In a presidential election year marked by a divisive incumbent and many important local and national races, the recent spate of Republican-bashing bestsellers by authors Al Franken, Paul Krugman and Molly Ivins have left plenty of room for indie successes. Nation Books has scored with The Bush-Hater's Handbook (Nov. 2003; $13.95) by Jack Huberman, which has 60,000 copies in print after four trips to press, while Seven Stories' The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq (Nov. 2003; $9.95) by Christopher Scheer et al. has 40,000 copies in print after two printings. But established political presses like Seven Stories and Nation Books may have to scramble to maintain their edge, as more houses than ever before jump into the fray, publishing a bumper crop of liberal titles.
In addition to the major publishers, a host of independent presses are putting out their first political titles, despite significant competition and the risk of high returns, which can mean bankruptcy for an over-extended press. Although some industry analysts and buyers have forecasted consumer burn-out from the onslaught, publisher Greg Bates at 12-year-old Common Courage Press in Monroeville, Maine, believes the passionate anger of many liberals will keep the market going. "To put it simply," he explained, "we've never had a [political] target this big before."
Coalition-Building
In a publishing experiment that may help their titles stand out this spring, two small presses distributed by PGW are joining forces with like-minded political organizations to publicize and market "political self-help" books that have hefty first printings. In March, Soft Skull Press will publish How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office ($12.95), a collection of political success stories that doubles as a guide to "throwing the bums out" in 2004. Slated for a 60,000-copy first printing, the trade paperback is edited by political activist William Upski Wimsatt, whose previous paperback originals Bomb the Suburbs (2001) and No More Prisons (1999) have together sold more than 100,000 copies for the 10-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., press. The contributing writers are members of the League of Independent Voters, which helps develop coalitions of gay, punk, black, Latino and young people around the country.
To promote the book, Soft Skull will distribute 20,000 free copies to youth-oriented nonprofit groups, after-school programs and political organizations. The press will also give out books at more than a dozen conferences and conventions across the country, such as the National Hip-Hop Political Convention this June, where a copy will be included in the registration packet. "We're hoping that the book will help swing local, state and national elections in favor of progressive candidates," said publisher Richard Nash.
In April, Inner Ocean Publishing in Maui, Hawaii, will publish MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change. It's the first book by MoveOn.org, the media-savvy grassroots organization that works to help citizens become politically active and has attracted more than 1.7 million U.S. members in five years. The book features 50 personal essays by MoveOn members, along with useful tips such as how to write an op-ed letter and how to plan a visit to an elected official. Former Vice President Al Gore and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi are two of the celebrities who write introductions to sections of the book.
Around publication time, Nightline will feature the book, according to associate publisher Karen Bouris, who is planning a 75,000-copy first printing. The press's $50,000 marketing and publicity budget will also allow Inner Ocean and MoveOn volunteers to do more than 75 bookstore readings around the country in April.
That ambitious marketing plan, specifically tailored to MoveOn's goals, convinced the organization to work with the five-year-old press, which specializes in women's interest, inspirational and political titles. "That's the small-publishing advantage," said Bouris. "We can't compete by giving people huge advances, so we have to be a little more proactive." The book will also launch Inner Ocean's Call to Action series, which is slated to include other books by prominent progressive organizations.
More Than the Usual Suspects
Like conservative presses in the mid-1990s, many of this year's neophyte publishers have been drawn into politics by anxiety about the political atmosphere, the belief that their ideas are overlooked by major media and the rise of grassroots organizations that support politically aligned books. Like Soft Skull and Inner Ocean, they also bring an activist zeal to the publication process that distinguishes them from larger publishers.
It was conviction that prompted New York City's Feminist Press, the oldest feminist publisher in the country, to undertake its first political book, The W Effect: Sexual Politics in the Bush Years and Beyond (June), a compilation of essays edited by San Francisco public radio host Laura Flanders. Though the book is a departure from the house's yearly list of 20 literary and academic titles, editorial manager Livia Tenzer is convinced that the political climate, especially for women, warrants its publication. So far, early responses have been favorable: the press's distributor, Consortium, advised doubling the print run to 10,000, one of the press's largest initial printings.
