Obama’s Challenge
Rick Hertzberg writes about a forthcoming book from Bob Kuttner called Obama’s Challenge. It sounds very interesting. Also interesting is this — unlike a normal political book that’s finished, it’s not going to float around in the ether for months waiting for me to try to scheme my way into possession of a free copy. Instead, says Hertzberg:
Kuttner’s book, by the way, is a pioneering exercise in cutting-edge publishing. The publisher, Chelsea Green, plans to have two thousand copies ready for distribution at the Democratic National Convention. That will mean a lapsed time of about one week between final edit and finished book. (I’ve written blog posts that took longer to make their way online.) The book won’t be in the stores till September 15, but you can get it sooner, thanks to a deal Chelsea Green has made a with BookSurge, Amazon’s new print-on-demand subsidiary. You order it, they print it and bind it, and it’s in your hands forty-eight hours later.
That’s totally awesome. The publishing industry is badly in need of a shakeup in its methods and business models, and this sounds like a step in the right direction. My order’s been placed.
32 Responses to “Obama’s Challenge”
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August 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
BookSurge>? Who do we need to behead and car-bomb to make this ‘Surge’ language withdraw from our discourse?
August 17th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
It’s time to bring Surge, the soda, back. I could go for some Surge right now, actually.
August 17th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Why is the publishing industry badly in need of a shakeup in its methods and business models?
August 17th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
The Obama movement is coming close to neutralizing the traditional Republican advantage in money. Not quite if you look at all the Republican sources of funding, but definitely they’ve cut seriously into this advantage.
They have mobilized a serious base of active supporters maybe three times larger than the conservatives. One of the tasks lies in turning many of the politically-inexperienced supporters into savvy activated citizens.
August 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
There was a lot of enthusiasm a few years back about print-on-demand as the next wave, and some serious investment in it. But the predicted market demand never materialized. This kind of hot, short life-cycle current affairs title is probably the best kind of candidate for a major POD run, but otherwise people still seem to want nice, pretty, well-produced books from conventional printing presses. Chelsea Green probably sees the same election season opportunity here that they had with Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant back in 2004.
August 17th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Why is the publishing industry badly in need of a shakeup in its methods and business models?
I suspect for Matt that’s because John Wiley sold so few units of his book! As sometimes happens with current affairs titles, Matt had to sit and wait during the period from completion to release date, as the zeitgeist changed around him. Foreign policy wasn’t quite the hot topic in Spring 2008 that it was in 2007.
But I really wouldn’t blame the production, sales and marketing elements here so much as the editors. Matt’s editor should have helped him figure out that his book was lacking a well-defined audience – and was frankly lacking in substance too.
August 17th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
But how was the copy editing?
August 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
One sector (and not a small one) of the book industry that can use some real changes from POD is the travel guide industry. Just think of being able to print the guidebook for places you want to go, rather than for an entire region when you’re only visiting a segment of this. I believe that one printer (DK?) does this (so you can choose, for instance, to print the Paris section of the France book, without 5* hotels), but I think that this will be the next big step for this industry.
August 17th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
That’s totally awesome.
Totally! Especially considering the fact that it will probably be a hard-hitting expose and not simply warmed-over campaign hagiography. If it’s scholarly enough, it might even make the OprahBookClub!
P.S. Details on the BHO campaign “creatively editing” a Corsi quote at my name’s link. They probably won’t have to do that to Kuttner, unless he becomes disfavored.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I’d recommend holding onto your money until all the votes are counted. If Obama loses, you’ll get a much better price on Kuttner’s book a decade from now in a strip mall used book store, sitting next to copies of Michael Dukakis: The Man Who Would Be President.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
The Dukakis book came out the May before the election, and there are “53 used & new available from $0.01″. It also has a Sales Rank of 1,993,521.
P.S. Maybe MattY could suggest to Kuttner that he watches this over and over in order to strike the right tone.
August 17th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Matt: You know you have become seriously influential when they come out of the woodwork doing hit jobs on you all over the internet. Just so you know, it’s a concerted effort targeting you, Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall. Congratulations on achieving this honor at such a young age.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I, too, wish it were called something else, but this is a surge I can support!
August 18th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Meanwhile, it takes months to a year for Booker Long List nominees published abroad to be published in the US (some months after the Long List has been announced), even though all of those books are in English.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Chelsea Green Rocks.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Mary:
How did you discover our dastardly plan? With the googling? Was it that?
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