A Tale of Two Obama Books: Why Do Progressives Still Not Get It?

As Mr. Dickens might say: It was the best of books, it was the worst of books. And the rest of it fits, too: It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Let's do worst first, and review the life-so-far of a book that is truly the avatar of wingnut-inspired foolishness, incredulity, darkness and despair: Obama Nation by WorldNetDaily writer and swift-boating smear-lackey Jerome Corsi. This 384-page menace of malicious libel and slander was ushered onto the New York Times and Amazon bestseller lists by longtime GOP hack-cum-editor Mary-Mrs.-James-Carville-Matalin, aided by bulk buys from right-wing membership groups and the Conservative Book Club, and via right-wing talk radio and Fox News Channel. It has now received nearly two straight weeks of saturation mainstream media coverage, including a front-page news story and excerpt in the Times.

The sad thing, however, is that this pathetic excuse for a book is just one more example of how the right effectively coordinates and moves their ideas (and lies) into the national discourse, while the left seems unable or unwilling to absorb the important lesson about supporting progressive books so they, too, will debut on bestseller lists, monopolize media coverage and--say it with me now: DRIVE PROGRESSIVE IDEAS INTO THE NATIONAL DISCOURSE.

Even more sad? This week, a hefty faction on the left--primarily independent booksellers (following Barnes and Noble's lead)--is actively boycotting a brave attempt to bring the book-publishing industry into the 21st century, and effectively trying to keep a progressive, pro-Obama (and fact-based) title called Obama's Challenge out of the marketplace of ideas. This is a book that Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker calls "the fruit of [American Prospect co-founder] Bob Kuttner's lifetime of engagé reporting, analysis, and advocacy," and goes on to say that the book "was written in a white-hot fever of urgent inspiration over mere months. I've been carrying around a draft manuscript for most of the week, reading it in every spare moment--on the subway, on the street, during stretches of Olympic longueur...it's riveting, brilliant, and persuasive."

The Obama's Challenge 75,000 print-run is on a crash schedule, due out September 15, from the independent, activist publishing house Chelsea Green (full disclosure, I worked as an editor/marketer for the house from 2004-2006) in an effort to help fight the smears against Obama in time for the election. The book will go from final edits to bound books in less than four weeks. With so little lead time until the book's publication date, Chelsea Green publisher Margo Baldwin decided to try an innovative approach for building early buzz by making 2000 early copies of the book available at next week's Democratic National Convention, as part of a deal with Amazon's print-on-demand arm, BookSurge.

Baldwin says, "This election is too important to wait around for traditional publishing lead times. The book needs to come out now if it's to have a major impact."

You might think, just as the right rallies around their books to push them onto bestseller lists to monopolize the national debate, that the left might do something similar with Obama's Challenge. You would be wrong--at least so far.

Instead of receiving kudos for taking the financial risk of publishing an instant pro-Obama book, Chelsea Green is facing angry calls for regressive business tactics based on an archaic system of book distribution, and cancelled orders from booksellers large and small. These business-related, bookseller reactions are in addition to the usual apathy, which meets most progressive books upon their debut, from the very community (Democrats and progressives) that would benefit most from seeing those books sell well in the marketplace, and again, say it with me now: DRIVE PROGRESSIVE IDEAS INTO THE NATIONAL DISCOURSE.

When news of the deal broke on August 15th, independent booksellers and other online retailers were enraged about the deal with BookSurge, which has Amazon providing the 2000 early copies for the Convention, and 15,000 coupons for the book to go into Convention goody bags, redeemable at Amazon. The deal also makes the book available exclusively through BookSurge's print-on-demand (POD) service from August 25-September 15, when the formal print-run would be available in all bookstores and via other online retailers, through traditional book distribution channels.

On Monday, former indie nemesis Barnes and Noble cancelled an order for 10,000 copies of Obama's Challenge and released a statement saying, "The initial order was based on the book being available to all booksellers simultaneously -- an even playing field -- which is common practice in book publishing." Many smaller stores are following suit.

