Chelsea Green Makes Obama Book Available Early Exclusively on Amazon
By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly,08/15/2008
Chelsea Green Publishing is crashing a book on Obama in time for the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month. President and publisher Margo Baldwin said the book, Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency by Robert Kuttner, will go from final manuscript to bound books within four weeks. The publisher will produce 2,000 advance copies, and make the book available early exclusively on Amazon—two firsts for the eco-conscious independent publisher.
In the book, Kuttner, an economic journalist and cofounder of The American Prospect, explains what Obama, if elected, must do to solve America’s economic crisis and, in the process, become a transformative leader. Chelsea Green’s first printing is 75,000 copies, and it will distribute 2,000 advance reading copies at DNC events throughout the week. It will also place coupons for an early discount in welcome packets to 15,000 convention-goers. The coupons are redeemable on Amazon.com and the book will be printed on-demand by BookSurge, as a $13.95 trade paperback. Obama’s Challenge will be available to order on Amazon.com as soon as coupons are distributed on the first day of the convention, August 25 (official pub date is September 15).
Baldwin said, “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.” BookSurge’s POD technology will allow Amazon to ship books to customers on the same day orders are placed.
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| Submitted by: | Michael Weaver 8/21/2008 12:57:50 PM PT |
| Location: | Santa Cruz, CA |
| Occupation: | Sales Rep |
As a rep for Chelsea Green and former independent bookseller (for 15 years), I'd just like to offer the small clarification of an essential piece of information that has not been reported by PW or anyone else that I’ve seen commenting on it, and may help to explain our blind spot as far as the indie (and B&N) response.
Chelsea Green is making no profit on the POD version of this book--none. And in fact we’re losing money on all the redeemed coupons. The POD book is a marketing expense that will be lucky to pay for itself. The goal of our little gambit is absolutely not to sell 100,000 copies of the POD; the goal is to sell just enough to prime the pump for when the “real” book comes out.
It’s kind of like giving away a bunch of galleys to end users, except that we’re cutting our costs by selling them. Large publishers can afford to give out 10,000 galleys; we can’t. Obviously, Amazon, is profiting from the arrangement because Booksurge was the only POD company we spoke with who said they could deliver what we needed, but functionally, as far as our bottom line is concerned, Amazon is a marketing partner, not a sales partner (in terms of the POD; of course once the real book comes out, they’ll be selling that too).
That’s what Margo Baldwin has meant by referring to this as a “launch strategy rather than a sales strategy”: the equation only works for us if we sell a lot of the big print run—through all channels. The last thing this strategy is intended to do is undercut sales of the finished book.
Does this justify the decision we made? Perhaps not. It just sickens me that Chelsea Green is being cast as an enemy of independent booksellers. If I believed that it was our intention to slight the indies, I wouldn't still work for Chelsea Green.
| Submitted by: | shudicat 8/21/2008 8:04:22 AM PT |
Chelsea Green's self-righteousness aside (and surely we DO need a book
like this right now), from this outsider's perspective, it looks like the
company failed to get their act together to publish the book in time for
the convention--a deadline they should have been able to make. Forget
POD; they could have seen this coming. Corsi and Simon & Schuster did.
But rather than apologize for their inability to produce timely books on
time, Baldwin et al are insulting the intelligence of everyone in the
industry. Well done, guys.
| Submitted by: | Ken White (white@sfsubookstore.com) 8/18/2008 10:25:50 AM PT |
| Location: | San Francisco |
| Occupation: | Manager, SFSU Bookstore |
I will echo that Chelsea Green could just as easily have used Ingram's
Lightening Source to create POD copies of the book, and it would have
been available in all channels, not just Amazon. If the book truly bears
the import that the publisher professes it to bear, that would have gotten
their message out more efficiently and to a broader audience.
| Submitted by: | Margo Baldwin 8/18/2008 8:31:05 AM PT |
| Location: | White River Junction, VT |
| Occupation: | Publisher |
<p>Open letter to the bookselling community:
<p>First I want to thank all of you for the big positions you have taken on Robert Kuttner’s important new book, <em>Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency</em>. As Hendrick Hertzberg just wrote on his New Yorker blog, “<em>Obama's Challenge</em> is the fruit of Bob Kuttner’s lifetime of engagé reporting, analysis, and advocacy…. it is riveting, brilliant, and persuasive. Kuttner, in concise chapters written with great vigor and clarity, shows what the change could look like if Obama is bold enough to go for it and the gods continue to smile on him.”
