Hello Indivisibles!
Welcome to the September-in-review newsletter from Leah and Ezra,
co-founders of Indivisible. We write these once-a-month emails to give you
a sense of what we’re seeing in the Indivisible movement, and to get your
thoughts on issues of the day. One quick book plug up top: if you want to
help Indivisible’s upcoming book make it on the bestseller lists, you can
[ [link removed] ]preorder it here at an independent bookseller or [ [link removed] ]here at Amazon.
With that advertisement out of the way, let’s get to the newsletter:
What we’re reading
There’s only one thing everybody is reading and talking about here in D.C.
right now: impeachment. Indivisible is now in full-on impeachment mode,
and we’ll be covering all the twists and turns in the coming weeks.
But we don’t want to lose sight of how we got here. As we wrote in an
[ [link removed] ]email to you last week - Indivisible has been working for nearly
two-and-a-half years to make impeachment happen. There are a few good
articles out last week on the painstaking grassroots organizing that went
into making last week’s events possible. The best we’ve seen so far is
Ryan Grim’s [ [link removed] ]Why the House Democratic Caucus Was Able to Move So Rapidly
Toward Impeachment. This [ [link removed] ]article by Chris Smith in Vanity Fair is also
worth a quick read.
The bottom line takeaway is this: all of you who marched, called,
canvassed, and organized over the past two years - make no mistake: last
week is the result of your efforts. None of this would have been possible
without that work.
The next steps for saving democracy
How do we impeach Trump? How do win the presidency? How do we take the
House and Senate? How do we organize to do all of this, and then to demand
changes to our democracy in 2021?
Well if you’ve got those questions, we’ve got answers. We Are Indivisible:
A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump is DONE. Here’s a picture of us with
the early printing (this is the version that goes to press before final
hardcover printing).
This book was a labor of love. We talked with Indivisible groups all
around the country to tell their stories, and draw out what turned out to
be 19 “Indivisible Lessons” on organizing and wielding local power. We
talked to political scientists and researchers about what ails our
democracy and what we can do to fix it. This is a book about how we get
rid of Trump and retake power - and it’s also about what should do with
that power to defeat Trumpism writ large.
More than Halfway to the New York Times Bestseller List!
Why are we talking about the book so much? Well, the game here is getting
on the New York Times and other bestseller lists. With that comes more
book reviews, more attention, and more people joining Indivisible groups
around the country. Every dime of royalties we get goes into Indivisible’s
[ [link removed] ]Save Democracy Fund - so that also means more money for, well, saving
democracy.
It turns out the book publishing world is about as opaque as Congress, but
if you want to dive into the nitty gritty of it, [ [link removed] ]here’s a long
explainer that matches up with what our publisher at Simon & Schuster told
us. Here are the big takeaways:
* Bestseller lists matter. Making it on these lists boosts booksales by
more than 50% for first-time authors (that’s us!)
* 5,000 is the target. We need at least 5,000 pre-orders + first week of
book sales to make it on the list.
* Independent booksellers are better than Amazon. The New York Times
doesn’t release exactly how it weights different sales, but it’s clear
that independent book sales help even more than Amazon sales.
* Conservatives game the system. Mitt Romney required donors to spend
$25,000 to $50,000 on copies of his book to get it on the bestseller
lists. This seems to be a pretty common tactic.
We’re not gaming the system, so the only way to make it on the list is if
enough Indivisibles preorder the book and/or buy it in the first week. As
of yesterday, we have 2,560 pre-orders of the book. That means we need
2,440 to make it to 5,000. So, yes, we’re HALFWAY to the list a month
before publication!
So, what does this all add up to in terms of action items for you if want
to help get Indivisible a bestseller?
* Pre-order from an [ [link removed] ]independent bookseller here
* If it’s just easier, you can [ [link removed] ]pre-order from Amazon here - still
counts toward the total!
* If you want to [ [link removed] ]buy multiple books for your Indivisible group and
get a bulk discount, you can do that here.
Yes, we are a little self-conscious about hawking the book so much - and
we’re committed to not asking for money in these newsletters because we
want you to actually read them. So if you’re sick of these books ads,
you’re not alone, and just know that after publication we’ll drop it!
And last note: yes, there will be a book tour, and yes, we will be
planning some virtual book tour events for those who can’t make it out in
person. We’ll follow up with details soon!
Last month’s questions and a follow up
Last month we sent you just a general question about how these newsletters
are going now that we’ve been doing them for a few months. On a scale of
1-5, our average grade was 4.5 - so about an A minus. Not bad! But we want
to improve.
A few things people appreciated: we don’t ask for money in these (noted!);
we keep these limited to only once per month; they “feel” personal (they
are! We both really write them); and they give a national perspective.
There was also a fair amount of healthy constructive criticism! One piece
of feedback is that these newsletters have focused on national issues, but
there are many Indivisible groups are making a lot of headway on local
issues, the focus. Another frequent response was a request for more
information on particular topics - climate, gun violence prevention,
administrative advocacy, or others. And another common concern is the
length of these newsletters. Some folks wanted to know who the heck these
Ezra and Leah people are - which is also reasonable!
So we’re taking all this in and thinking how best to adjust. We’d like to
cover so much in these, and also we don’t want to send a
War-and-Peace-length tome every month. So we might try to tackle some of
the requests in different venues, like the monthly Facebook live we’ve
started doing as well. Stay tuned - we’ll keep on trying to make these
better!
Also, thank you to all of the Indivisibles who wrote such nice notes
encouraging us. Indivisible Lambertville New Hope, Indivisible Northern
Nevada, Indivisible Roanoke, Northern Door Indivisible in Wisconsin, and
many many more - we see you, we hear you, and we love building this
movement with you!
As for this month, we’ve got to ask about impeachment - it’s what’s on
everybody’s mind, and we want to add your voice to the conversation. This
isn’t a complex survey - just a quick opportunity to share how you’re
feeling about impeachment, and what you’re prepared to do with your
Indivisible group in the coming weeks. [ [link removed] ]Please provide your thoughts
here.
In unimpeachable solidarity,
Ezra & Leah
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