August 19, 2025 • 60 mins
Marc and Claire Headley share the behind-the-scenes story of how they self-published "Blown for Good," their exposé of Scientology's International Headquarters, despite the organization's history of blocking critical books.
• Marc started posting stories online in 2006-2007 under the handle "blown for good"
• Decided to self-publish in 2009 after learning how Scientology threatened publishers with costly litigation
• Created their own publishing company to protect themselves from legal threats
• Worked with former Scientology staff who had escaped, including editors and designers
• Balanced Scientology terminology with explanations to make the book accessible to all readers
• Created a 40-page glossary to explain Scientology's unique language
• Cut the manuscript from 800+ pages to under 400 pages
• Designed and included a detailed map of the International Headquarters
• Initially printed 5,000 hardcover copies
• Fulfilled orders from their living room while managing full-time jobs and raising young children
• Later added a paperback edition and included the police report documenting Marc's escape
• Book became a significant resource for understanding abuses at Scientology's secretive base
You can purchase signed copies of "Blown for Good" directly from blownforgood.com, or find the Kindle and Audible versions on Amazon.
BFG Store - http://blownforgood-shop.fourthwall.com/
Blown For Good on Audible - https://www.amazon.com/Blown-for-Good-Marc-Headley-audiobook/dp/B07GC6ZKGQ/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Blown For Good Website: http://blownforgood.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hey guys, welcome back to the channel.
Welcome to another episode ofBlown for Good Scientology
Exposed.
I'm Mark Hedley and I'm joinedby my lovely wife, claire, here
today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, hey, hey, thanks for being here.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Today's episode is going to be something different,
a little bit different.
Back in 2000, let's say 2006and 2007, I was posting a lot of
stuff on the Internet under thehandle of blown for good, which
is basically in Scientologylingo that just means somebody
(00:49):
who's escaped and who's notgoing to be able to get brought
back, not going to be able to berecovered, and I posted tons of
stories and incidents that hadoccurred at the Scientology
International Headquarters inGilman Hot Springs, california.
At the ScientologyInternational Headquarters in
Gilman Hot Springs, california,and probably from 2006 to 2008,
(01:10):
I got a ton of people writing tome saying, hey, you should put
this into a book and release itand just basically tell all of
the stories of what happened toyou while you were at the
property.
And I was at the internationalheadquarters from 1990 to 2005.
So about 15 years.
(01:31):
And then Claire was also therefor about 12, 13 of those years
14.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yep, 14.
1991 until 2005.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
There you go.
Okay, and we were together.
That's probably what I.
We were together about 13 ofthose years.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay, good.
Anyway, there was a lot, a lotof people requesting that I
write this book, and then Claireand I started talking about it,
probably in early 2009,.
Right, yes, beginning of 2009,.
We were like, hey, I think wecould do this.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And one of the things that we did was we looked at
who had written books in thepast.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yes exactly?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And had anybody from the Int base written a book that
was in the Sea Org ScientologySea Org at the actual
international base?
A Sea Org, a Scientology SeaOrg at the actual international
base?
Because, to be honest, that'swhere about.
At the time, during that periodthat was, about 95% of the
nonsense was happening there,for sure.
And whatever happened therekind of it was like a trickle
(02:37):
down system.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
That kind of nonsense trickled down to all the other
Scientology organizations andSea Org units and all that kind
of stuff, because a lot of timespeople from that property, if
Canada the Continental LiaisonOffice in Canada was fluffing
the duff, then they put togetherwhat was called a command team
from the Ant Base and they'dsend those people to go turn
(03:03):
Canada around.
And because those people hadbeen being tortured and beat up
and yelled at and screamed at byDavid Miscavige for decades,
they thought that was howmanagement should be occurring.
So when they'd go there thensome of that, depending on the
people, would be more prevalentor not.
(03:23):
But in most cases it worked atthe AMP base.
So they thought so it'll workin Canada, or it'll work in
South Africa, or it'll work inEngland or whatever.
So anyway, there were peoplethat had written books prior Sea
Org members or Scientologiststhat had written books, but we
(03:45):
found that a lot of them wereactually never making it out
into the world.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
And what Scientology was doing was they were
basically threatening to sue thepublishers so that they
basically tell the publisher hey, you spent $150,000 on this
book so far.
We're going to make you spend$5 million in legal fees, so
you're not going to make anymoney on this book.
When we're done with you, thisbook's going to be a loser.
(04:14):
No matter what happens.
If you sell a million copies,it's still going to be a loser.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, and they had history of doing that with a
number of books like Jot Tech'sA Piece of Blue Sky, barefaced
Messiah by Russell Mellor.
There was a long history ofvery aggressive litigation to
shut down books.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, and then we started poking around the
community of ex-CORG members,ex-inn Bay staff members that
kind of loosely were nowstarting to talk to each other
yep and I think it was I want tosay it was karen schless had
written a book in 2008, I think,or somewhere around there 2007,
(04:57):
2008 this period before I haddecided we were going to write
this book.
For sure, and basically she waspaid by the publisher.
She wrote the book, she turnedin a manuscript and they said
and then during that time,somewhere in there Scientology
had made these threats and sothey paid her, but then the book
(05:20):
was never published.
So Scientology, she madewhatever she made, selling the
book to them.
I don't even know what that wasI don't think it was $150,000.
But whatever it was, she gotpaid and then never received any
royalties because the book wasnever printed.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
And usually that's how you make your money on a
book.
If you go through, a bigpublisher is from the royalties.
Yeah, so we basically decidedbased on all that and we'd kind
of already worked this out inour personal lives and in our
business lives which is the onlyway we can't get messed with is
(06:03):
if we're the ones that aredoing everything.
So if I work for this company,they can just threaten, they can
dig up some dirt on the boss ofthe company, and then they can
threaten him with the dirt theydug up on him.
If he doesn't fire me, they'regoing to expose his whatever
nonsense, any nonsense they canthink of or just make up.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So we we both started our own businesses because
we're not going to fireourselves after they dig up some
nonsense on us.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, and, of course, we had young kids.
We needed to have a reliablesource of income to get back on
our feet.
I mean, we had just, in 2005,started over with absolutely
nothing, literally nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, and no family, no real family support from any
of the family that were inScientology.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Right, we had no car, no resume, no clothes, no money
no house, no mortgage eithermind you, anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So it was obvious to us well, we have to self-publish
the book, yes.
And then there's different waysyou can self-publish a book,
and now this is back in 2009.
Now there's a million ways youcan get a book out yes, which
didn't really exist back then.
Correct.
So we decided we were going topublish the book ourselves.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
And we started a company that would then be the
company that would publish thebook.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yep.
And we did that verydeliberately because that way
the company would own the rightsto the book and it was
corporately established in sucha way, by the recommendation of
a number of people we consultedwith, so that we were protected.
(07:50):
And then, at the same time youwere writing the book, I said,
well, I'm fine with you writingthe book if that's what you need
to do, but let's get our willsdone, let's have our you know,
make sure we know we haveeverything sealed up and covered
.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, in case they get up to any nonsense, correct,
just in case.
Hopefully that doesn't happen,but just in case we're going to
get all this.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
But you know, I mean historically, we expected a
bunch of nonsense.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
We did.
And then basically, whathappened was I started writing
the book.
I want to say it was like Aprilor February or April when I
started writing the book.
I want to say I want to say itwas like April or February or
April.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, I think February.
Yeah, I mean you, you wrotethat fast.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, I wrote it in like two months.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, cause you would go to work, come home, and at
the time we were living in thehouse, we were renting a house
in Burbank that had a littleback.
The garage building had beenconverted into an office, so you
and I both had offices, smalllittle offices, in that building
and you would go into yourlittle cubby, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
But the office that was there was a studio Right.
So my tiny little office wasthe control room with a big
giant glass in it, and Claire'soffice was where they would set
up the band and all theinstruments and the singers and
whatever, and that was therecording room.
So the entire thing was coveredwith acoustic tiles my spot, my
(09:19):
half and Claire's half, and itwas all really really thick
carpeted, and Claire's half andit was all really really thick
carpeted so I could go in thereand type or record things or do
whatever, and and she could bein her office and I couldn't
hear her and she couldn't hearme at all.
So it was a very good setup.
So if she's on the phone doingbusiness stuff or I'm on the
(09:39):
phone, we can.
We were completely isolatedfrom each other, which was kind
of just a bonus the way it was.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, exactly, but yeah, so you would get home from
work, we'd eat dinner, you'dspend some time with the kids,
which, at the time, our kidswere one and three.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
They would go to bed.
You would go back to that room.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And crank out three or four kids.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And sometimes I want to say you would work at it
until three or four in themorning.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I would go in there, let's say, around nine or eight
or nine, after they were in bed,yeah, and then I just jam out
two or three chapters everynight, just boom, go through
them and the book right now isjust under 400 pages yes when I
finished writing it was 800 andsomething pages yeah so claire,
(10:34):
okay, so let's say that so I'mwriting the book and then
claire's like well, I'm gonnafigure out all the things we
have to do to publish the bookand to produce the book, and so
I started going through.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I got at least four or five books on how to
self-publish and the best onewas by.
It was called how toself-publish a book.
I think it was by Tom andMarilyn Ross, if I if I remember
correctly.
I should have looked that up,but either way, it covered
everything.
It was like a how-to guide,like a thick one-and-a-half-inch
(11:11):
book that just coveredeverything.
I read several other options aswell.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
By Marilyn Ross.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
There you go, the Complete Guide to
Self-Publishing.
That's what I read, that thingcover to cover, and it talked
all about because, because youremember, we had researched
print on demand and you know allthe different options.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That's what I was going to say.
So there's one of the ways youcan make a book is you just you
write the book.
You get a word file or whatever.
However, you write it whatever,whatever format they want it in
.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And then you send that to the publishing company
that you're working with andthen they design it and they
format it and they check it andthey edit it.
They do a ton of work thatbasically comes out of your
money or they charge you a feeto do it.
Depending on where you go, it'sdifferent, but in most cases
(12:08):
you need to spend probably$10,000 or $15,000 to get the
book to a form that can beproduced, and how that deal is
structured depends on the placeor how you're doing it, but in
the end usually they're sellingyour book and then you get a few
bucks.
You get a buck or two everytime they sell a book.
(12:29):
Right?
That's like best case scenario.
That's pretty much how it works.
If you go to a publishingcompany, they give you an editor
and they and these are allpeople that that's all they do
is they make books.
So they give you an editor towork with or a ghostwriter or
however you want to do it, andthen they design a cover and
they do all this stuff and theyalso take all that out of the
(12:54):
amount of money you're going toget paid.
If you're a big, well-knownperson, they could give you
anywhere from $50,000 to amillion dollars, and then once
the book is produced, then youget royalties.
After they've sort of madetheir money back and they've got
their nut covered, Then theygive you a little taste of the
action If you sell more than youknow 25,000 copies or 50,000
(13:18):
copies or a hundred, whateverthe deal is.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And so then, what did you do?
So then you read all that, andthen, once you read that there
was all these other things thatyou had to do, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So we went through the steps to pre-register the
copyright for your book.
There's very obviously getISBNs.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So that's that little barcode on the back of a book.
You think we'd have a bookafter we're done.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It's right on your other side.
There you go yeah.
So, there's a little thing onthe back and that's basically
the, and we have it on theslides too.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, it's the barcode and the well we can show
that in a little bit.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
But it's basically the barcode that all the
libraries and the US system.
It's actually internationalright and so it just keeps track
of the number that's assignedto that book Right, and each
book has a different number.
So a paperback book has adifferent number than the
hardback book Right, and theAudible has a different number
than the Kindle Right, so Ithink we ended up getting like
(14:27):
10 ISBNs.
Yeah, exactly, we got a block of10 ISBN numbers because we knew
we were going to use at leastone or two for the hardback and
the paperback.