<p>Secondly, I want to respond to the initial reaction to our decision to launch this book by offering a special discount coupon at the Democratic National Convention, redeemable exclusively on Amazon.com via print-on-demand technology until the regular print run is available for national distribution.
<p>According to a few of the emails our sales team has received, not only is it “a money-grubbing sellout,” a “slap in the face,” and “another blow to independent bookstores” but several stores have cancelled their orders and others have told us that they will never order from us again!
<p>I think a little perspective is in order.
<p>We are headed into the most important election season in a generation that will, I believe, impact how we deal with the multiple cascading crises America confronts: the war in Iraq, the dangers of new military confrontations with Iran and Russia, escalating climate change that threatens life on earth, an economic situation as dire as the Great Depression, and a deepening energy crisis that threatens to fundamentally change our way of life.
<p>Chelsea Green and the author, Robert Kuttner, are taking an enormous risk in publishing this book. We have two months to get it into readers’ hands before the election. If Obama wins, the book will have even more life, but if he doesn’t the book will be done. This is about a publisher’s commitment to its author to get one of a very few pro-Obama books out into the marketplace in the shortest amount of time. We are printing 75,000 copies, the largest first printing in our history, which shows how important we think this book is. But it pales in comparison to anti-Obama books flooding the market. I wonder how many booksellers are happy to sell another few thousand “abomination” books while being “outraged” by Chelsea Green’s decision to make its book available as fast as possible.
<p>The fact is that Chelsea Green, along with many other small publishers, could not have survived and thrived without the innovations that Amazon has brought to the book marketplace, including being able to showcase our entire 350 title backlist online where it can be found by our customers. I know it’s de rigueur to consider Amazon enemy #1, but it just ain’t so. We value all our customers -- independents, national chains, wholesalers, specialty retailers, and on-line retailers -- but each is able to reach our end users in different, very specific ways. Not only do we acknowledge that fact, but we try to promote our new titles to each category of retailers and wholesalers in different ways, depending on what kind of book it is.
<p>It’s also important for booksellers to realize that the small publisher has just as monumental a task as the small bookstore when it comes to staying in business. Compared to the big houses, we are literally microsized – with 1,000 to 10,000 times smaller annual sales and corresponding marketing and advance budgets. Yet we are expected to play the game exactly the same as the big guys when it comes to getting a book out into the world -- impossible.
<p>Our intention is to create demand that will result in selling through all copies in the marketplace. It is a launch strategy and promotion, not an overall sales strategy. We are not Random House or Simon & Schuster. We don’t have national “lay downs” on specific dates with specific titles. We don’t embargo books. We can’t do full page ads in national media. This idea that a book has to be available in all retail outlets at exactly the same time is a tradition that the big houses created because they had the budgets to support it with national media buys and very expensive public relations budgets for their biggest books. What we hope to do is create a word of mouth buzz and demand that will end up making <em>Obama’s Challenge</em> into a national bestseller—perhaps countering the Corsi book -- but the idea that this is going to happen in the first few weeks is ludicrous! If we can successfully launch it with our special promotional coupon at the DNC, then your customers will be asking for the book by the time we ship the first printing. Our goal is to benefit the broadest spectrum of the bookselling marketplace by using the quickest marketing and promotional methods possible, in the two-month window available to us prior to the elections on November 4th.
<p>Of course if all of you cancel your orders it will mean that a really good and important book on Obama will be effectively boycotted.
