Rick Paulas

He emailed editors at online publications seeking to get published and ultimately spent fifteen years writing for outlets such as The Awl, Wired, Vice, McSweeney's, Curbed and Longreads.

[2] By 2019, he had spent six years living in Oakland, writing articles about the widespread housing crisis and on topics such as the Ghost Ship warehouse fire.

[5] The monthly donations he raised on Patreon contributed to a printing run of one thousand physical copies of the book, to which he added art by local Oakland creators to the beginning of each chapter.

The vendors quickly sold all of the books that were donated and the unusual selling arrangement prompted several news organizations to publish stories noting the phenomenon.

Looking to sell the remaining inventory of Eastern Span and to cover original printing costs, he began a new sales strategy by advertising on Twitter without actually purchasing promotional space.

It started in January 2021, in response to a viral Stephen A. Smith tweet and "seven or eight people bought the book off of that one (reply)", according to Paulas.

Over the years, Paulas had composed and released short stories with a common setting, the fictional Palmer Hotel which is haunted.