And I don't even think Audible.
I think Audible was.
Maybe Audible and Kindle werekind of newish or hadn't even
come out yet.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I think the Audible was, but I don't think a Kindle
was out at that time.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I don't even think Audible was.
I mean, well, maybe it was, Idon't know.
But either way, we started withthe hardback and actually you
had put up the Blown for Goodsite and asked people who were
following your posts on OCMB,which was Operation Clambake.
Back in the good old days You'dask people to say, hey, just
(15:15):
shoot us an email, register youremail if you're interested in
getting a copy of the book whenwe release it.
So we kind of already had builtup a database.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I think we had a thousand people that said when
the book comes out, I'll buy itand I'll buy it.
And we even did.
I think we even asked whatprice they would pay for it yes
because we said hey, would you?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
and would you prefer paperback or hardback?
That's right, because that'swhen we decided, okay, let's
just do the hardback, and wefigured out how to cover the
production costs ourselves insuch a way that we would then
make that money back, hopefully,if everything was basically we
figured we needed about $25,000to do everything and then if we
(16:00):
sold a thousand copies at $25each, then we'd make that Right.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
So we just need to sell a thousand copies to make
it, so that we're not in thehole on the book.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Right and and in order to get a bulk price on the
printing of the of the hardback, we printed 5,000 copies.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
That's right.
That was like, basically, thelower you make, the more
expensive each copy is.
So we needed to get the pricedown to like a few dollars a
book, and so the only way wecould do that was to print 5,000
of them, and we we kind ofwondered if we were going to
have 5,000 books, I think.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I think I remember that the cost of the printing a
hardback, by my recollection,ended up being around $8.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
For the prod cost yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
No, no, no, not that didn't count the other
associated costs.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
That was just the production of something like
that.
It's been a minute.
I mean this was 2000.
I have a spreadsheet somewhere.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Cost that was just just the production of something
like that.
It's been a minute, I mean yeah, this was 2000.
I have a spreadsheet somewhereit has it all like calculated
for anyone wondering mark is aspreadsheet guru.
Uh, I'm the quickbooks guru.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
He's the spreadsheet guru and you know actually who
taught me that, who mitchbrisker oh, there you go, mitch
brisker used to have a softwarecompany that made a budget thing
for um.
I want to say it was commercialum like tv commercial
productions yeah, I did not knowhad a, the director and the
(17:36):
cast and the sets and the lightsand the locations and you'd
plug all that in and it wouldbasically you could control your
budget and see what all thecosts were to be able to submit
a budget for approval in thestudio system or in Hollywood,
in the industry.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And so he knew how he knew all these shortcuts and
commands and ways you could doreally fancy stuff in Excel,
yeah, microsoft Excel, yeah, andso, yeah.
So I think that was like backin 1995.
So since 1995, I've kind ofbeen like a spreadsheet nerd,
yeah, anyway.
(18:12):
So, yes, we did, so we werepaying about.
Let's just say it's eight buckseach, yeah, something like that
.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Either way it was a lot, and especially given like
we were just freshly out.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
We were four years into our real lives, in the real
world, with a three-year-oldand a one-year-old and both
full-time jobs.
Yeah, Both had full-time jobsand yeah, so it was.
It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, it was a lot.
I will agree with that.
Okay, so then I'm right.
So then I'm, I'm basicallywriting the book.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And Claire has to line up everything.
So what did you have to line up?
And there's some funny parts ofthis too.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, okay.
So first of all I obviouslystarted reading it as you were
going, because we kind of agreedthat you know whatever we were
working together on that piece.
So then we had to find aneditor and we ended up actually
with two different editors onewho had never been in
(19:19):
Scientology, and you can tellthe story of the other one.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Well, yeah, so we wanted to make sure that
non-Scientologists or peoplethat weren't familiar with
Scientology would be able to getthrough it, because in
Scientology they have a lot oflingo, they use abbreviations
and they literally have theirown language Scientologies.
That is Scientology, and if twoScientologists are talking to
(19:46):
each other in Scientologies,most anybody around them would
not really be able to understandwhat they're talking about.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Depending on how heavy they use it, but between
the abbreviations and the words,the made-up words, they don't
mean anything outside ofScientology.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Right, but conversely a Scientologist, if you say oh,
I'm in Scientology if you don'tknow and use that lingo.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Like if you call the auditing counseling, then they
go oh, this person wasn't inScientology because, you would
never call auditing counseling,you would always just call it
auditing or going in session.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Correct, yeah, and the words are interchangeable in
the outside world, but they arenot used in scientology.
Like you never call an auditora counselor, ever, um, ever,
ever I'm gonna adjust yourcamera all right, we're having
an earthquake there you go umanyway.
So so that was a a reallysignificant editorial decision
(20:49):
in relation to your book,because I think it's fair to say
that your goal was to yourtarget audience were those
people in Scientology to letthem know the true nature of the
psychopath known as DavidMiscavige and what really goes
on behind the scenes and that,and which they're supporting.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, so basically, yeah, it was two tiers.
It needed to.
Scientologists needed to beable to read it and go okay,
that 100% happened.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And then a non-Scientologist or somebody
who had somebody that thatworked in the Sea Org or worked
at the Int Base.
They could see what washappening to their loved one or
their the person that they knew,yep, and then just the general
public to see, to expose theabuses and what was happening.
So it had to hit, it had to beable to be read by all three of
(21:43):
those groups of people and makesome sense and and and have
enough lingo that you can seethat it's crazy and have enough
normal translations so thatyou'd understand what was
happening.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Right, and that was a very difficult task.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Well, because she wanted us to take out most of
the lingo.
She said there's no way it'shard to get through this because
there's so much lingo.
And so we kind of weingo.
She said there's no way it'shard to get through this because
there's so much lingo.
And so we kind of we took out abit.
We kind of we kind of softenedthat a little bit.
But I really did feel that tobe a true representation we had
(22:24):
to use a bunch of the lingo, andwe had to.
So Scientologists would knowthat this 100% is something
that's real, because if we don'tuse the right lingo, it doesn't
it when a Scientologist hearssomebody talk about Scientology
and they they don't know thingsor they say weird things that
(22:46):
they don't understand.
A lot of times they go well,that person was never in
Scientology because they're notusing the language that we use
in Scientology, so it must beweird.
And also there is a weird thingabout like body thetan and
thetan.
In Scientology they talk aboutthetans all the time, just a
human thetan, but when you getonto the upper levels they talk
(23:10):
about body Thetans, which areseparate from a Thetan, because
a body Thetan is oddly an alienthat doesn't have a body and
that's sort of like their soul.
It's just the Thetan from analien body.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, I would.
I would say that probably thereason they're called body
Thetans is because the conceptthat Hubbard first envisioned is
that they're, you know, stuckto one's body.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yes, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Anyway, it is a contradiction.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It's a weird thing.
So when you say to a sign, ifyou it's one of thousands of
conversations, to be fair.
But even when I heard, when Iwatched the South park thing and
they started talking about bodythings, I'm like, oh, this is
not real, because that's not athing.
But the more you go, you go.
Oh no, that is a thing.
I just never knew about thatthing, so anyway.
(24:00):
So she wanted us to take out abunch of the lingo, of the lingo
we then had.
We took out a little bit of thewing lingo and then we had the
same guy who, who edited all ofscientology's books.
Yeah, be the editor of my book,and he could.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
He had escaped.
Yeah, just recently.
Yes, so he escaped.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I think, like, uh, two or three years before we did
yeah, and that was a gentlemanby the name of Dan Kuhn which,
if anybody was a Scientologist,he plays Joe Howard of the
original film that shows you howto do training routines TRs in
Scientology, and he worked inRon's Technical Research and
(24:45):
Compilations Division at thebase or the Senior case
supervisor unit international,so between those two he was very
highly technically trained inthe scientology processes and
auditing and counseling and allthat.
Yeah, but he also waspersonally trained by l ron
(25:05):
hubbard, and l ron hubbarddirected the film on how you do
TRS training routines, which islike really, really, that's
where you stare at the wall andyou stare at a person and you
they yell at you and you're notsupposed to react and all that
good stuff.
He essentially was the model ofhow to do that for all
Scientologists.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Right, he and Lyman's uh, no, him and Bob.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Bob Waldman.
Bob Waldman Waldo.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Were the main actors.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, in that film.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And then he went on to edit a lot of Scientology
books.
Most of the ones that are outtoday like official Scientology
versions of L Ron Hubbard'sbooks.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Dan Kuhn is the one who edited a lot of those, if
not all of them, Anyway.
So he edited the book and hedidn't take out a lot of lingo
at all.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
No.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I think he really just kind of made it like fixed
my grammatical inefficiencies.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
we'll say I was going to use the word gymnastics.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Gymnastics, Anyway.
So yeah.
So he fixed a lot of that upand um and then when claire's
reading this book she finds outit can't be over 400 pages if
it's a first, like a.
It's sort of like a weirdgeneral rule yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
It's just the recommendation for a memoir.
I mean, you know it's.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Don't make it more than 400 pages, Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So I just kind of laid that down for you as a law.
It's not exactly a law, ofcourse there are longer ones,
but especially for a subject socomplex and involved, for a for
a subject so complex, yeah, um,and involved, you know it.
Just, I think that it it justneeded to get to the point and
(26:56):
and be something that peoplewere able to consume and we
didn't need blown for good theben-hur edition, yeah we didn't
want people blown for good fromreading blown for good anyway,
so.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
so the book, as I wrote it, was 800 and something
pages.
Yeah, by the time it made itinto the book it got cut,
basically in half.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
And we really what we did was we took out any stories
that kind of already happenedor like if there was some sort
of physical abuse or tortureyeah well, we took out three of
those and left the one wethought was the most
demonstrable of how thatoccurred yeah, but we also.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
The other thing we did is because we were expecting
nonsense from Scientology,anything that you weren't
directly involved in right.
That was like you knew about it, but you weren't physically
there.
You heard about, about it fromsomeone else, so it was purely
your experiences and what yousaw, what you witnessed.
(27:58):
You know all of that.
That was the primary focus ofwhat we, how we decided what
would stay and what would go.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
That's right, and if we'd already kind of covered it
between those two things we werelike, well, we already talked
about this kind of nonsense hereand also it might've even
involved the same people, just adifferent story of the same
group, like meetings, or, youknow, musical chairs, like of
the whole.
The whole kind of started justthe last few years we were there
(28:28):
.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It did Like the last year and a half and it
originally was the SP room inthose trailers and even that was
just psychotic and insane atthe time, even to us, even in
that world we're like what?
On earth is going on.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, so there were probably a year or two of whole
stories and it was like, well,what's the most crazy?
Like, what did we think when wewere there was the most crazy?
And the musical chairs thingwas sort of that were gone to.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
yeah, to make all those people believe that they
were getting shipped off likethe tickets were printed.
Air plane tickets, everything,yeah, um and it took.
It took hours and hours, andhours to go.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I mean, I want to say it started midday and it went
all day, all night and into thewheat, like I think we, I, when
the end of the story is done andI'm leaving the hole.
I want to say it was like twoor three in the morning.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I yeah, that's that matches what I remember too so.
I wasn't in that meeting, yeah,but you were kind of, I think
you had come in a few times orno.
Nobody was allowed in, oh notduring the musical tears, but at
that time is when I wasinternal exec in Religious
Technology Center, so I was overthe internal stuff.
(29:58):
But the person who worked underme, Liz Rossi, is the person
who was printing off all thoseairline tickets.
So I knew something bizarre wasafoot, but nobody was allowed
to talk to it, talk about it.
Nobody was allowed to go in orout of that meeting.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
It was it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Anyway.
So.
So there is somewhere, I don'teven know where we have all that
.
There might just be an 800 pageversion of all this nonsense.
