).

It’s a great stocking stuffer or just something to listen to in the car if you want a break from holiday music without losing the feeling of the season. If you’d like to hear a sample what the book sounds like, here is short snippet of one chapter…

Every little bit helps out this wonderful, good-natured, generous, and caring man get something nice for his daughter and granddaughter for Christmas. And even if all you can afford right now is goodwill toward men (and women and others), please consider passing along the following link to the Amazon page on your social media feeds. Merry Christmas to all…!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOU COPY AND HELP SANTA SAL

SANTA needs a new KIDNEY…

As some of you know, back in 2012, I helped a professional, real-bearded Santa Claus write his memoirs in a book titled BEING SANTA CLAUS, which is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, kindle, and audiobook versions. It recounts the heartwarming stories of Santa Sal’s then-20-year career wearing the red suit–from his first clueless mistakes to becoming one of the most believable and effective Santas you could ever meet.

Last year, Sal lost his beloved wife of 35 years, Linda, and this past November, Sal was placed on the kidney transplant list. He now lives with his daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky, and they struggle to make ends meet. You can help make Christmas for Sal and his family a little merrier in two ways:

1) You can buy a copy of the book in any version, and royalties from the sale go to Sal and his family. You can also spread the Amazon link to your friends and family and loved ones.

2) You can donate to the following GoFundMe campaign…
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sal-lizard-aka-santa-aka-the-vampire-santa

I know that at at least one person out there in the Star Trek fan community has generated more than $18K crowd-funding his legal bills/debts for an upcoming lawsuit. Right now, Santa Sal (a Trekkie and former president of STARFLEET: the International Star Trek Fan Association, Inc.) has generated just $707 to help himself and his family survive a very challenging Christmas.

Whether or not you gave to that other campaign, please consider donating a little to help Santa Sal and his daughter and granddaughter. Or maybe buy a copy of the book. Sal’s stories are wonderful and will make you laugh, cry, cheer, and always smile. My friend Sal has given so much over the years, and I hope people can see their way to giving back at least a little.

Thank you and Merry Christmas.

Please help SANTA SAL by getting the new audio version of our book BEING SANTA CLAUS…

If you’d prefer to skip the blog and just order the audiobook (so that net revenue can go directly to “SANTA” SAL LIZARD and his family), please click here to get to the Amazon webpage. And thank you.

Below you can read more about Santa Sal…

Some of my readers might aware that I became a professionally published author (more precisely, co-author) back in 2012. A year earlier, Gotham Books (a division of Penguin Publishing) purchased the rights to an autobiographical memoir of a professional real-bearded Santa by the name of Sal Lizard. Sal spent more than 50 hours on the phone with me—over the course of two and a half years!—telling his amazing, hilarious, and heartwarming Santa stories in astounding detail, and I turned them into a full manuscript. Titled BEING SANTA CLAUS – What I Learned About the True Meaning of Christmas, the hardcover was released the following November, and a paperback version came out in late 2013.

And that was pretty much that.

It was cool becoming a published author, and the book was very well-received (4.8-out-of-5 stars on Amazon). In fact, the only complaint we ever got was that the book was too short. And indeed it was! Our editor at Gotham helped us trim an 83,000-word manuscript down to about 79,000 words, which everyone thought was perfect…including the president of of the publishing company. But the managing editor decided to trim it further…all the way down to 47,000 words(!!!), and a lot of wonderful Santa Sal stories got left on the literary cutting room floor. However, they were paying us a ridiculously huge advance, and we had little choice other than to let the managing editor have her way.

A few years later, though, Being Santa Claus was no longer in print, Penguin had shuttered Gotham, and the rights to our book reverted back to Sal and me. It was at that point that I thought about creating a “director’s cut” audiobook out of the 79,000-word version that everyone loved.

But how exactly does one go about recording an audiobook?

Good fortune fell upon us when I met the father of one of the kids in my son’s school and discovered that he owns a sound studio here in Los Angeles, and he offered me the use of it. For the next few years—which included a frustrating hiatus during the lockdown—I recorded all 35 chapters in a series of reading sessions when my sound engineer, JAE KIM, was available (which wasn’t often, as he travels the world doing sound for concert tours and film shoots). But a few months ago, we finally finished!

The PERFECT stocking stuffer for CHRISTMAS – and SANTA’S even a TREKKIE!

You can rediscover the magic and wonder of Christmas in the pages of a touching and inspirational book…a book with my name on the cover!

Being Santa Claus is a heartwarming collection of memoirs from one of the world’s most dedicated, professional real-bearded Santas, and it’s the perfect gift to get for someone you love.

And I’m not just saying that because I co-wrote it! Santa Sal is truly one-of-a-kind, and in the pages of this book, you’ll learn why he is one of the most special and amazing Santa Clauses that you will ever read about.

What does any of this have to do with Star Trek fan films? Nothing, really (except that Santa Sal does happen to be a huge Trekkie, which we mention in the acknowledgements at the end). But no, this isn’t a blog post about fan films. However, I hope you’ll indulge me with some holiday goodwill, because I’d like to tell you about my white-bearded friend and the wonderful book we wrote together.

Continue reading “The PERFECT stocking stuffer for CHRISTMAS – and SANTA’S even a TREKKIE!”