Short Summary

Outstanding Youth! is a collection of vignettes about a group of students throughout their junior year at St Dominic’s, a fictitious boarding school in western MA.

My name is Cooper Rumrill, and I wrote Outstanding Youth! because I, myself, went to a boarding school, and my mom told me I was a good writer when I was 10. I set off to consider what friendship and youthful antics look like in today’s day and age, and wound up with a book.

My hope is that, in reading this book, you will discover (or perhaps remember) what it was like to be young and stupid. I want you to see this book as an opportunity to explore what's essential and unique about growing up in the 2010s, an opportunity to escape from whatever unexpected BS 2020 has thrown your way, and an opportunity to validate my mother's praise.

You will love this book if you enjoyed your time at high school or if you hated your time at high school. Or, if you’re still in middle school, you’ll love this book because it has a whole bunch of swear words in it.

Ultimately, I hope that Outstanding Youth! inspires reflection and fruitful dialogue, pressing into engaging questions like:

• How much do we change after we graduate high school? How much do we stay the same?
• Is youth wasted on the young?
• Do people really even read books anymore?

What We Need & What You Get

This book will be published with New Degree Press. I set up the pre-order tiers to help cover the costs for publishing my book. Money raised will go towards the following:

• The Editor and I will work with to revise and publish my manuscript in December, 2020
• The Cover Design of my Book - the mockups you see currently are a placeholder!
• The Layout Design for the interior of my book (Physical Copy, Ebook Formats)
• The Copyediting for My Book - to help polish the grammar and spelling prior to publication
• The Launch & Promotion Efforts for my book - when I ultimately publish this winter

• You will receive a personally signed copy of my book when I publish
• A Personal, handwritten thank you note for pre-ordering my book
• Your Name will appear in a Special, Acknowledgements Section of my book (“with Special Thanks to”)
• Early access to the Introduction of my Book and some additional sections of my manuscript, with the opportunity to review it and give me early feedback
• The opportunity to help give me feedback and be involved in selecting my cover
• And more...

The top donors will get to elect which charitable organization the first 1000$ of proceeds goes towards!

About the Author

Pursuing an English major at Georgetown University, I’ve written my fair share of boring papers. So I decided to write something that wasn’t boring.

I wanted to write this book while the memories of my own experience in high school were still fresh, and before I overly sentimentalized or romanticized the experience. I think you’ll find this book entertaining regardless of your high school alma mater or your graduation year, for there’s something universally compelling about being 17 and unsure of who you are or where you’re going.

When I’m not writing, I spend my time forging the memories which will doubtlessly inspire my next book, Less Than Outstanding Adulthood!
 

Risks & Challenges

The biggest challenge with publishing a book is delivering the finished book to the backer, specifically my mailing of the book to you. I have eliminated this risk by building into the campaign the mailing and shipping costs of your signed copies to you within each pre-order tier.

The risk of delivering the pre-sale copies of my book is contingent on the publisher we use. I will be working closely with New Degree Press to make sure we get the earliest possible ship date of the signed book copy to you. We will keep all pre-sale backers up-to-date as my book hits each key milestone and publishes. You will know when the copies of my book you pre-ordered are expected to ship.

Other Ways You Can Help

Some people just can't contribute, but that doesn't mean they can't help:

• Please Share my Pre-sale Campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn with your friends, family and network.
• You can easily share my Pre-Sale Campaign Page via Indiegogo at the top of the page