And then, okay, so that'shappening.
Okay, then we have to designthe actual book, so we have to
design the cover and the map ofthe international headquarters,
(30:39):
and all that stuff has to bemade by somebody.
And so, again, we don't live inthe book publishing world.
So we found out that the guywho designed all the Scientology
books had also escaped.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, really really great guy.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Amazing dude.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Super amazing designer, also Very talented.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Yeah, like kind of like a prodigy in terms of
design.
He was in the Sea Org when helearned all of this.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Right and he.
I don't know what his back.
I've never actually asked himwhat his backstory was, but I
know he's.
What was he from?
What country is he from?
I can't remember Finland, orSweden, or I always mix these up
.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I want to say a Scandinavian area.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
There you go.
Sorry if he ever watches this.
Sorry, Callie.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Anyway.
So this guy, callie, heactually was the one who
designed all of the covers, thespines, the interior text, the
glossary everything and he didsuch an amazing job.
And um and so when the book wasdone we sent him a copy and it
(31:58):
was all done.
We said here you go we.
We had kind of talked to himwhen the manuscript was done.
Yeah, but we had talked to himbeforehand on how he would want
to get it and what type of filesand formats and how he would
get the whole thing.
And then he said, yes, I'mgoing to, I'm going to do a
cover.
I'm going to do it's calledlike front matter, back matter,
(32:19):
all of the things that make upthe cover, the inside of the
cover, the beginning parts ofthe book, the preface, the
author's note, the beginningparts of the book, the preface,
the author's note, the table ofcontents, all that stuff, yeah.
And then at the end of the bookthere's stuff.
And then in this book there'sphotos or maps on the insides of
(32:40):
the book so you can see all ofthe places that we're talking
about.
In the book there's an entiremap of the.
I'll put it on this camera.
There's an entire map of the.
I'll put it on this camera.
There's an entire map of theinternational headquarters.
That's numbered and it listsout all of the individual
buildings and what their namesare and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yep, and also I wanted to say too so in the.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'll put this up and see if that yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Also in the front cover, next to the contents.
So you have to have all of thistext generated.
Yeah, also in the front covernext to the contents.
So you have to have all of thistext generated.
Yeah, this text here, perfect.
Yeah, which says this you haveto.
It has to be very, very preciseto comply with the library
rules.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yes, it can go into library.
It has who wrote it, theLibrary of Congress number, the
ISBN, the address, all of thatstuff has to be in there and so,
yeah, so we had to do that andthen you know, like a title page
contents.
The other thing we had to dofor this book is we had to make
(33:46):
a glossary, for sure, becausethere's so much Scientologies.
The other thing we had to dofor this book is we had to make
a glossary for sure becausethere's so much Scientology's.
I think the glossary is like 30or 40 pages.
It's not, it's not nothing, Idon't know.
Actually, I have to look.
I'm sorry guys, I'm justexcited about this Glossary 343
(34:09):
to, yeah, 383.
So it is literally the glossaryin this book is 40 pages long.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And so that was important that we have that Also
.
We put an index in there so wecould see.
If you just wanted to look up aspecific person or something
that happened, you could gothere and then the police report
.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
So let's talk about that for a minute, because we
didn't have the police reportwhen we printed the book.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
It was when the paperback came out that we
entered.
We put the police report in,which is basically the very
beginning of the book, and thevery end of the book is me
escaping on my motorcycle andthem running me off the road,
and then the police coming andthen the police helping me get
away, and that was all in thebook in the hardback.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
But you did not even know that there was a police
report.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
That's right and also that's.
Another crazy thing is that Itell the story, but that's it
Just my side of it.
So I think it was about a yearor two after the hardback came
out.
There was a gentleman by thename of Anon Orange Anonymous
(35:28):
Orange it was a protester,scientology protester First.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Second, I thought you were going to say his name.
I was like, don't say it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, no, his name was Anon Orange and he was a.
Scientology protester that waspart of Anonymous and he would
protest at the base.
And he went to Riverside Countyand filed a Freedom of
Information Act request to seeif there were any documents
related to a Mark Headley aroundthis date.
And he got a ping.
They wouldn't let him get thedocument because he wasn't
(35:56):
involved in the incident, right.
But he was able to alert methat there was a document and
then I could just file my ownrequest and for like $8, they'd
send me a copy of it.
And so because they'd alreadydug it up and he already got
exactly, he asked him what do Ineed to give to the guy that
this is related to so he can getthe report?
So I had everything.
(36:18):
I just filled it out and sentit in and then they sent me a
copy of the report and the factthat the report it 100% matches
the story I tell.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
But then it fills in the entire police part of it and
the sheriffs and what they'redoing.
And then also, I suspected whowas in the cars that were
following us from the property,even when the police were
tailing me.
Police were tailing me, but Ididn't 100% know that it was
(36:53):
Bruce Wagner and there wasn'tanybody else in the vehicle, or
that it was Muriel, but therewasn't anybody else, or that
there were three.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
how many three security guards?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
In the vehicle.
That's right, that was anotherthing.
I didn't know is I didn't knowthat who was in the security
vehicle that didn't get out.
I only knew Danny because hewas messing with me, right.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Danny Dunnigan.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Danny Dunnigan.
Yeah, danny Dunnigan.
Anyway, so it's a very thepolice report is kind of amazing
.
Yeah, it is.
And then, regarding theglossary, the glossary that's in
my book is actually on theBlown for Good website, because
we talk about a lot.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Oh it't, I didn't remember that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is because we do so many, we
talk about so much lingo in thevideos that we were like, well,
we should probably, um, weshould probably put them, the
glossary, somewhere besides ourum, besides the book, I'm, I'm,
I'm, I'm.
You can look?
Yeah, look for sure, because Iremember that we put it up there
(37:50):
when we originally redid thesite.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah, I definitely remember that we talked about it
.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Here's the guy guys.
This is going to see if mymemory is correct or not.
I haven't been to the websitein years.
I think I'd go there to checkif it's working when somebody
says it got hacked or whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Well, I'm not seeing it right now.
Don't back up YouTube blown forgood, podcast, other
appearances, books and merch.
It's in there, okay, all right.
Well, if it's not?
Speaker 1 (38:19):
then resources go to resource.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I went there.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Dang it, Janet.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I know either way.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
We'll find it.
We'll put a link in thedescription If it's still up
there.
It was up there Anyway it's allgood Either way.
It up there.
Anyway, it's all good.
Either way, it's a good idea tohave it on the BFG site, it is.
That's why it was there, anyway.
So what else do we do?
We got okay, so so all this ishappening, the guy's designing
the book.
Oh, then we got to print thebook, so Callie Hickey does the
(38:49):
design.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yep, and for anyone who's wondering or has maybe
thought about it, yes, werigorously research things,
wouldn't you agree with that?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Well, just on dates.
No, but I mean like on thisprocess, like we pretty much oh,
to make the book yes, oh, yeah,I'd say we over plan and
average, execute Like we try to.
We try to figure out as manyobstacles that will come up and
(39:22):
how to avoid them in the earlyprocess so that we can dodge
that.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So we had to print the book now.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Who are we going to get to print the book, babe?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Right.
So little old me starts, youknow, searching up publishers
and just calling around andgetting quotes and it's like,
okay, here we go, we've got abook we want to print, and how
long is it going to take?
And all this Because meanwhilewe're also trying to finalize
the release date and we wantedit to coincide with a
(39:55):
significant date.
Yeah, so, yeah.
So we eventually, actually, thepublisher we used, or the
printer I should say that weused for the hardback was a
company that I found in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And so they walked me through exactly what we needed
to provide and what the timelinewould look like, like, and so
on and so forth.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, and then they made the books and I think we
had them in like October, Ithink is when we got them.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yes, and we got, we got.
So we got the galley first.
That's right.
And we had which?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
is like the proof of the book it's printed but it's
not bound, and all the finaleverything, but it's just bound.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And all the final everything, but it's just like
okay, this is what it's going tolook like yeah, so you can
check to make sure that all thetext is correctly on the page
and that the map looked good andthat the type setting looked
good and and all of that.
It's kind of like your lasthail mary before you just say,
okay, go for it, you're gonnahave 5 000 of these you know,
once sign that anything that'swrong, that's on you.
(40:57):
Exactly, you have to sign onthe dotted line.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Last chance for romance baby.
And then okay, so we print thebooks, we get all the books, and
now we're living in a house inBurbank by this time.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeah, not a big house .
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Like a 1,600-square-foot house.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, not a big house , like a 1600 square foot house.
Yeah, if that yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Anyway, and we have the kids have rooms, and we have
a room and those giant livingroom right as you walk in and it
just has pallets and pallets.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh my gosh, I remember the day that those
pallets showed up.
It was so overwhelming becauseyou think like it's just a
number until you actuallyreceive them, and it was 32
books per box.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
So yeah, 32 copies of the hardback book.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
You're right, oh yeah .
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I'm definitely right.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, I know the paperback has a larger amount,
it's 44.
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I ship all the books I should know.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yes, has a large, has a larger 44.
Yeah, there you ship all thebooks.
I should know.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yes, anyway, so we get all these, yeah, and all
these.
So for anyone watching, you cando the math 5 000 divided by 32
is how many?
boxes we had at our small littlehouse in burbank.
And, of course again, because,like you, uh, you worked in the
manufacturing division of GoldenEra Productions, so you were
all about creating a productionline and, like, what boxes are
(42:23):
we going to use and how are wegoing to print the shipping
labels, and all of that?
Yeah, so, and you wanted tohave it all in place and ready
to go before we announced,before we sent out the emails.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's right, I wasn't going to.
I wasn't going to say, uh,order the book Like we did the
pre order, like kind of suss outlike how many people will buy
it.
And then I said, okay, well, inorder to make it so we can sell
all those, we need to at leastbasically prep 1000 books,
(42:57):
Correct?
And so we boxed up all thebooks that we could and I think
we signed like the first 500books or something like that.
The first everybody who did apre-order got a signed book at
first.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, and my favorite part of that story it's a
little bit of a side story, butso, yeah, we, you signed the
first 500 copies and we foundout several years later, uh,
during our lawsuit, when we werein deposition they had a signed
copy they did.
They had one of those, thosethat first Office of Special
(43:37):
Affairs handed you your book andI remember you saying you
looked and you're like look atyou.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
You guys bought a signed copy.
You bought a signed copy Freeorder signed copy.
Good for you.
Thanks for the 25 bucks you got.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, and, by the way , scientology entered Mark's
book as evidence in our lawsuitbecause of one sentence in there
where he says where Mark sayshe probably possibly would have
left much earlier had it notbeen for me still being there.
Yes, doesn't matter, all theabuse all the but the but.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
When they did that they sort of made it.
So they're in, they're enteringthe book in their favor as fact
Right, so they can't thendispute the book and say that
it's not fact Exactly.
Because they're using it intheir favor, anyway, okay.
So we box up all those books,we get everything ready, we say
(44:31):
everybody okay, good, it's goingto come out on November 9th.
I think it was the date rightit?
Was november 5th oh yeah, uhremember, remember the 5th of
november gum powder trees andthen plot yes, so anonymous has.
There's a day where they wouldkind of like the guy fox thing
comes from november.
(44:52):
November, the 5th of NovemberRemember remember, remember 5th
of November, anyway.
So he said, okay, we'll have itcome out on that day, and by
this time anonymous had beenprotesting Scientology for um
almost two years.
Yeah, it was, they were.
They were going wild for a bitthere and um.
So there was a lot of eyes onthe subject of the abuse based
(45:17):
on all these posts that I'd doneon the Internet.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
People were finding out more about it and that this
was the flush out of all ofthose stories and more all in
one place.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah, not to be the bearer of bad news, but we might
want to make a part two on thisto go through the rest.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
We've got 15 minutes.
We'll jam it up.
