The complete history of Affiggle.com

Did you know it took Thomas Edison something like 10,000 tries before he finally created a light bulb that worked? Well, sometimes I feel like I’m following in his footsteps, because I have been working on these original corny joke books since 1995. And since this is the long version of the Affiggle about page, I might as well tell you all about it.

I suppose it started with Learn the Secret to Short Sheeting a Bed. Don’t ask me why, but I wrote a 28 page book about the practical joke of short sheeting a bed. A friend suggested I sell it to a bedding company, but it wasn’t sales rack material, so I typed up a letter about how the book could be used, as a free gift with purchase for the kids going back to school. I put the letter and the book in the mail, and that was it. Not even a follow up phone call (they didn't have email back then). 

Well, I am one of those people with good luck. About two weeks later, they called and ordered 2,000 books. Yeah! That was one of those "that's great, but what the heck do I do now" moments. Packing slips, invoices, purchase orders, shipping labels, and that didn't even include the printing of the book. Luckily I worked at a print shop, so that made it a bit easier. And the next year they ordered another 2,000 books.

The adventure taught me two things. One: I must have some talent as a writer because selling 4,000 copies makes me a published author. And two: from that moment on, I was convinced that mixing humor and business is as successful combination. 

Love those corny jokes

After my phenomenally good beginners luck, I started Simply Amusing, a newsletter of absolutely no importance. It was basically a humor column marketed like a newsletter. Plus I included a few original corny jokes in every issue. The thing that still surprises me, is that people always comment that they love the jokes! Really? I put a lot of energy and effort into the humor writing, and people love the silly little jokes! Oh well if that's what people want, I’ll continue to write dumb jokes.

Then one day we were talking about a theme for a friends customer appreciation day. That lead to my horse racing corny joke book. It was used as a promotional product give-away at their event. The idea was well received, so I found a promotional product distributor. He tried to sell the books, but his vendors said, "Sure if anyone asks for a corny joke book, I'll give them your number". Again… Really? It's a new product. No one knows the books exist, so people aren't going to ask for them.

After that, I made several attempts to sell the books on my own, but I was running a printing business now, so I had to put the good idea on hold. However when a friend was having a birthday, I wrote a birthday joke book. Next came a wedding joke book, then a baby one, and a sales and business consulting one, etc. Although the project had been put aside, my collection of original corny joke books continued to grow.

As the years went by I had more free time, but more importantly, technology had arrived. That meant the timing was right to harness the power of the internet. CornyJokeBooks.com was born but it didn’t last too long. Partly because an ecommerce site is way more complicated than ever imagined, but more realistically, I just didn't know enough about selling and marketing online. When I look back at it now, I feel that the website was actually a success, because I learned a heck of a lot from the mistakes.

Keep on trying. Don’t give up!

After another year or so, I was hit by another light bulb moment. I own a printing business so why not turn the jokes into mini books and use a company’s business card as the front cover. These little coil bound books were cuter than cute, and people liked them, but this time the lesson I learned was all about production costs. The books were too small to fit most binding machines so they were just too expensive to produce. Back on the shelf the idea went, again. 

Next came the tee shirts. As part of the printing business we added digitally printed apparel so I immediately thought of corny joke tee shirts! I had put years into these jokes, and I knew that they would succeed some how, some way. This time the production costs were manageable, and I had someone to help with the website so things looked promising. Apparently, there were more lessons to be learned because, although I had tons of jokes, I’m a writer, not an artist. I didn’t have unique and original artwork to put on the shirts, and the person who drew my logo, and illustrated the short sheeting a bed book, was only eleven years old at the time.She's now married with kids and lives in Scotland. So once again, I had to put the idea on hold.

Keep on trying, don’t give up. Learn the lesson and try again. And that’s exactly what happened. One day a friend was telling me about her book club, and how almost everyone in the group had an e-reader. Click, another bright idea. Maybe it was time to turn the jokes into downloadable ebooks. Yeah that's the way to go. And then I saw an ad about "more coupons please" and a second light clicked on. That was the idea for the online marketing coupons. I believe one hundred percent that mixing business and humor is a winning combination. So the question now is... do I finally have it right with Affiggle.com, or will I have to go back to Thomas Edison for another light bulb moment of inspiration.