WorldChanging: Hack the Publishing System
The folks over at WorldChanging have an interesting strategy to help promote their new book:
Since we’re already doing extraordinarily well on Amazon just through word of mouth, we are actually in a position to quite conceivably make Worldchanging the number one book in the nation on the largest online bookseller, if just for one day. In that one day, however, every other bookseller, reviewer, producer and store manager will hear about Worldchanging, and our odds of getting the traction we need to bring worldchanging ideas into the public debate will dramatically increase.
The day they’ve scheduled is November 1, eleven minutes after eleven o’clock a.m. (11/1, 11:11), PT. Remember, for those of us on the right coast, it’s the somewhat less interesting or memorable 2:11 p.m. I’ve had this book in my Amazon wish list for the last couple weeks, and this was just the push I needed to get me to hit that “Buy now with 1-Click” button. It looks like a great book, so I recommend you do the same. It will be interesting to see what happens.
UPDATE
Thought I’d post the chapter breakdown for the book here, since it isn’t available on Amazon (more about the book here):
- Stuff (which covers topics like green design, reducing one’s ecological footprint, biomimicry, sustainable agriculture, clothing, cars and emerging technologies)
- Shelter (covering topics like green building and landscaping, bright green home decor, clean energy, sustainable water systems, disaster relief and humanitarian design)
- Cities (topics like smart growth, sustainable communities, transportation, greening infrastructure, product-service systems, leapfrogging and megacity challenges)
- Communities (topics like education, women’s rights, public health, holistic approaches to community development, copyleft, South-South science, social entrepreneurship and micro-lending, and philanthropy);
- Business (topics like socially responsible investment, worldchanging start-ups, ecological economics, corporate social responsibility and green business)
- Politics (topics like networked politics, new media, transparency, human rights, non-violent revolution and peacemaking)
- Planet (the big picture–everything from placing oneself in a bioregion to climate foresight to environmental history to green space exploration)
UPDATE: NOVEMBER 1, 2006
- 10:00 A.M.
- Amazon rank: 112.
- 1:30 P.M.
- Amazon rank: 88.
- 2:11 P.M.: Ordered book
- Amazon rank: 72.
- 3:00 P.M.
- Amazon rank: 59.
- 4:00 P.M.
- Amazon rank: 13.
- 5:00 P.M.
- Amazon rank: 13.
- 6:00 P.M.
- Amazon rank: 13.
- 7:00 P.M.
- Amazon rank: 13.
- 8:00 P.M.
- Amazon rank: 14. 😦
Joe are discussing. 
Brian Sawyer 
Joe 1:17 pm on October 30, 2006 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This book looks great. However, I wish that they had left Gore out of it. I would give this book as a Christmas present to conservative family members, but when they saw his name on the cover, they’d scoff and think I was trying to convert them to tree-hugging liberalism. They should’ve had Howard Zinn write the foreword. Most righties don’t know him, but he still has big cache with lefties.
Brian Sawyer 1:26 pm on October 30, 2006 Permalink | Log in to Reply
And you’re not? 😉
Seriously, though. I don’t think WorldChanging is going to get significant traction with the righties anyway. To me, it makes sense to list your key ingredients on the front of the box, and Gore’s name will tell the key audience for the book that this is for them (another detail on how publishing works). No use shying away from your primary demographic to open up a much smaller market (conservatives who would be interested in the content in this book if Gore weren’t associated with it).
Now, what we need is a book called PeopleChanging. Who could we get to write the foreword for that?
Joe 2:32 pm on October 30, 2006 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Brian, it’s all about building bridges. Righties like the idea of buying local–they’re proud of their hometowns and their country–and they’re mad about outsourcing, so why not broaden the appeal of the book a little? Don’t give up on conservatives. We’re somewhat to blame for their antipathy towards us.
No doubt I would make a very bad book pubishing executive.
I think PeopleChanging is a great idea for a book. Get Jon Stewart to write the foreword for that one. He knows how to criticize the left as well as the right. Zinn and George Lakoff could be contributors to the book; maybe Barack Obama and Errol Morris, too. And on the right side, maybe you could get George F. Will, Colin Powell and John McCain, people like that. We all need to change, and we could start by resisting the urge to blame and stigmatize the other side.
Brian Sawyer 2:54 pm on October 30, 2006 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Good points all, Joe, as always. Thanks for keeping me honest.