This video is going to redirectinto the aftermath.
Yes, the Aftermath Foundationfeed, episode two.
Yes, that Claire and Phil willbe doing.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
And Claire will magically transport from this
studio to another studio betweenthe end of this video and the
start of that video yeah, I'mjust going to jump through that
little portal that you set upwith your technological genius
and boom bob's your uncle okay,we're almost there.
Okay, fair enough, it's themaking of the book.
It's printed.
(46:08):
We're like on the tail end Iunderstand, I understand okay,
so, um, we send all those peoplepre-orders, the people that
pre-ordered.
We basically said okay, good,here's your thing, you can order
them.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
You'll be the first to get them, and the first 500
copies are signed by me.
Yep, and here we go.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yep, and originally we were just doing that all
through the BFG website, so theorders would come through that
platform.
Amazon was just starting out.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
It was in the baby days at that Well of you being
able to sell your own stuff onthere and how to get it to be a
seller.
And we had basically set thatup and the idea was if we could
sell enough of the paper, thehardbacks, to pay for the cost
of printing it and and people,and it was well received and
(46:59):
everybody didn't just say, oh,this is a, paint this thing
green and throw it in the drink.
It's no good that.
We would then do a paperbackand then a Kindle and then an
audible and so on and so forth.
Yeah, and I want to say in thefirst week we sold a thousand
copies.
We did In the first week wesold a thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
And again, this is all happening out of our living
room with our, you know, inbetween our day jobs and our
three-year-old and ourone-year-old.
And so it was ironic to us atthe time that you sent out that
announcement email for everyonewho had pre-ordered or not.
They didn't pre-order, they hadsaid they would.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
They basically committed to buying a copy if it
came out.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
They hadn't paid.
But anyway, the point beingthat Mark and I they pledged
support.
Yes, there you go.
Mark and I laughed about thefact that the first time we had
to stay up all night sinceescaping was for a book about
staying up all night.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
We were like we got to pull an all nighter to get
all these things out.
We didn't think we we thoughtwe'd get maybe a hundred or
maybe a couple hundred orders,but we didn't think we're going
to get thousands of orders rightaway.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
No, maybe a couple hundred orders, but we didn't
think we were going to getthousands of orders right away,
no, so yeah, our packaging daysfrom, you know, slaving away at
the base definitely came inhandy.
And um, we got it all done.
And we had to make severaltrips to the post office, you
know each day.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
And um, yeah, sometimes we go twice a day.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
We were going in the morning and we were going at the
end of the day, yeah, exactlyum, okay, good, so then we ship
all those out.
Meanwhile, claire's getting allthe amazon stuff set up, so as
soon as everybody that got itthrough the website um wants it
and gets it.
There was a lot of people thatsaid if you put it on amazon,
I'll buy it on amazon yes sothen we were like because when
(48:55):
you sell it through Amazon,Amazon wants to take a big cut
of it.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
At least 30%.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
At least 30%.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
And then it's been different over the years.
But they charge you warehousefees and then a fulfillment fee.
And so there's if you sell iton Amazon and you fulfill it,
you get a little bit more money.
But as soon as you're sendingboxes and boxes of books to
Amazon to have at theirwarehouses, it goes from you
(49:24):
giving them 30% to them givingyou 30%.
So it basically goes fromaround 30% to 70% is the Amazon
fee.
So you sell more books becausethey have more reach, but you
get a third of what you weregetting when you were selling
them yourself and fulfillingthem yourself.
(49:44):
Yeah, so we did it on Amazon aswell.
And then, immediately when theystarted selling on Amazon,
people started buying them andselling them for like $300.
And there's still copies onthere today for $300.
Don't buy those, don't buy themon Amazon.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
We stopped selling them on Amazon and now just sell
them directly through the Blownfor Good website for retail
cost.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
It's basically a giant waste of time for us to
sell them on Amazon.
It's not that hard to get themfrom our website.
It's just a regular store.
You can use all the samepayment methods and all that,
and you get the book within twoor three days.
We send it out the same day,almost the same day we get an
order.
We send it out.
In almost all cases, you'll getit within a week, no matter
(50:31):
where you are, unless you'relike, sometimes they get lost in
transit if you're going to likeAustralia or New Zealand or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Sometimes it takes a little bit longer, and that's
happened, I can count on onehand, since 2009.
How many times we've had toship a replacement and we do
that and then, six months later,the first shipment will come
back to us?
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all good.
And then once, oh, and thenthat was another thing that
happened.
So, once it was, it gotaccepted into the Amazon store
and all that, um, we were, wefilled all the other orders.
This is all still in the firstweek.
Yeah, we filled all the thewebsite orders that we got from
the blown for goodcom website,Yep, and then we weren't getting
(51:16):
any Amazon orders and it waslike what's the deal?
It's been live for like a week.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, no, so hold on.
So it happened to be the timingof it, was that?
So we sent out the, thepre-order email, or you know,
the, to the email to everyonewho said they wanted to buy a
copy.
Then, mark, they wanted to buya copy.
Then, mark, you startedreaching out to any and all
media contacts.
We had.
Oh, that's right, and youstarted doing-.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
I went on Coast to Coast AM, which is like a
nightly kind of like space alienradio show.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
But before that you did so, Tony Ortega put it up on
the Village Voice.
Yes, there were all thesethings.
And then so, right around that,it was like we were getting
ready to go visit your familyfor Thanksgiving and you had a
two-hour interview on Coast toCoast.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
And that was the first time and the first
platform where you said okay,you can buy it on Amazon.
That's right, that was thefirst time.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Because we had just gotten it all up and running.
Yeah, and it was ready and time.
And because we had just gottenit all up and running and it was
ready and we were like, okay,great, let's do it.
So now, because we knew frompeople oh well, when you get it
on Amazon, you will, I'll buy itthere.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
So we figured on this big radio show.
It would make way more sense tojust say you can go to our
website too.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
I think we did say if or you can go to our website.
Yeah, so we got a few orders inon our website.
But there were even peoplebecause that interview you did
was two hours long and it wasvery entertaining for many
reasons which we won't get intohere but there were also people
who commented during the showlike oh, I bought it on Amazon,
I just bought it on Amazon, Ijust bought it on Amazon.
(52:54):
So we go to Amazon and there'sno orders and we're like what is
happening, so, and then we'resupposed to leave the next
morning with our kids forThanksgiving road trip.
So, I call Amazon, I'm like, hey, we know for sure.
We've had people tell us theyordered the book and they're
like, oh yeah, you go to thislittle box here and you change
(53:16):
approved to pending.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
And then it was like Well, but at first they said
they flagged it.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yes, they did, because nobody launches an
Amazon shop and then all of asudden has tons and tons and
tons of orders within a two hourperiod, at one o'clock in the
morning, little sus.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Well, because the show starts at like 10 o'clock
and goes to 1 am.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Anyway.
So we sold a ton of copies.
When we figured out where itwas, Then we had to stay up all
night.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Again.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Getting all of these books processed and going
through the Amazon and printingout the label, and it's a lot of
work too.
It is.
When you, it was more work thanthe way we were doing it just
through our website.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Because all we did was put a packing slip in there
and a label.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah, and then you have to, you have to make sure
to confirm the order and add inthe tracking, and then Amazon,
yeah, put the shipping info intothe Amazon website.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Oh my gosh, it was a lot.
But so we ended up selling aton of books and then after that
we did the paperback.
Which how much time we got.
We got to hurry, we got aboutfive minutes.
We did the paperback.
And when we did the paperbackwe got the woman who worked in
religious technology center andwas in charge of printing all of
(54:33):
Scientology's publications, whohad escaped by this time.
And we knew, and we were, wewere talking with her.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
And she had a printing company at the time.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
And she had a printing company and the
paperback was actually printedat a place called Hill and Noten
right Wasn't it Hill and Notenno, it was RR Donnelly, rr
Donnelly, rr Donnelly.
Yes, and RR Donnelly wasprinting Scientology things at
that time and it's funny becausein the story of Dianetics
(55:07):
Hubbard talks about, when hispublication was about to be
printed, there was a psychiatryor psychology book that was
coming off the line and as thatwent off the line, the next one
coming was Dianetics.
That is exactly what happenedwith this book when the girl,
when the woman who was in chargeof the printing, when she was
(55:28):
at the printer to check how thebook was coming on the printers,
scientology was at the printerchecking on how their magazine
was printing at the exact sametime.
They have a broad sheet.
At the time they produced it,it was called the International
Scientology News, isn, and itwas coming off the line on this
(55:49):
press and Blown for Good was onthe press next door coming off
that line.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
Anyway, fun story.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Anything else Should we do a giveaway?
Next door coming off that lineAnyway, fun story.
Anything else Should we do agiveaway?
Speaker 2 (55:58):
Yep, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Anyway, if you guys want the book Blown for Good,
you can get it on my website.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:05):
You can also, on Amazon, get the Kindle version
or the Audible version, becausethose don't require us shipping
anything.
Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, and if we missed any questions that we ran
through, we will.
We can just go through and andif there's enough questions
about what we've covered intoday's episode, we can do a
book Q and a episode as afollow-up.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Okay, good, and then I will put a teaser in here,
because we took so long on this.
We didn't get to it, but we Iposted on our community page on
YouTube and then also over on Xon the Blown for Good handle.
On X there's a photo of DavidMiscavige and Tom Cruise on
their cruise crotch rockets in abasement in California.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
They're missing your facial expressions.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Oh yeah, sorry about that.
There's a picture of DavidMiscavige and Tom Cruise down in
the basement of the celebritycenter on their crotch rockets
and I just wanted to see ifanybody could take that photo
and do a funny AI version ofsomething or whatever.
We have gotten in a lot ofreally hilarious submissions on
(57:08):
that and whoever we, I thinkwe'll do the top three, the top
three best ones.
We'll do a giveaway.
It'll be a, it could be a Zinu,uh, zinu desk mat, like you see
there, zinu and the body,thetans, um, it could be um,
whatever you want from the SPstore.
Anyway, the three bestsubmissions that we get in that
(57:29):
that use that and manipulatethat image with AI.
Yep, you're going to winsomething.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yep.
Um all right.
So I'm going to say bye andjump over, jump through my
portal, Bye everybody Jumpthrough your portal.
Please tune in to the Michael JRinder Aftermath Foundation
Foundation Feed Series numbertwo with Phil Jones and I in two
minutes.
Awesome, See you, honey.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Bye, bye.
Okay, let's do a giveaway realquick.
Can I do this?
I can do this.
I'm a big boy, I can do this.
I'm going to do this.
Okay, here we go.
Oh, we almost got 100 people onthe comments.
That's good.
Is that what it says?
I can't tell.
I'm not wearing my glasses,guys.
I got contacts so I can seebarely.
(58:11):
Okay, here we go.
Ohil came up a bunch of timesand the winner is amy rubin.
Congratulations, amy.
Uh, email claire.
Go or go to the website.
Mark's talking too much.
Thank you, love food kitchen.
Um, I appreciate that.
That's what I'm supposed to do.
You didn't tune in to look atthis ugly mug, did you?
(58:32):
Um, hello from denmark.
Thank you for that.
Let's see what we got here.
I got about 10 more seconds.
Congratulations, amy.
Send an email to Claire or goto the blownforgoodcom contact
page and you can just tell herthat you won and what you want,
and she'll send you a link andyou can just order it and it'll
(58:54):
ship to you for free.
That's pretty much it.
I've got to get out of herebecause I've got to feed over to
their feed.
So thank you for joining ustoday, guys, if you want to get
an update on what's happeningwith the Aftermath billboard
campaign, then just stay righthere and it's going to spit you
right into the AftermathFoundation feed episode two,
(59:15):
over on the Aftermath FoundationYouTube channel.
Thank you and until next time.
Thanks for watching.