<p>As I have written before, the world is changing fast, but the book business seems wedded to very traditional ways of publishing and selling. The emerging digital technologies mean we can and should be publishing much faster and to the moment. Chelsea Green may be the first publisher to try this out but we won’t be the last. I think our bookselling and book publishing community will prosper if we concentrate on reinventing ourselves to serve the changing marketplace.
<p>Thank you all for the support you have shown us in the past. We hope you’ll stick with us and support our effort to publish quickly and forcefully <em>Obama’s Challenge</em> — a book that is too timely and important to be left out of the national political conversation this fall.
<p>Sincerely,<br />
Margo Baldwin<br />
President and Publisher<br />
Chelsea Green Publishing
| Submitted by: | Robert Kuttner 8/16/2008 9:47:48 AM PT |
| Location: | Boston, MA |
| Occupation: | author |
As the author, my reason for wanting this book in the hands of readers as fast as possible was my disgust at all the anti-Obama books and the complete absence of a friendly one. How interesting that this book asks Obama to rise to what's best in America while Corsi and company demonstrate what's worst.
I don't think this was a sellout by Chelsea Green. It was an emergency. Thanks for your understanding.
Bob Kuttner
| Submitted by: | Claire Benedict 8/15/2008 7:47:25 PM PT |
| Location: | Montpelier Vt |
This isn't an oversight on the part of Chelsea Green - it's a money-grubbing sellout. They know exactly what they're doing and who they're doing it to.
| Submitted by: | Susan Novotny (susan@bhny.com) 8/15/2008 11:20:43 AM PT |
| Location: | Albany,NY |
| Occupation: | Independent Bookseller, Independent Book- on -Demand Printer |
Thank you, Deborah, for being the first to voice the obvious oversight to independent booksellers on the Chelsea Green exclusive to Amazon for a new Obama book. If this book is so damn important to Chelsea Green then it’s important that all channels, chain or independent, have an early crack at it too.
Amazon/BookSurge is not the only POD game in town. Chelsea Green can just as easily send the e-files to independent POD companies owned by independent booksellers who could then print and distribute within the independent community. Coupons distributed at the convention would be redeemed at local bookstores in Denver, such as The Tattered Cover, who, through the miracle of independent POD, will have the Obama book on their shelves as well. (And the politicians can feel good about buying local and supporting small business, “the backbone of our economy.”) The chains can take care of themselves.
When are publishers going to start saying “NO” to the seductive Amazon squeeze and revisit the working relationships they have with those of us who actually care about their books, authors and, yes, even their profit margins?
Susan Novotny
Independent Bookseller
Independent Book on Demand Printer
| Submitted by: | Carol B. Chittenden (cousin8@eightcousins.com) 8/15/2008 10:42:17 AM PT |
| Location: | Eight Cousins, Falmouth, MA and BookStream, Poughkeepsie, NY |
| Occupation: | Bookseller and wholesale buyer |
There's no reason the book couldn't be in a number of wholesale warehouses just as quickly as at the Amazon warehouse. Wholesalers routinely take backorders for forthcoming titles. And most wholesalers pack and ship the same day, so bookstores could have the book just as quickly. Therefore the decision to favor one outlet is puzzling, and appears to be prejudicial.
| Submitted by: | Claire Benedict 8/15/2008 10:32:43 AM PT |
| Location: | Montpelier, VT |
| Occupation: | bookseller, store owner |
As an independent bookseller I am outraged at Chelsea Green's actions. This is a slap in the face to independents, especially those of us who have been supporting Chelsea Green for years. They are not only making us lose sales, they are undermining our status with our customers. How can I tell my customers to buy local when they can get a book three weeks earlier on line? An trust has been violated and it won't be forgotten.
| Submitted by: | Deborah Andolino (dandolino@sc.rr.com) 8/15/2008 9:11:11 AM PT |
| Location: | Columbia, SC |
| Occupation: | Library Clerk & Former Bookstore Owner |
An early listing for Amazon on a book that will sell hundreds of copies? Sounds like another blow to independent bookstores. I wonder how many more decisions like this can be weathered by the independents?
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