Let's first address the book industry hypocrisy and misinformation. Given the crash schedule, why should a small independent publisher be punished for making a creative deal to get early copies of a book out, so that more people can then learn about the book--and then ask for it at their local book stores or buy it online from another retailer? Without the usual lengthy lead-time, Chelsea Green had no other viable option for meeting the Convention week deadline, when the book can be presented to Democrats and progressives who will benefit from the information therein in the lead-up to the presidential election. There is "no level playing field" for progressive independent publishers, whose books are bought in ones and twos from independent booksellers, while corporate houses' offerings and dreck like the Corsi book are bought in bulk and get front-of-store, table-top display treatment. And, as PW reported:

Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, said he was "disheartened" with Chelsea Green's "decision to exclude independent booksellers." He said the BookSurge/Amazon option could be copied for independents who also take advance online orders and fulfill them through POD.

Not. In fact, Baldwin did attempt to forge a deal with another (and perhaps more acceptable to independent booksellers) provider of print-on-demand services, Ingram's Lightning Source, but was told they could not meet the Convention deadline. Yesterday, I tried to find information via the indie sellers' marketing arm, Indiebound, and was told that they announced a POD service in July, but this was too late to meet the DNC deadline as well. Sure, now publishers can work with an indie POD option, but it simply was not an option for Obama's Challenge, and why should Chelsea Green be made an example of by the likes of corporate giant Barnes and Noble? This out-dated distribution system needs to be reformed, to be more nimble and flexible for instant books. We have the technology! Or, maybe we should just go back to using the plough, too?

The other problem here is that once again, a meticulously-reported and intelligent progressive book may die on the vine, from lack of progressive support, before word of it reaches the American public. On our side, we have no wingnut-welfare type support for our writers, who take the time to write and promote their work tirelessly in an effort to advance the progressive cause. Despite the odds, a precious few scratch and claw their way onto bestseller lists post-pub date, after tortuous weeks of book-touring and self-promotion, in the face of giant collective yawns from the progressive community. Most go to all this trouble, and still don't make the lists.

This, despite the right's tutelage about what works, and some strong progressive book examples of what is possible when we all work together. I know something about this, having ushered George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant onto the bestseller lists back in 2004 while at Chelsea Green, and later doing the same for Glenn Greenwald's How Would a Patriot Act? at Working Assets.

In Lakoff's case, we had nearly 40 progressive groups, and all the progressive media rally around the book, putting it on their web sites and sending out email blasts urging people to buy the book. In Greenwald's case, word of the book spread like wildfire on the progressive blogs, shooting it from obscurity to the number one spot on Amazon in one day--and keeping it there for four--which led to a spot on the Times list. These were seminal books for the progressive movement, successes that helped to make progressive ideas thrive once again in the marketplace.

Yet, despite these examples and my incessant evangelizing about what we could accomplish if progressive membership and media groups and the blogs would regularly work together to promote progressive books, we apparently prefer to watch the right manipulate the system time and time again, and get books like Corsi's splashed all over American media.

Where are our side's bulk buys for important books like The Uprising, The Real McCain and Obama's Challenge? Where is the blanket coverage from progressive media? Why don't we find ways to support our writers, so they can afford to keep advancing progressive causes? Why can't we see more wildfire, viral mentions of progressive books throughout the blogosphere? To be fair, the book salons on some of the blogs, like Firedoglake and TPM, have done a great deal to advance the cause of certain progressive books, but we have to do more in order to counter-balance right-wing radio and Fox News Channel. And the Progressive Book Club, while a necessary effort, is still to new to be making a dent.

I hate to tell you, indie booksellers, but this isn't just about business. It's about activism and defeating the right, and getting our messages and ideas out in the most effective ways possible. It's about not shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot, again. A few thousand POD copies of Obama's Challenge will lead to more people walking through your doors and asking for the book before the election. Boycotting this book is a mistake, and you know it. Instead of looking backward, find ways to advance your own innovative models and POD services with publishers and the public.

