Late in 2004, Chelsea Green Publishing did the impossible. We signed George Lakoff, got his book, Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate out in five weeks (!) and then ushered it onto The New York Times and other national bestseller lists less than a month later.We did this by partnering with progressive activist and indy media groups, to launch the book via e-mail blasts and on various web sites, like MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Apollo Alliance, Jim Hightower, GreenFestival, AlterNet and more. We also got a lot of help from the blogs, like DailyKos and BoingBoing. We published a book about new, progressive ideals, and rather than going the traditional and lengthy turn-your-hair-gray publishing route (calling on galleys, sales reps, early reviews, and ads), we went directly to progressives to get Lakoff's book out into the world. It worked. We created a new publishing model. And we're not shy about telling you that Chelsea Green and Mr. Lakoff have made a very nice chunk of change. [more]
See also: Making Unnecessary Enemies, a response from David Corn.
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