If you'd like to help supportthe channel, feel free to check
out the merch store link in thedescription.
(59:38):
Zeno is my Homeboy and BFTbranded mouse pads, shirts, mugs
, all sorts of other stuff inthere that helps us to bring you
new content on a regular basis.
You can also pick up a copy ofmy book Blown for Good Behind
the Iron Curtain of Scientologyin hardback, kindle and audible
versions as well.
There's also a link to ourpodcast and you can get that on
Apple, spotify or wherever youlisten to podcasts, and if you'd
(01:00:00):
like to watch another video,you can click on this link right
here, or you can click on thisone here, or you can click on
the subscribe button right here.
Thanks a lot, until next timeyou.
Hey guys, welcome back to the channel.
Welcome to another episode ofBlown for Good Scientology
Exposed.
I'm Mark Hedley and I'm joinedby my lovely wife, claire, here
today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, hey, hey, thanks for being here.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Today's episode is going to be something different,
a little bit different.
Back in 2000, let's say 2006and 2007, I was posting a lot of
stuff on the Internet under thehandle of blown for good, which
is basically in Scientologylingo that just means somebody
(00:49):
who's escaped and who's notgoing to be able to get brought
back, not going to be able to berecovered, and I posted tons of
stories and incidents that hadoccurred at the Scientology
International Headquarters inGilman Hot Springs, california.
At the ScientologyInternational Headquarters in
Gilman Hot Springs, california,and probably from 2006 to 2008,
(01:10):
I got a ton of people writing tome saying, hey, you should put
this into a book and release itand just basically tell all of
the stories of what happened toyou while you were at the
property.
And I was at the internationalheadquarters from 1990 to 2005.
So about 15 years.
(01:31):
And then Claire was also therefor about 12, 13 of those years
14.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yep, 14.
1991 until 2005.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
There you go.
Okay, and we were together.
That's probably what I.
We were together about 13 ofthose years.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay, good.
Anyway, there was a lot, a lotof people requesting that I
write this book, and then Claireand I started talking about it,
probably in early 2009,.
Right, yes, beginning of 2009,.
We were like, hey, I think wecould do this.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And one of the things that we did was we looked at
who had written books in thepast.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yes exactly?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And had anybody from the Int base written a book that
was in the Sea Org ScientologySea Org at the actual
international base?
A Sea Org, a Scientology SeaOrg at the actual international
base?
Because, to be honest, that'swhere about.
At the time, during that periodthat was, about 95% of the
nonsense was happening there,for sure.
And whatever happened therekind of it was like a trickle
(02:37):
down system.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
That kind of nonsense trickled down to all the other
Scientology organizations andSea Org units and all that kind
of stuff, because a lot of timespeople from that property, if
Canada the Continental LiaisonOffice in Canada was fluffing
the duff, then they put togetherwhat was called a command team
from the Ant Base and they'dsend those people to go turn
(03:03):
Canada around.
And because those people hadbeen being tortured and beat up
and yelled at and screamed at byDavid Miscavige for decades,
they thought that was howmanagement should be occurring.
So when they'd go there thensome of that, depending on the
people, would be more prevalentor not.
(03:23):
But in most cases it worked atthe AMP base.
So they thought so it'll workin Canada, or it'll work in
South Africa, or it'll work inEngland or whatever.
So anyway, there were peoplethat had written books prior Sea
Org members or Scientologiststhat had written books, but we
(03:45):
found that a lot of them wereactually never making it out
into the world.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
And what Scientology was doing was they were
basically threatening to sue thepublishers so that they
basically tell the publisher hey, you spent $150,000 on this
book so far.
We're going to make you spend$5 million in legal fees, so
you're not going to make anymoney on this book.
When we're done with you, thisbook's going to be a loser.
(04:14):
No matter what happens.
If you sell a million copies,it's still going to be a loser.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, and they had history of doing that with a
number of books like Jot Tech'sA Piece of Blue Sky, barefaced
Messiah by Russell Mellor.
There was a long history ofvery aggressive litigation to
shut down books.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, and then we started poking around the
community of ex-CORG members,ex-inn Bay staff members that
kind of loosely were nowstarting to talk to each other
yep and I think it was I want tosay it was karen schless had
written a book in 2008, I think,or somewhere around there 2007,
(04:57):
2008 this period before I haddecided we were going to write
this book.
For sure, and basically she waspaid by the publisher.
She wrote the book, she turnedin a manuscript and they said
and then during that time,somewhere in there Scientology
had made these threats and sothey paid her, but then the book
(05:20):
was never published.
So Scientology, she madewhatever she made, selling the
book to them.
I don't even know what that wasI don't think it was $150,000.
But whatever it was, she gotpaid and then never received any
royalties because the book wasnever printed.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
And usually that's how you make your money on a
book.
If you go through, a bigpublisher is from the royalties.
Yeah, so we basically decidedbased on all that and we'd kind
of already worked this out inour personal lives and in our
business lives which is the onlyway we can't get messed with is
(06:03):
if we're the ones that aredoing everything.
So if I work for this company,they can just threaten, they can
dig up some dirt on the boss ofthe company, and then they can
threaten him with the dirt theydug up on him.
If he doesn't fire me, they'regoing to expose his whatever
nonsense, any nonsense they canthink of or just make up.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So we we both started our own businesses because
we're not going to fireourselves after they dig up some
nonsense on us.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, and, of course, we had young kids.
We needed to have a reliablesource of income to get back on
our feet.
I mean, we had just, in 2005,started over with absolutely
nothing, literally nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, and no family, no real family support from any
of the family that were inScientology.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Right, we had no car, no resume, no clothes, no money
no house, no mortgage eithermind you, anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So it was obvious to us well, we have to self-publish
the book, yes.
And then there's different waysyou can self-publish a book,
and now this is back in 2009.
Now there's a million ways youcan get a book out yes, which
didn't really exist back then.
Correct.
So we decided we were going topublish the book ourselves.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
And we started a company that would then be the
company that would publish thebook.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yep.
And we did that verydeliberately because that way
the company would own the rightsto the book and it was
corporately established in sucha way, by the recommendation of
a number of people we consultedwith, so that we were protected.
(07:50):
And then, at the same time youwere writing the book, I said,
well, I'm fine with you writingthe book if that's what you need
to do, but let's get our willsdone, let's have our you know,
make sure we know we haveeverything sealed up and covered
.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, in case they get up to any nonsense, correct,
just in case.
Hopefully that doesn't happen,but just in case we're going to
get all this.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
But you know, I mean historically, we expected a
bunch of nonsense.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
We did.
And then basically, whathappened was I started writing
the book.
I want to say it was like Aprilor February or April when I
started writing the book.
I want to say I want to say itwas like April or February or
April.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, I think February.
Yeah, I mean you, you wrotethat fast.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, I wrote it in like two months.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, cause you would go to work, come home, and at
the time we were living in thehouse, we were renting a house
in Burbank that had a littleback.
The garage building had beenconverted into an office, so you
and I both had offices, smalllittle offices, in that building
and you would go into yourlittle cubby, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
But the office that was there was a studio Right.
So my tiny little office wasthe control room with a big
giant glass in it, and Claire'soffice was where they would set
up the band and all theinstruments and the singers and
whatever, and that was therecording room.
So the entire thing was coveredwith acoustic tiles my spot, my
(09:19):
half and Claire's half, and itwas all really really thick
carpeted, and Claire's half andit was all really really thick
carpeted so I could go in thereand type or record things or do
whatever, and and she could bein her office and I couldn't
hear her and she couldn't hearme at all.
So it was a very good setup.
So if she's on the phone doingbusiness stuff or I'm on the
(09:39):
phone, we can.
We were completely isolatedfrom each other, which was kind
of just a bonus the way it was.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, exactly, but yeah, so you would get home from
work, we'd eat dinner, you'dspend some time with the kids,
which, at the time, our kidswere one and three.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
They would go to bed.
You would go back to that room.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And crank out three or four kids.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And sometimes I want to say you would work at it
until three or four in themorning.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I would go in there, let's say, around nine or eight
or nine, after they were in bed,yeah, and then I just jam out
two or three chapters everynight, just boom, go through
them and the book right now isjust under 400 pages yes when I
finished writing it was 800 andsomething pages yeah so claire,
(10:34):
okay, so let's say that so I'mwriting the book and then
claire's like well, I'm gonnafigure out all the things we
have to do to publish the bookand to produce the book, and so
I started going through.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I got at least four or five books on how to
self-publish and the best onewas by.
It was called how toself-publish a book.
I think it was by Tom andMarilyn Ross, if I if I remember
correctly.
I should have looked that up,but either way, it covered
everything.
It was like a how-to guide,like a thick one-and-a-half-inch
(11:11):
book that just coveredeverything.
I read several other options aswell.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
By Marilyn Ross.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
There you go, the Complete Guide to
Self-Publishing.
That's what I read, that thingcover to cover, and it talked
all about because, because youremember, we had researched
print on demand and you know allthe different options.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That's what I was going to say.
So there's one of the ways youcan make a book is you just you
write the book.
You get a word file or whatever.
However, you write it whatever,whatever format they want it in
.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And then you send that to the publishing company
that you're working with andthen they design it and they
format it and they check it andthey edit it.
They do a ton of work thatbasically comes out of your
money or they charge you a feeto do it.
Depending on where you go, it'sdifferent, but in most cases
(12:08):
you need to spend probably$10,000 or $15,000 to get the
book to a form that can beproduced, and how that deal is
structured depends on the placeor how you're doing it, but in
the end usually they're sellingyour book and then you get a few
bucks.
You get a buck or two everytime they sell a book.
(12:29):
Right?
That's like best case scenario.
That's pretty much how it works.
If you go to a publishingcompany, they give you an editor
and they and these are allpeople that that's all they do
is they make books.
So they give you an editor towork with or a ghostwriter or
however you want to do it, andthen they design a cover and
they do all this stuff and theyalso take all that out of the
(12:54):
amount of money you're going toget paid.
If you're a big, well-knownperson, they could give you
anywhere from $50,000 to amillion dollars, and then once
the book is produced, then youget royalties.
After they've sort of madetheir money back and they've got
their nut covered, Then theygive you a little taste of the
action If you sell more than youknow 25,000 copies or 50,000
(13:18):
copies or a hundred, whateverthe deal is.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And so then, what did you do?
So then you read all that, andthen, once you read that there
was all these other things thatyou had to do, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So we went through the steps to pre-register the
copyright for your book.
There's very obviously getISBNs.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So that's that little barcode on the back of a book.
You think we'd have a bookafter we're done.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It's right on your other side.
There you go yeah.
So, there's a little thing onthe back and that's basically
the, and we have it on theslides too.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, it's the barcode and the well we can show
that in a little bit.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
But it's basically the barcode that all the
libraries and the US system.
It's actually internationalright and so it just keeps track
of the number that's assignedto that book Right, and each
book has a different number.
So a paperback book has adifferent number than the
hardback book Right, and theAudible has a different number
than the Kindle Right, so Ithink we ended up getting like
(14:27):
10 ISBNs.
Yeah, exactly, we got a block of10 ISBN numbers because we knew
we were going to use at leastone or two for the hardback and
the paperback.
And I don't even think Audible.
I think Audible was.
Maybe Audible and Kindle werekind of newish or hadn't even
come out yet.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I think the Audible was, but I don't think a Kindle
was out at that time.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I don't even think Audible was.
I mean, well, maybe it was, Idon't know.
But either way, we started withthe hardback and actually you
had put up the Blown for Goodsite and asked people who were
following your posts on OCMB,which was Operation Clambake.
Back in the good old days You'dask people to say, hey, just
(15:15):
shoot us an email, register youremail if you're interested in
getting a copy of the book whenwe release it.
So we kind of already had builtup a database.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I think we had a thousand people that said when
the book comes out, I'll buy itand I'll buy it.