And Barnes and Noble? You're not fooling anyone with your fake holier-than-thou act.

Why don't we all cheer when a little publisher from Vermont decides to stand up to the right-wing smear tactics against Obama, with a bold and innovative publishing plan? Why don't we all resolve to buy copies of the book and push a pro-Obama book onto the bestseller lists--and help to push the Corsi menace into oblivion?

Hey, now. Wait a minute. We can do this. Together.

Comments

[Wilburrr]

Amazon.com -- $8.22 it can ship tomorrow.

[Michael57]

Would you like to revisit your claim that Chelsea Green tried Ingram for the Kuttner book but was told that they couldn't meet the deadline?

From Shelf Awareness today:

"John McCain's announcement Friday that he had picked Sarah Palin as his running mate caused a bit of an earthquake at Epicenter Press, the Kenmore, Wash., house that has the only biography of the Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah: How a Small Town Girl Turned Alaska's Political Establishment on Its Ear by Kaylene Johnson.

By 10 a.m. (on Friday), Epicenter sold the last 3,000 hardcover copies it had of Sarah, originally published in April. Epicenter is distributed by Graphic Arts Center Publishing, which itself is handled by Ingram Publisher Services. By the end of Friday, IPS had orders for 40,000 more copies. On Friday, Epicenter arranged with Ingram's Lightning Source POD operation to print a trade paperback edition of Sarah. By Friday evening, Lightning Source received the necessary files from Epicenter and began printing books. As of last night, some 30,000 copies had been printed and are shipping today. The Lightning Source staff reportedly worked overtime over the Labor Day weekend to make this happen.

Ingram Content Companies chairman John Ingram said that the effort showed "our capabilities for helping our publishing clients seize the opportunities that come their way. No other entity in the book industry could have delivered this book to market as we did, so fast and so broadly." "

Correction? Apology?

[thinklib]

Books that 'bash' liberals do well because more people want to read them.

Books that 'bash' conservative DON'T do as well because less people want to read them.

There are more conservatives than liberals.

Most liberals don't realize this. They think everyone hates Bush, everyone thinks Cheney is evil, everyone loves Christopher Hitchins, Bill Maher, and the like.

It just ain't so.

[Emmagoldmanbabe]

Christopher Hitchens is a liberal? OMG! I don't think so.

[Tulka2]

As McCainites and Clintonistas yammer on about Obama's "lack of experience", it is important to translate what the true mesage is. The true meaning of Obama's supposed "inexperience" is, "Who DOES he think he is?!" To question Obama's "esperience" is just one degree off calling Obama "upitty" and i consider it racist as hell. The thing they REALLY mean is "Obama is inexperienced at being white".

As Bill Clinton himself pointed out, "The Consitution states what experience is needed". People jumped on that as not a glowing enough endorsment and maybe it wasn't, but it does go straight to the point. The Constitution of the United States of America says Barak Obama has the qualifications he needs to be president.

Tribalism and racism play accross television screens today. I don't see anyone naming it and i am ashamed of this country for it.

( demographic: I am a little old white lady in Washington state)

[jsgaetano]

We already HAVE a book out about McCain: "The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't", by Cliff Schecter.

Yet somehow, in the "fair and balanced" world... the book gets zero traction. Why? Because the "liberal media" doesn't care about a book which has anything bad to say about corrupt conservatives (an admittedly redundant term).

We can sit and opine about why that is, but it's really simple: Rupert Murdoch and the other Goopers have bought out the entire media in America. The AP and Reuters are very pro-Republican, almost every newspaper in the country gets their stories from the AP or Reuters, and just about every television news program reports on what's in the newspaper (or on the Drudge Report).

What I find REALLY intersting is how, when Jerome Corsi is on yet another news program, nobody asks him about his accusations that John McCain receives funding from Al Qaeda.

