FAHRENHEIT-182 is a #1 New York Times bestseller

Some book tour dispatches.

Apr 20, 2025

Hello and welcome to ZERO CRED, the only music newsletter ever to exist. A few housekeeping things:

FAHRENHEIT-182 is a #1 New York Times bestseller and we are the greatest writers to ever live.
To celebrate, it seems appropriate to keep this $1 membership sale going through May. Upgrade your ZERO CRED subscription for a buck a month!
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Thanks to all the paid subscribers who entered my signed book giveaway. I contacted the winners and shipped their copies out this morning.
If you are a paid ZERO CRED subscriber, a reminder that I’m going to be trying out my first live stream in a few hours. APRIL 20 AT 9:30am PST! Taking questions and whatever people want to talk about. Come hang out on a Sunday morning!

What I remember most was that my clothes didn’t fit right. I don’t even remember buying them. They were just in my closet somehow. The tags said things like Structure and Express Men and Banana Republic. Khaki pants and button-up shirts with muted colors and pale patterns. I had to put this crap on every day and commute to my job in Manhattan. The cruelest 30 seconds of my day were the morning elevator ride. The reflective doors closed shut and I got a good look at myself. For half a minute I watched a guy who looked like me ascend 20 stories to a job that wasn’t for him. I looked at this guy and his vacant eyes for eight years.

Overall I would describe the experience of working in book publishing as “fine.” I was glad to have a job—any job—after college. Most of my coworkers were more enthusiastic than I was. They didn’t seem to mind the fact that we were all wearing these stupid clothes or sitting in long meetings in the conference room or sending emails all day. It didn’t seem to bother them that we were spending our lives working on other people’s books instead of chasing our dreams to write our own.

There was really only one part of the job that made all the boring stuff worthwhile. It was when you got to call an author to say hey guess what you made the New York Times bestseller list. It didn’t happen very often and that’s what made it so special. It is an incredibly hard thing to pull off. The New York Times has some closely guarded backdoor algorithm to uniquely weigh book sales. You have to sell a lot of copies on Amazon, but also at local indie shops. Oh and don’t forget about Barnes & Noble and Book A Million and etc etc etc.

When I hit 30 the bad-fitting clothes finally got to me and I jumped off the cliff of my career to pursue writing full-time. It is very surreal to type this but I have been able to make a career out of it in the decade since. Another surreal thing to type is that last week I published my third book. That’s 300,000 words I’ve had published. And maybe the most surreal of all is that this one was co-written with Mark Hoppus of blink-182, a band I have been going to see play since I was 14 years old.

On Thursday, Mark and I were looking at paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago and I said I was going to head back to our hotel early to shower before our show at the Riviera Theater that night, our fifth show of the book tour. As soon as I got down the stairs to the subway platform, my phone started ringing. “We’re number one,” Mark said. I said Oh my god Oh my god holy shit Mark Oh fuck. Then I hung up and the people around me thought I was insane. Number one, I shouted. We did it. We fucking did it!!!

Three hours later, Mark and I were on stage looking out onto a thousand faces and I was doing my favorite part of the show, the part where I introduce him and give him his much deserved due. I rattled off his life achievements—getting nominated for a Grammy, founding three beloved bands, being the star of the movie American Pie, etc. And then I got to add a new one to the list. “As of an hour ago, he is the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, FAHRENHEIT-182.” The place went fucking wild and I did too inside. On the outside I remained cool but inside I was pumping my fist in the air and screaming hell yeah. HELL YEAH.

If informing one person that they’d reached the mountaintop was the best part of my otherwise banal publishing job, informing a thousand cheering people that the book that Mark and I worked so hard on for two years was not only on the list, it went straight to number one, felt like getting high fived by a million past versions of myself. It felt like punching a hole through the moon with my fist. It felt like slamdunking on the Pope.

I try not to let arbitrary milestones go to my head and instead focus on the path ahead. But getting to celebrate a big achievement like that in real-time with so many people was a moment I’ll never forget. Because really, this was a team effort. I am so grateful for every single person who bought a copy, for the team that made the book and tour possible, for my friends who have supported me for so many years, and most of all for Mark for trusting me with this deeply personal project.

Everyone has been telling me to make sure I am enjoying this moment. I definitely am. When the dust settles maybe I will fully understand What It All Means. But for now, let’s fuckin’ party.

danozzi

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SIDE NOTE

There’s been a fun vibe shift on this tour since we got the bestseller news. Kinda took the pressure off the whole thing. It feels like we crossed the finish line and are now taking a victory lap. Every time we pass each other in the halls, we’ll say “number one, baby.” Funny enough, every time I hear someone say it, I think of The Streets’ Bloc Party remix (don’t know if a more 2007 sentence has ever been uttered, although I guess “Of Montreal’s Outback Steakhouse commercial” is up there). “Yeah we’re at number one… and it feels good.” So true, Mike Skinner. So true.

MORE BOOK STUFF SORRY!

OK I promise I will shut the fuck up about the book soon. But in case you do want more, here are some cool things:

HERE I MADE YOU A PLAYLIST

Also, I’m realizing that I’ve picked up some new followers this month so if you’re new to me and My Whole Thing, hello. I made you this playlist of some of my favorite songs, either by my friends or bands I love.