How progessives can take back the world of books

[scoopmeister]

Hi, everybody. Will Bunch -- from Attytood and the Philadelphia Daily News, and author of the soon-to-be-published "Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future" -- here.

I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of seeing the same old song-and-dance every single year with Ann Coulter. The tactics vary. Sometimes it's saying something outrageously offensive, like calling 9/11 widows "harpies," to repeat just one example. And sometimes it's what happened today, when NBC yielded to critics after trying to yank a Coulter gig from "The Today Show," relenting to a Drudge-led campaign to put her back.

The plotline varies but the climax is always the same: Coulter ends up with another No. 1 best-selling book, which adds credence to her extreme right-wing views, which in turn leads to more TV and Big Media gigs, which leads to more best-sellers. Why? Why, after eight years of the Bush-Cheney fiasco, and even with the election of Barack Obama, do act all helpless as conservative polemics like this continue to top the best-seller list? It doesn't have to be this way.

The contrast between conservatives and liberals in the world of buying books isn't all that different from the ways that we're different in taking political action. Think about it -- for the right-wingers it's all top down. From the Reagan era until now, conservatives got elected with support from billionaire big ticket donors like T. Boone Pickens or Harold Simmons, with aid from a cleverly constructed think tanks and friendly media outlets, and also by manipulating the so-called liberal big media. And conservatives sell tons books in exactly the same fashion: With a handful of wickedly wealthy ideologues making bulk purchases, fueling a well-established network of book clubs, and aided by those same think tanks and media outlets supporting and nurturing their cadre of authors, and, again, by manipulating the so-called liberal big media. Whether it's W's re-election or Glenn Beck's newest screed, the dittoheads fall in line every time.

OK, but why does promoting and selling progressive books even matter? There's a lot of reasons -- successful liberal authors are a tool for cultivating debate as well as bold news ideas, for one, but the most important is simply that it lets people know we are here. When people open a Sunday newspaper or click on Amazon and see the likes of a Coulter or Beck straddling the top of a best-seller list, or see similar trash like "Obama Nation," it makes moderate folks believe that progressive thought is out of the American mainstream, when in fact majorities hold liberal or center-left views on everything from universal health care to ending the war in Iraq. Indeed, the success of right-wingers in peddling their books and the like may be one reason why so many pundits continue to falsely insist that America is a center-right nation.

But in 2008, progressives showed that an American presidential election can be won from the ground up. Barack Obama raised a record amount of money from a virtual army of small mostly first-time donors, and he used every state-of-art high-tech tool from amassing millions of fans on Facebook to using Twitter and text messages to keep this mass movement informed. If these simple democratic tools can add up to millions of dollars and millions of votes, surely they can also bring thousands of book buyers on board.

My main purpose in writing this tonight is to tell you how encouraged I've become at some early progress in trying to build a social network around the idea of taking down the pernicious myth of Ronald Reagan -- a myth that continues to dominate American political speech exactly 20 long years after he left the Oval Office, nearly five years after his death. And I'm asking you to join me.

On Jan. 1 (when I'm usually engrossed in football!), I created a group on Facebook for "Tear Down This Myth." It's only been up for five days, and already nearly 500 people have signed up -- and that's with virtually no promotion. I'm thrilled in the interest in the subject, but also blown away by the passion of those who come, eager to build a brighter future by tearing down the lies of the past.

To quote one of the Facebook group members, writing on the site's wall: "The misconceptions about Reagan, especially among young people who weren't even alive when he was president, is astounding. The media has perpetuated a false history about the man and his policies. I'm all for fighting back..."