[cam]

Jennifer,

You're missing the point. To win the propaganda war we don't need another Obama biography to set the record straight for those few of us who read both progressive and conservative essays. No, we need a joyfully slanderous, salacious, vindictive and vituperative dissection of McCain. Of his seemingly endless list of vulnerabilities: "The flip-flops. His laziness. His craven surrender on matters of principle. His lobbyist minders. His misunderstanding of basic facts. And then there are all those legitimate questions about his personal integrity and character." [ R J Eskow] We need an engrossing page turner that leaves one with much the same sense of physical gratification that a good action movie leaves in its aftermath. Where this book would differ from the rest of the genre is that it would be based in humor - because that is a path faith-based propagandists cannot tread, cannot counter.

[reggie1298]

As Hendrick Hertzberg reviews the book he writes that it is "...the fruit of [American Prospect co-founder] Bob Kuttner's lifetime of engagé reporting, analysis, and advocacy," and goes on to say that the book "was written in a white-hot fever of urgent inspiration over mere months..."

I think the book sellers read the review and feared the book was written in the same breathless, moist-privates style and would serve as nothing more than expensive shelf paper.

[RatgurlSD]

I'll order & pay for a copy in advance. Who'se selling it?

And Screw B&N!!! They'll never see another penny from my pocket.

[kimbari]

Mine, either!

[mellene]

The right does it with the help of the media and corporations who have the economic clout to not let go of their power.

[amazingdays]

The book is now showing up as #378 in sales on Amazon, for whatever you wish to make of that information. Persuaded by this article, I have now pre-ordered it online via Amazon. I tend to be an impulse book buyer and would have been much more likely to buy it in a bricks and mortar store. But now I don't know if I will be seeing it in any stores near me, so I broke with my usual practice and ordered it online. In order to get free shipping, I also bought a couple of other books I would normally have bought at my local store, including the Obama campaign's September book, which I also pre-ordered.

How this outcome helps the cause of independent booksellers or national booksellers is a mystery to me.

[NotMcCain]

It helps the publisher, the author, and Amazon.

Considering there was a prior agreement between the publisher and booksellers that is not being honored by this change, I don't think it helps -them- at all.

[UrbanRevolution]

I just pre-ordered 2 copies of Obama's Challenge from Amazon. The book is only 8.50 -- buy it if you can

[barackobama4prez]

Dems have too much of a crabs in a bucket mentality to coordinate ANYTHING.

[disgusted48]

If the author wanted to make money and help Obama, he should have written a book smearing mccain, or in other words telling the truth about mccain, starting at the naval academy. Why won't somebody write that book? I'll buy 10 of those.

[justobserve]

"telling the truth about mccain"
This is what Obama has to do everyday to expose the REAL McCain to voters. Obama: nothing is more absurb than letting a fake character such as McCain to paint you as a fake!

[fredamae]

well, not surprisingly..those who buy into the negative are grasping at straws. It is Always "easier to believe" the "bad stuff". This is especially true when you have the laziest of people wanting "script" to quote off the backs of others ideology, Damn the facts of anything.

Those who support BO don't need to read about the "pro's"....they already believe in his credibility. The rest of "them" simply, yet disparately, seek a rationale to add a false foundation in order to further their own mis informed path.

Pathetic, really. When was the last time a "sheeple" made the right decision?

[Scarllatti]

Are you surprised? It is mainly due to the fact that White America (not all of them though) have been fed what they want to believe and salivate on. Are you still surprised some folks will still prefer to "believe" that Obama is a Muslim when it was NEVER true? This country will either decide to move ahead to the 21st Century or risk Balkanization associated with racial and religious identities common place in Eastern Europe and the Middle east. I pray we do not get there. But those who make peace change impossible are courting a more violent process eventually. Do pretend it will not happen here. If we regress, it is all a matter of time before we have that ugly situation in our hands. I pray for my country, America.

[justobserve]

The winner will be chosen by a majority of voters. Let see if the PEOPLE'S POWER will win this time.