And we even did.
I think we even asked whatprice they would pay for it yes
because we said hey, would you?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
and would you prefer paperback or hardback?
That's right, because that'swhen we decided, okay, let's
just do the hardback, and wefigured out how to cover the
production costs ourselves insuch a way that we would then
make that money back, hopefully,if everything was basically we
figured we needed about $25,000to do everything and then if we
(16:00):
sold a thousand copies at $25each, then we'd make that Right.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
So we just need to sell a thousand copies to make
it, so that we're not in thehole on the book.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Right and and in order to get a bulk price on the
printing of the of the hardback, we printed 5,000 copies.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
That's right.
That was like, basically, thelower you make, the more
expensive each copy is.
So we needed to get the pricedown to like a few dollars a
book, and so the only way wecould do that was to print 5,000
of them, and we we kind ofwondered if we were going to
have 5,000 books, I think.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I think I remember that the cost of the printing a
hardback, by my recollection,ended up being around $8.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
For the prod cost yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
No, no, no, not that didn't count the other
associated costs.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
That was just the production of something like
that.
It's been a minute.
I mean this was 2000.
I have a spreadsheet somewhere.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Cost that was just just the production of something
like that.
It's been a minute, I mean yeah, this was 2000.
I have a spreadsheet somewhereit has it all like calculated
for anyone wondering mark is aspreadsheet guru.
Uh, I'm the quickbooks guru.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
He's the spreadsheet guru and you know actually who
taught me that, who mitchbrisker oh, there you go, mitch
brisker used to have a softwarecompany that made a budget thing
for um.
I want to say it was commercialum like tv commercial
productions yeah, I did not knowhad a, the director and the
(17:36):
cast and the sets and the lightsand the locations and you'd
plug all that in and it wouldbasically you could control your
budget and see what all thecosts were to be able to submit
a budget for approval in thestudio system or in Hollywood,
in the industry.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And so he knew how he knew all these shortcuts and
commands and ways you could doreally fancy stuff in Excel,
yeah, microsoft Excel, yeah, andso, yeah.
So I think that was like backin 1995.
So since 1995, I've kind ofbeen like a spreadsheet nerd,
yeah, anyway.
(18:12):
So, yes, we did, so we werepaying about.
Let's just say it's eight buckseach, yeah, something like that
.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Either way it was a lot, and especially given like
we were just freshly out.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
We were four years into our real lives, in the real
world, with a three-year-oldand a one-year-old and both
full-time jobs.
Yeah, Both had full-time jobsand yeah, so it was.
It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, it was a lot.
I will agree with that.
Okay, so then I'm right.
So then I'm, I'm basicallywriting the book.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
And Claire has to line up everything.
So what did you have to line up?
And there's some funny parts ofthis too.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, okay.
So first of all I obviouslystarted reading it as you were
going, because we kind of agreedthat you know whatever we were
working together on that piece.
So then we had to find aneditor and we ended up actually
with two different editors onewho had never been in
(19:19):
Scientology, and you can tellthe story of the other one.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Well, yeah, so we wanted to make sure that
non-Scientologists or peoplethat weren't familiar with
Scientology would be able to getthrough it, because in
Scientology they have a lot oflingo, they use abbreviations
and they literally have theirown language Scientologies.
That is Scientology, and if twoScientologists are talking to
(19:46):
each other in Scientologies,most anybody around them would
not really be able to understandwhat they're talking about.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Depending on how heavy they use it, but between
the abbreviations and the words,the made-up words, they don't
mean anything outside ofScientology.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Right, but conversely a Scientologist, if you say oh,
I'm in Scientology if you don'tknow and use that lingo.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Like if you call the auditing counseling, then they
go oh, this person wasn't inScientology because, you would
never call auditing counseling,you would always just call it
auditing or going in session.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Correct, yeah, and the words are interchangeable in
the outside world, but they arenot used in scientology.
Like you never call an auditora counselor, ever, um, ever,
ever I'm gonna adjust yourcamera all right, we're having
an earthquake there you go umanyway.
So so that was a a reallysignificant editorial decision
(20:49):
in relation to your book,because I think it's fair to say
that your goal was to yourtarget audience were those
people in Scientology to letthem know the true nature of the
psychopath known as DavidMiscavige and what really goes
on behind the scenes and that,and which they're supporting.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, so basically, yeah, it was two tiers.
It needed to.
Scientologists needed to beable to read it and go okay,
that 100% happened.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And then a non-Scientologist or somebody
who had somebody that thatworked in the Sea Org or worked
at the Int Base.
They could see what washappening to their loved one or
their the person that they knew,yep, and then just the general
public to see, to expose theabuses and what was happening.
So it had to hit, it had to beable to be read by all three of
(21:43):
those groups of people and makesome sense and and and have
enough lingo that you can seethat it's crazy and have enough
normal translations so thatyou'd understand what was
happening.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Right, and that was a very difficult task.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Well, because she wanted us to take out most of
the lingo.
She said there's no way it'shard to get through this because
there's so much lingo.
And so we kind of weingo.
She said there's no way it'shard to get through this because
there's so much lingo.
And so we kind of we took out abit.
We kind of we kind of softenedthat a little bit.
But I really did feel that tobe a true representation we had
(22:24):
to use a bunch of the lingo, andwe had to.
So Scientologists would knowthat this 100% is something
that's real, because if we don'tuse the right lingo, it doesn't
it when a Scientologist hearssomebody talk about Scientology
and they they don't know thingsor they say weird things that
(22:46):
they don't understand.
A lot of times they go well,that person was never in
Scientology because they're notusing the language that we use
in Scientology, so it must beweird.
And also there is a weird thingabout like body thetan and
thetan.
In Scientology they talk aboutthetans all the time, just a
human thetan, but when you getonto the upper levels they talk
(23:10):
about body Thetans, which areseparate from a Thetan, because
a body Thetan is oddly an alienthat doesn't have a body and
that's sort of like their soul.
It's just the Thetan from analien body.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, I would.
I would say that probably thereason they're called body
Thetans is because the conceptthat Hubbard first envisioned is
that they're, you know, stuckto one's body.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yes, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Anyway, it is a contradiction.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It's a weird thing.
So when you say to a sign, ifyou it's one of thousands of
conversations, to be fair.
But even when I heard, when Iwatched the South park thing and
they started talking about bodythings, I'm like, oh, this is
not real, because that's not athing.
But the more you go, you go.
Oh no, that is a thing.
I just never knew about thatthing, so anyway.
(24:00):
So she wanted us to take out abunch of the lingo, of the lingo
we then had.
We took out a little bit of thewing lingo and then we had the
same guy who, who edited all ofscientology's books.
Yeah, be the editor of my book,and he could.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
He had escaped.
Yeah, just recently.
Yes, so he escaped.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I think, like, uh, two or three years before we did
yeah, and that was a gentlemanby the name of Dan Kuhn which,
if anybody was a Scientologist,he plays Joe Howard of the
original film that shows you howto do training routines TRs in
Scientology, and he worked inRon's Technical Research and
(24:45):
Compilations Division at thebase or the Senior case
supervisor unit international,so between those two he was very
highly technically trained inthe scientology processes and
auditing and counseling and allthat.
Yeah, but he also waspersonally trained by l ron
(25:05):
hubbard, and l ron hubbarddirected the film on how you do
TRS training routines, which islike really, really, that's
where you stare at the wall andyou stare at a person and you
they yell at you and you're notsupposed to react and all that
good stuff.
He essentially was the model ofhow to do that for all
Scientologists.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Right, he and Lyman's uh, no, him and Bob.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Bob Waldman.
Bob Waldman Waldo.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Were the main actors.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, in that film.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And then he went on to edit a lot of Scientology
books.
Most of the ones that are outtoday like official Scientology
versions of L Ron Hubbard'sbooks.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Dan Kuhn is the one who edited a lot of those, if
not all of them, Anyway.
So he edited the book and hedidn't take out a lot of lingo
at all.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
No.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I think he really just kind of made it like fixed
my grammatical inefficiencies.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
we'll say I was going to use the word gymnastics.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Gymnastics, Anyway.
So yeah.
So he fixed a lot of that upand um and then when claire's
reading this book she finds outit can't be over 400 pages if
it's a first, like a.
It's sort of like a weirdgeneral rule yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
It's just the recommendation for a memoir.
I mean, you know it's.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Don't make it more than 400 pages, Right exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So I just kind of laid that down for you as a law.
It's not exactly a law, ofcourse there are longer ones,
but especially for a subject socomplex and involved, for a for
a subject so complex, yeah, um,and involved, you know it.
Just, I think that it it justneeded to get to the point and
(26:56):
and be something that peoplewere able to consume and we
didn't need blown for good theben-hur edition, yeah we didn't
want people blown for good fromreading blown for good anyway,
so.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
so the book, as I wrote it, was 800 and something
pages.
Yeah, by the time it made itinto the book it got cut,
basically in half.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
And we really what we did was we took out any stories
that kind of already happenedor like if there was some sort
of physical abuse or tortureyeah well, we took out three of
those and left the one wethought was the most
demonstrable of how thatoccurred yeah, but we also.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
The other thing we did is because we were expecting
nonsense from Scientology,anything that you weren't
directly involved in right.
That was like you knew about it, but you weren't physically
there.
You heard about, about it fromsomeone else, so it was purely
your experiences and what yousaw, what you witnessed.
(27:58):
You know all of that.
That was the primary focus ofwhat we, how we decided what
would stay and what would go.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
That's right, and if we'd already kind of covered it
between those two things we werelike, well, we already talked
about this kind of nonsense hereand also it might've even
involved the same people, just adifferent story of the same
group, like meetings, or, youknow, musical chairs, like of
the whole.
The whole kind of started justthe last few years we were there
(28:28):
.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It did Like the last year and a half and it
originally was the SP room inthose trailers and even that was
just psychotic and insane atthe time, even to us, even in
that world we're like what?
On earth is going on.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, so there were probably a year or two of whole
stories and it was like, well,what's the most crazy?
Like, what did we think when wewere there was the most crazy?
And the musical chairs thingwas sort of that were gone to.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
yeah, to make all those people believe that they
were getting shipped off likethe tickets were printed.
Air plane tickets, everything,yeah, um and it took.
It took hours and hours, andhours to go.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I mean, I want to say it started midday and it went
all day, all night and into thewheat, like I think we, I, when
the end of the story is done andI'm leaving the hole.
I want to say it was like twoor three in the morning.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I yeah, that's that matches what I remember too so.
I wasn't in that meeting, yeah,but you were kind of, I think
you had come in a few times orno.
Nobody was allowed in, oh notduring the musical tears, but at
that time is when I wasinternal exec in Religious
Technology Center, so I was overthe internal stuff.
(29:58):
But the person who worked underme, Liz Rossi, is the person
who was printing off all thoseairline tickets.
So I knew something bizarre wasafoot, but nobody was allowed
to talk to it, talk about it.
Nobody was allowed to go in orout of that meeting.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
It was it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Anyway.
So.
So there is somewhere, I don'teven know where we have all that
.
There might just be an 800 pageversion of all this nonsense.
And then, okay, so that'shappening.
Okay, then we have to designthe actual book, so we have to
design the cover and the map ofthe international headquarters,
(30:39):
and all that stuff has to bemade by somebody.
And so, again, we don't live inthe book publishing world.
So we found out that the guywho designed all the Scientology
books had also escaped.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, really really great guy.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Amazing dude.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Super amazing designer, also Very talented.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Yeah, like kind of like a prodigy in terms of
design.
He was in the Sea Org when helearned all of this.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Right and he.
I don't know what his back.
I've never actually asked himwhat his backstory was, but I
know he's.
What was he from?
What country is he from?
I can't remember Finland, orSweden, or I always mix these up
.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I want to say a Scandinavian area.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
There you go.