Among the other inspired first-timers around the country is Vermont's Upper Access. In addition to its two or three annual how-to titles, the press will publish historian Frances Hill's Such Men Are Dangerous: The Fanatics of 1692 and 2004 (Mar., $22.95), which examines the similarities between Puritan ideologues and today's neo-conservatives. In the Midwest, Academy Chicago Publishers is delving into politics after a quarter-century of advice and academic titles with Take Them at Their Words: Startling, Amusing and Baffling Quotations from the GOP, Their Friends and a Few Others, 1994—2004 (Mar. $15.95), by Bruce J. Miller and Diana Maio. Brooklyn-based Ig Publishing, which usually publishes fiction, will reprint Propaganda (Sept.; $13.95; dist by Consortium), the classic 1928 treatise by Edward Bernays, who designed the advertising campaign that helped win public support for U.S. involvement in the First World War.
Some established publishers are also expanding their offerings. The New Press recently published a pack of playing cards, Regime Change Begins at Home (Nov. 2003; $7.95). And in June, it will publish what may be its most satirical book yet, Citizen You! Helping Your Government Help Itself (paper, $16.95) by Mike Loew and Joe Garden, who both write for the Onion, and Randy Ostrow. Meanwhile, Seven Stories will put out a full-color set of over-sized playing cards, The Joker's Wild: Dubya's Trick Deck (May, $8.95), featuring illustrations by Robert Grossman and new critical writing by Greg Palast on each card.
Taking the Gloves Off
Over the past decade, many politically oriented small publishers have gradually improved their marketing, making their books more attractive to a mainstream audience. Most noticeably, today's jackets are a major improvement over those of the '80s and early '90s, many of which had the appeal of a Sears home appliance catalogue. The tone of many books is also different these days. What would have been an unsmiling critique of government policy a decade ago has become more sarcastic and entertaining, with an obvious debt to Michael Moore's pioneering Stupid White Men (HarperCollins, 2001).
"The left got a little more ballsy about the kinds of books they publish and how they market them, taking the gloves off and getting into the fray with the Anne Coulters and Rush Limbaughs," said Neil Ortenberg, executive vice-president at Avalon Publishing Group and publisher of Nation Books. Examples among the company's recent titles include The I Hate Republicans Reader: Why the GOP Is Totally Wrong About Everything (Thunder's Mouth, Nov. 2003) by Clint Willis, which is on its fourth printing with 45,000 copies in print.
Other factors, such as format, price and the Internet, have also had an impact. As printing technology has advanced, publishers can now get four-color printing and quick turn-arounds for low-priced paperback originals. A number of presses have been able to generate greater sales through their own Web sites, offering steep discounts and sometimes making a title available before its release date. At the same time, partisan news sites such as BuzzFlash and AlterNet have been buying books and marketing them to their large daily readerships.
But for many small publishers, it's the dynamic political and social changes over the past few years that have had the biggest impact. "Low-priced paperbacks that are highly contentious and somewhat controversial wouldn't have gotten the same sales numbers before 2001," said Ortenberg. "As long as there are overwhelming international events that keep the focus on both domestic and international politics, the category is going to be working one way or another."
An Enduring Trend?
Longtime political publisher Dan Simon of Seven Stories Press finds the increased marketability of political nonfiction "very exciting," in many ways. "We now have the potential to reach not only people who agree [with liberal ideas] but also people who will determine the future direction of the country—the middle third who don't consider themselves right or left but who think of themselves as having good sense and want to make responsible decisions," he said.
Still, when it comes to signing up widely known authors and making a book stand out in the marketplace, the increased competition will certainly have an impact on most small presses. Some liberals fear the "Coulterization" of the category, meaning that louder, more outrageous authors will overshadow less entertaining but more intellectual ones. While Simon doesn't put any value in that theory, he acknowledges that a larger market will have an impact. "When you get something published for marketing reasons, you get uneven quality from that," he opined. "You can't assume a political book is top-quality anymore, just because it's from the left."
Others, like Ortenberg, see only benefits. "There's not one iota of negativity attached to [the recent spate of liberal books]," he asserted. "I think all this stuff, whether it's more populist or intellectually political, is creating more thoughtfulness and debate and energizing progressive politics."