Again, join us. Here's a link:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=599156196&ref=profile#/group.php?gid=43207718051&ref=mf

The book will be published on Feb. 3 by Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. In the weeks ahead, I hope to use Facebook as a tool to let people know about in-person appearances and media events, not just to market a book but also to create a community around undoing Reagan myth and countering the bogus nostalgia peddled by neo-conservatives led by Grover Norquist. And just like the president-elect, I hope to achieve the similar goals through Twitter as well. If you're interested, you can follow me on Twitter here.

http://twitter.com/Will_Bunch

In fact, I'm so focused on creating this network that I'm not aggressively urging people to buy "Tear Down This Myth" just yet; one reason for that is that I believe progressives can also raise their profile in the book world by concentrating their sales, and we plan to do that with a special event on Jan. 21, when you'll be hearing from me yet again. (That said, I won't prevent people from buying it now if they must :-) -- that can be done here through Amazon.)

http://www.amazon.com/Tear-Down-This-Myth-Distorted/dp/141659762X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231303675&sr=1-1

And while I'm understandably focused on the release of my own book, what I REALLY want to see is the kind of permanent network where every outstanding progressive book goes to the top of the charts. Want some examples? How about Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America," Andrew J. Bacevich's "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism," James K. Galbraith's "The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too," Eric Boehlert's "The Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press in 2008," David Sirota's "The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington," Jeffrey Feldman's "Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy," or Larry Beinhart's "Salvation Boulevard," just to name a tiny few...out of many.

You know, Ronald Reagan may have passed away, but his worst ideas -- the denial of science on everything from fossil fuels to climate change, the reckless tax cuts and massive borrowing that fueled our modern debt-ridden economy, and an anything-goes approach to regulating Wall Street -- still loom over us today. In fact, just this week, the men seeking to run the Republican Party in 2009 are still trying to out-Gipper each other. That may be their problem, but there's also a raging debate over whether the coming stimulus plan will be too stacked toward tax cuts, too weighed down by the Reagan myth, and if this economic recovery gets screwed up, then it's our problem, big-time.

But progressives can undo a myth the same way that a president was just elected.

One person at a time.

[JDPriestly]

1. Thanks.

[EconomicLiberal]

2. I will be placing a pre-order on this book soon.

I have been waiting for a book like this; one that dismantles the myths that have surrounded the Reagan "legacy".

[scoopmeister]

3. Thanks -- look for Jan. 21 event

I'll be back here at DU promoting a special event aimed at concentrating sales, that should raise the visibility of the book/

[frazzled]

4. What I am curious about

Doesn't Simon and Schuster have any promotion budget? Nice try at a sales pitch, and I don't mean to be flippant or anything, but I felt a little demeaned by your spiel.

Kind of in the way I used to feel demeaned by the shtick around Ronald Reagan back in the day. I'm being sincere: I feel like you're trying to get me to buy your book under the pretense that it will have some earth-shattering political repercussion.

I don't really buy books because I think I can start a movement: I buy them because they might be interesting or well-written or informative or pleasurable (and I usually consult the NY Review of Books or the like, instead of taking it from the author.)

I think the Reagan myth has been fairly well busted about now, thanks to our current economic crisis. I think President-elect Obama explained it well when he said we tried it their way (free-market mania, "government is the problem not the solution"): it didn't work. I'm happy to report that Ronald Reagan is finally dead.

[scoopmeister]

5. Of course they do

But this is my second book and I've learned that if an author wants to be successful, he has to do most of the work. Besides, my whole point is that liberals can succeed in books as we have done in politics, by grassroots style organizing. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose if I made Simon & Schuster do all the work. Besides, I really want DU members to know about the book -- and that can only be done like this.

[frazzled]

6. I see a little better now

This is indeed about the success of your book, for which I wish you only the best.

I'm not sure it's quite legitimate to do sales promotion on a political web site, however. (You could take out a blog ad, and help discussion boards such as this to be successful!) Most of us believe strongly in the Internet as a place for the free (and I do mean free) exchange of political ideas. Perhaps you'd like to share some chapters of your book right here, with no strings attached. It might actually make someone want to go out and buy it.

I happen to be a book editor by trade (what a coincidence!), and in fact I just happen to have put a book to bed just tonight: it goes to the printer in Germany tomorrow morning. But it never occurred to me to promote the books I've worked on an open discussion board. (No one would be interested in them anyway: they are art books, and besides, as editor I don't get the royalties anyway.)

I was just saying I am uncomfortable with this forum as a site for personal sales promotion. No matter how interesting or relevant or progressive the book. I hope it's okay to say that to you openly.