Sorry if he ever watches this.
Sorry, Callie.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Anyway.
So this guy, callie, heactually was the one who
designed all of the covers, thespines, the interior text, the
glossary everything and he didsuch an amazing job.
And um and so when the book wasdone we sent him a copy and it
(31:58):
was all done.
We said here you go we.
We had kind of talked to himwhen the manuscript was done.
Yeah, but we had talked to himbeforehand on how he would want
to get it and what type of filesand formats and how he would
get the whole thing.
And then he said, yes, I'mgoing to, I'm going to do a
cover.
I'm going to do it's calledlike front matter, back matter,
(32:19):
all of the things that make upthe cover, the inside of the
cover, the beginning parts ofthe book, the preface, the
author's note, the beginningparts of the book, the preface,
the author's note, the table ofcontents, all that stuff, yeah.
And then at the end of the bookthere's stuff.
And then in this book there'sphotos or maps on the insides of
(32:40):
the book so you can see all ofthe places that we're talking
about.
In the book there's an entiremap of the.
I'll put it on this camera.
There's an entire map of the.
I'll put it on this camera.
There's an entire map of theinternational headquarters.
That's numbered and it listsout all of the individual
buildings and what their namesare and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yep, and also I wanted to say too so in the.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'll put this up and see if that yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Also in the front cover, next to the contents.
So you have to have all of thistext generated.
Yeah, also in the front covernext to the contents.
So you have to have all of thistext generated.
Yeah, this text here, perfect.
Yeah, which says this you haveto.
It has to be very, very preciseto comply with the library
rules.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yes, it can go into library.
It has who wrote it, theLibrary of Congress number, the
ISBN, the address, all of thatstuff has to be in there and so,
yeah, so we had to do that andthen you know, like a title page
contents.
The other thing we had to dofor this book is we had to make
(33:46):
a glossary, for sure, becausethere's so much Scientologies.
The other thing we had to dofor this book is we had to make
a glossary for sure becausethere's so much Scientology's.
I think the glossary is like 30or 40 pages.
It's not, it's not nothing, Idon't know.
Actually, I have to look.
I'm sorry guys, I'm justexcited about this Glossary 343
(34:09):
to, yeah, 383.
So it is literally the glossaryin this book is 40 pages long.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And so that was important that we have that Also
.
We put an index in there so wecould see.
If you just wanted to look up aspecific person or something
that happened, you could gothere and then the police report
.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
So let's talk about that for a minute, because we
didn't have the police reportwhen we printed the book.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
It was when the paperback came out that we
entered.
We put the police report in,which is basically the very
beginning of the book, and thevery end of the book is me
escaping on my motorcycle andthem running me off the road,
and then the police coming andthen the police helping me get
away, and that was all in thebook in the hardback.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
But you did not even know that there was a police
report.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
That's right and also that's.
Another crazy thing is that Itell the story, but that's it
Just my side of it.
So I think it was about a yearor two after the hardback came
out.
There was a gentleman by thename of Anon Orange Anonymous
(35:28):
Orange it was a protester,scientology protester First.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Second, I thought you were going to say his name.
I was like, don't say it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, no, his name was Anon Orange and he was a.
Scientology protester that waspart of Anonymous and he would
protest at the base.
And he went to Riverside Countyand filed a Freedom of
Information Act request to seeif there were any documents
related to a Mark Headley aroundthis date.
And he got a ping.
They wouldn't let him get thedocument because he wasn't
(35:56):
involved in the incident, right.
But he was able to alert methat there was a document and
then I could just file my ownrequest and for like $8, they'd
send me a copy of it.
And so because they'd alreadydug it up and he already got
exactly, he asked him what do Ineed to give to the guy that
this is related to so he can getthe report?
So I had everything.
(36:18):
I just filled it out and sentit in and then they sent me a
copy of the report and the factthat the report it 100% matches
the story I tell.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
But then it fills in the entire police part of it and
the sheriffs and what they'redoing.
And then also, I suspected whowas in the cars that were
following us from the property,even when the police were
tailing me.
Police were tailing me, but Ididn't 100% know that it was
(36:53):
Bruce Wagner and there wasn'tanybody else in the vehicle, or
that it was Muriel, but therewasn't anybody else, or that
there were three.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
how many three security guards?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
In the vehicle.
That's right, that was anotherthing.
I didn't know is I didn't knowthat who was in the security
vehicle that didn't get out.
I only knew Danny because hewas messing with me, right.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Danny Dunnigan.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Danny Dunnigan.
Yeah, danny Dunnigan.
Anyway, so it's a very thepolice report is kind of amazing
.
Yeah, it is.
And then, regarding theglossary, the glossary that's in
my book is actually on theBlown for Good website, because
we talk about a lot.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Oh it't, I didn't remember that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is because we do so many, we
talk about so much lingo in thevideos that we were like, well,
we should probably, um, weshould probably put them, the
glossary, somewhere besides ourum, besides the book, I'm, I'm,
I'm, I'm.
You can look?
Yeah, look for sure, because Iremember that we put it up there
(37:50):
when we originally redid thesite.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah, I definitely remember that we talked about it
.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Here's the guy guys.
This is going to see if mymemory is correct or not.
I haven't been to the websitein years.
I think I'd go there to checkif it's working when somebody
says it got hacked or whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Well, I'm not seeing it right now.
Don't back up YouTube blown forgood, podcast, other
appearances, books and merch.
It's in there, okay, all right.
Well, if it's not?
Speaker 1 (38:19):
then resources go to resource.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I went there.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Dang it, Janet.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I know either way.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
We'll find it.
We'll put a link in thedescription If it's still up
there.
It was up there Anyway it's allgood Either way.
It up there.
Anyway, it's all good.
Either way, it's a good idea tohave it on the BFG site, it is.
That's why it was there, anyway.
So what else do we do?
We got okay, so so all this ishappening, the guy's designing
the book.
Oh, then we got to print thebook, so Callie Hickey does the
(38:49):
design.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yep, and for anyone who's wondering or has maybe
thought about it, yes, werigorously research things,
wouldn't you agree with that?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Well, just on dates.
No, but I mean like on thisprocess, like we pretty much oh,
to make the book yes, oh, yeah,I'd say we over plan and
average, execute Like we try to.
We try to figure out as manyobstacles that will come up and
(39:22):
how to avoid them in the earlyprocess so that we can dodge
that.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So we had to print the book now.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Who are we going to get to print the book, babe?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Right.
So little old me starts, youknow, searching up publishers
and just calling around andgetting quotes and it's like,
okay, here we go, we've got abook we want to print, and how
long is it going to take?
And all this Because meanwhilewe're also trying to finalize
the release date and we wantedit to coincide with a
(39:55):
significant date.
Yeah, so, yeah.
So we eventually, actually, thepublisher we used, or the
printer I should say that weused for the hardback was a
company that I found in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And so they walked me through exactly what we needed
to provide and what the timelinewould look like, like, and so
on and so forth.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, and then they made the books and I think we
had them in like October, Ithink is when we got them.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yes, and we got, we got.
So we got the galley first.
That's right.
And we had which?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
is like the proof of the book it's printed but it's
not bound, and all the finaleverything, but it's just bound.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And all the final everything, but it's just like
okay, this is what it's going tolook like yeah, so you can
check to make sure that all thetext is correctly on the page
and that the map looked good andthat the type setting looked
good and and all of that.
It's kind of like your lasthail mary before you just say,
okay, go for it, you're gonnahave 5 000 of these you know,
once sign that anything that'swrong, that's on you.
(40:57):
Exactly, you have to sign onthe dotted line.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Last chance for romance baby.
And then okay, so we print thebooks, we get all the books, and
now we're living in a house inBurbank by this time.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeah, not a big house .
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Like a 1,600-square-foot house.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, not a big house , like a 1600 square foot house.
Yeah, if that yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Anyway, and we have the kids have rooms, and we have
a room and those giant livingroom right as you walk in and it
just has pallets and pallets.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh my gosh, I remember the day that those
pallets showed up.
It was so overwhelming becauseyou think like it's just a
number until you actuallyreceive them, and it was 32
books per box.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
So yeah, 32 copies of the hardback book.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
You're right, oh yeah .
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I'm definitely right.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, I know the paperback has a larger amount,
it's 44.
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
I ship all the books I should know.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yes, has a large, has a larger 44.
Yeah, there you ship all thebooks.
I should know.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yes, anyway, so we get all these, yeah, and all
these.
So for anyone watching, you cando the math 5 000 divided by 32
is how many?
boxes we had at our small littlehouse in burbank.
And, of course again, because,like you, uh, you worked in the
manufacturing division of GoldenEra Productions, so you were
all about creating a productionline and, like, what boxes are
(42:23):
we going to use and how are wegoing to print the shipping
labels, and all of that?
Yeah, so, and you wanted tohave it all in place and ready
to go before we announced,before we sent out the emails.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's right, I wasn't going to.
I wasn't going to say, uh,order the book Like we did the
pre order, like kind of suss outlike how many people will buy
it.
And then I said, okay, well, inorder to make it so we can sell
all those, we need to at leastbasically prep 1000 books,
(42:57):
Correct?
And so we boxed up all thebooks that we could and I think
we signed like the first 500books or something like that.
The first everybody who did apre-order got a signed book at
first.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, and my favorite part of that story it's a
little bit of a side story, butso, yeah, we, you signed the
first 500 copies and we foundout several years later, uh,
during our lawsuit, when we werein deposition they had a signed
copy they did.
They had one of those, thosethat first Office of Special
(43:37):
Affairs handed you your book andI remember you saying you
looked and you're like look atyou.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
You guys bought a signed copy.
You bought a signed copy Freeorder signed copy.
Good for you.
Thanks for the 25 bucks you got.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, and, by the way , scientology entered Mark's
book as evidence in our lawsuitbecause of one sentence in there
where he says where Mark sayshe probably possibly would have
left much earlier had it notbeen for me still being there.
Yes, doesn't matter, all theabuse all the but the but.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
When they did that they sort of made it.
So they're in, they're enteringthe book in their favor as fact
Right, so they can't thendispute the book and say that
it's not fact Exactly.
Because they're using it intheir favor, anyway, okay.
So we box up all those books,we get everything ready, we say
(44:31):
everybody okay, good, it's goingto come out on November 9th.
I think it was the date rightit?
Was november 5th oh yeah, uhremember, remember the 5th of
november gum powder trees andthen plot yes, so anonymous has.
There's a day where they wouldkind of like the guy fox thing
comes from november.
(44:52):
November, the 5th of NovemberRemember remember, remember 5th
of November, anyway.
So he said, okay, we'll have itcome out on that day, and by
this time anonymous had beenprotesting Scientology for um
almost two years.
Yeah, it was, they were.
They were going wild for a bitthere and um.
So there was a lot of eyes onthe subject of the abuse based
(45:17):
on all these posts that I'd doneon the Internet.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
People were finding out more about it and that this
was the flush out of all ofthose stories and more all in
one place.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah, not to be the bearer of bad news, but we might
want to make a part two on thisto go through the rest.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
We've got 15 minutes.
We'll jam it up.
This video is going to redirectinto the aftermath.
Yes, the Aftermath Foundationfeed, episode two.
Yes, that Claire and Phil willbe doing.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
And Claire will magically transport from this
studio to another studio betweenthe end of this video and the
start of that video yeah, I'mjust going to jump through that
little portal that you set upwith your technological genius
and boom bob's your uncle okay,we're almost there.
Okay, fair enough, it's themaking of the book.
It's printed.
(46:08):
We're like on the tail end Iunderstand, I understand okay,
so, um, we send all those peoplepre-orders, the people that
pre-ordered.
We basically said okay, good,here's your thing, you can order
them.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
You'll be the first to get them, and the first 500
copies are signed by me.
Yep, and here we go.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yep, and originally we were just doing that all
through the BFG website, so theorders would come through that
platform.
Amazon was just starting out.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
It was in the baby days at that Well of you being
able to sell your own stuff onthere and how to get it to be a
seller.
And we had basically set thatup and the idea was if we could
sell enough of the paper, thehardbacks, to pay for the cost
of printing it and and people,and it was well received and
(46:59):
everybody didn't just say, oh,this is a, paint this thing
green and throw it in the drink.
It's no good that.
We would then do a paperbackand then a Kindle and then an
audible and so on and so forth.
Yeah, and I want to say in thefirst week we sold a thousand
copies.
We did In the first week wesold a thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
And again, this is all happening out of our living
room with our, you know, inbetween our day jobs and our
three-year-old and ourone-year-old.
And so it was ironic to us atthe time that you sent out that
announcement email for everyonewho had pre-ordered or not.
They didn't pre-order, they hadsaid they would.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
They basically committed to buying a copy if it
came out.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
They hadn't paid.
But anyway, the point beingthat Mark and I they pledged
support.
Yes, there you go.
Mark and I laughed about thefact that the first time we had
to stay up all night sinceescaping was for a book about
staying up all night.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
We were like we got to pull an all nighter to get
all these things out.
We didn't think we we thoughtwe'd get maybe a hundred or
maybe a couple hundred orders,but we didn't think we're going
to get thousands of orders rightaway.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
No, maybe a couple hundred orders, but we didn't
think we were going to getthousands of orders right away,
no, so yeah, our packaging daysfrom, you know, slaving away at
the base definitely came inhandy.
And um, we got it all done.
And we had to make severaltrips to the post office, you
know each day.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
And um, yeah, sometimes we go twice a day.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
We were going in the morning and we were going at the
end of the day, yeah, exactlyum, okay, good, so then we ship
all those out.
Meanwhile, claire's getting allthe amazon stuff set up, so as
soon as everybody that got itthrough the website um wants it
and gets it.
There was a lot of people thatsaid if you put it on amazon,
I'll buy it on amazon yes sothen we were like because when
(48:55):
you sell it through Amazon,Amazon wants to take a big cut
of it.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
At least 30%.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
At least 30%.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
And then it's been different over the years.
But they charge you warehousefees and then a fulfillment fee.
And so there's if you sell iton Amazon and you fulfill it,
you get a little bit more money.
But as soon as you're sendingboxes and boxes of books to
Amazon to have at theirwarehouses, it goes from you
(49:24):
giving them 30% to them givingyou 30%.
So it basically goes fromaround 30% to 70% is the Amazon
fee.
So you sell more books becausethey have more reach, but you
get a third of what you weregetting when you were selling
them yourself and fulfillingthem yourself.
(49:44):
Yeah, so we did it on Amazon aswell.
And then, immediately when theystarted selling on Amazon,
people started buying them andselling them for like $300.
And there's still copies onthere today for $300.
Don't buy those, don't buy themon Amazon.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
We stopped selling them on Amazon and now just sell
them directly through the Blownfor Good website for retail
cost.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
It's basically a giant waste of time for us to
sell them on Amazon.
It's not that hard to get themfrom our website.
It's just a regular store.
You can use all the samepayment methods and all that,
and you get the book within twoor three days.
We send it out the same day,almost the same day we get an
order.
We send it out.
In almost all cases, you'll getit within a week, no matter
(50:31):
where you are, unless you'relike, sometimes they get lost in
transit if you're going to likeAustralia or New Zealand or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Sometimes it takes a little bit longer, and that's
happened, I can count on onehand, since 2009.
How many times we've had toship a replacement and we do
that and then, six months later,the first shipment will come
back to us?
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all good.
And then once, oh, and thenthat was another thing that
happened.
So, once it was, it gotaccepted into the Amazon store
and all that, um, we were, wefilled all the other orders.
This is all still in the firstweek.
Yeah, we filled all the thewebsite orders that we got from
the blown for goodcom website,Yep, and then we weren't getting
(51:16):
any Amazon orders and it waslike what's the deal?
It's been live for like a week.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, no, so hold on.
So it happened to be the timingof it, was that?
So we sent out the, thepre-order email, or you know,
the, to the email to everyonewho said they wanted to buy a
copy.
Then, mark, they wanted to buya copy.
Then, mark, you startedreaching out to any and all
media contacts.
We had.
Oh, that's right, and youstarted doing-.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
I went on Coast to Coast AM, which is like a
nightly kind of like space alienradio show.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
But before that you did so, Tony Ortega put it up on
the Village Voice.
Yes, there were all thesethings.
And then so, right around that,it was like we were getting
ready to go visit your familyfor Thanksgiving and you had a
two-hour interview on Coast toCoast.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
And that was the first time and the first
platform where you said okay,you can buy it on Amazon.
That's right, that was thefirst time.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Because we had just gotten it all up and running.
Yeah, and it was ready and time.
And because we had just gottenit all up and running and it was
ready and we were like, okay,great, let's do it.
So now, because we knew frompeople oh well, when you get it
on Amazon, you will, I'll buy itthere.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
So we figured on this big radio show.
It would make way more sense tojust say you can go to our
website too.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
I think we did say if or you can go to our website.
Yeah, so we got a few orders inon our website.
But there were even peoplebecause that interview you did
was two hours long and it wasvery entertaining for many
reasons which we won't get intohere but there were also people
who commented during the showlike oh, I bought it on Amazon,
I just bought it on Amazon, Ijust bought it on Amazon.
(52:54):
So we go to Amazon and there'sno orders and we're like what is
happening, so, and then we'resupposed to leave the next
morning with our kids forThanksgiving road trip.
So, I call Amazon, I'm like, hey, we know for sure.
We've had people tell us theyordered the book and they're
like, oh yeah, you go to thislittle box here and you change
(53:16):
approved to pending.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
And then it was like Well, but at first they said
they flagged it.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yes, they did, because nobody launches an
Amazon shop and then all of asudden has tons and tons and
tons of orders within a two hourperiod, at one o'clock in the
morning, little sus.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Well, because the show starts at like 10 o'clock
and goes to 1 am.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Anyway.
So we sold a ton of copies.
When we figured out where itwas, Then we had to stay up all
night.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Again.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Getting all of these books processed and going
through the Amazon and printingout the label, and it's a lot of
work too.
It is.
When you, it was more work thanthe way we were doing it just
through our website.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Because all we did was put a packing slip in there
and a label.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah, and then you have to, you have to make sure
to confirm the order and add inthe tracking, and then Amazon,
yeah, put the shipping info intothe Amazon website.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
Oh my gosh, it was a lot.
But so we ended up selling aton of books and then after that
we did the paperback.
Which how much time we got.
We got to hurry, we got aboutfive minutes.
We did the paperback.
And when we did the paperbackwe got the woman who worked in
religious technology center andwas in charge of printing all of
(54:33):
Scientology's publications, whohad escaped by this time.
And we knew, and we were, wewere talking with her.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
And she had a printing company at the time.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
And she had a printing company and the
paperback was actually printedat a place called Hill and Noten
right Wasn't it Hill and Notenno, it was RR Donnelly, rr
Donnelly, rr Donnelly.
Yes, and RR Donnelly wasprinting Scientology things at
that time and it's funny becausein the story of Dianetics
(55:07):
Hubbard talks about, when hispublication was about to be
printed, there was a psychiatryor psychology book that was
coming off the line and as thatwent off the line, the next one
coming was Dianetics.
That is exactly what happenedwith this book when the girl,
when the woman who was in chargeof the printing, when she was
(55:28):
at the printer to check how thebook was coming on the printers,
scientology was at the printerchecking on how their magazine
was printing at the exact sametime.
They have a broad sheet.
At the time they produced it,it was called the International
Scientology News, isn, and itwas coming off the line on this
(55:49):
press and Blown for Good was onthe press next door coming off
that line.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
Anyway, fun story.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Anything else Should we do a giveaway?
Next door coming off that lineAnyway, fun story.
Anything else Should we do agiveaway?
Speaker 2 (55:58):
Yep, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Anyway, if you guys want the book Blown for Good,
you can get it on my website.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:05):
You can also, on Amazon, get the Kindle version
or the Audible version, becausethose don't require us shipping
anything.
Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, and if we missed any questions that we ran
through, we will.
We can just go through and andif there's enough questions
about what we've covered intoday's episode, we can do a
book Q and a episode as afollow-up.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Okay, good, and then I will put a teaser in here,
because we took so long on this.
We didn't get to it, but we Iposted on our community page on
YouTube and then also over on Xon the Blown for Good handle.
On X there's a photo of DavidMiscavige and Tom Cruise on
their cruise crotch rockets in abasement in California.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
They're missing your facial expressions.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Oh yeah, sorry about that.
There's a picture of DavidMiscavige and Tom Cruise down in
the basement of the celebritycenter on their crotch rockets
and I just wanted to see ifanybody could take that photo
and do a funny AI version ofsomething or whatever.
We have gotten in a lot ofreally hilarious submissions on
(57:08):
that and whoever we, I thinkwe'll do the top three, the top
three best ones.
We'll do a giveaway.
It'll be a, it could be a Zinu,uh, zinu desk mat, like you see
there, zinu and the body,thetans, um, it could be um,
whatever you want from the SPstore.
Anyway, the three bestsubmissions that we get in that
(57:29):
that use that and manipulatethat image with AI.
Yep, you're going to winsomething.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yep.
Um all right.
So I'm going to say bye andjump over, jump through my
portal, Bye everybody Jumpthrough your portal.
Please tune in to the Michael JRinder Aftermath Foundation
Foundation Feed Series numbertwo with Phil Jones and I in two
minutes.
Awesome, See you, honey.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Bye, bye.
Okay, let's do a giveaway realquick.
Can I do this?
I can do this.
I'm a big boy, I can do this.
I'm going to do this.
Okay, here we go.
Oh, we almost got 100 people onthe comments.
That's good.
Is that what it says?
I can't tell.
I'm not wearing my glasses,guys.
I got contacts so I can seebarely.
(58:11):
Okay, here we go.
Ohil came up a bunch of timesand the winner is amy rubin.
Congratulations, amy.
Uh, email claire.
Go or go to the website.
Mark's talking too much.
Thank you, love food kitchen.
Um, I appreciate that.
That's what I'm supposed to do.
You didn't tune in to look atthis ugly mug, did you?
(58:32):
Um, hello from denmark.
Thank you for that.
Let's see what we got here.
I got about 10 more seconds.
Congratulations, amy.
Send an email to Claire or goto the blownforgoodcom contact
page and you can just tell herthat you won and what you want,
and she'll send you a link andyou can just order it and it'll
(58:54):
ship to you for free.
That's pretty much it.
I've got to get out of herebecause I've got to feed over to
their feed.
So thank you for joining ustoday, guys, if you want to get
an update on what's happeningwith the Aftermath billboard
campaign, then just stay righthere and it's going to spit you
right into the AftermathFoundation feed episode two,
(59:15):
over on the Aftermath FoundationYouTube channel.
Thank you and until next time.
Thanks for watching.
If you'd like to help supportthe channel, feel free to check
out the merch store link in thedescription.
(59:38):
Zeno is my Homeboy and BFTbranded mouse pads, shirts, mugs
, all sorts of other stuff inthere that helps us to bring you
new content on a regular basis.
You can also pick up a copy ofmy book Blown for Good Behind
the Iron Curtain of Scientologyin hardback, kindle and audible
versions as well.
There's also a link to ourpodcast and you can get that on
Apple, spotify or wherever youlisten to podcasts, and if you'd
(01:00:00):
like to watch another video,you can click on this link right
here, or you can click on thisone here, or you can click on
the subscribe button right here.
Thanks a lot, until next timeyou.
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