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Chelsea Green Crashes 'Crashing', August 10, 2006
Chelsea Green Crashes 'Crashing'
Publishers Weekly Daily
by Judith RosenBy the time political unknown Ned Lamont won the Democratic primary in Connecticut on Tuesday, thanks in part to a groundswell of online grassroots campaigning, a paperback edition of Chelsea Green's March hardcover, Crashing the Gates: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, was already at the printer.
"We felt, given the populist nature of the book, that we should create an edition that's populist," says director of marketing Beau Friedlander. Originally slated for next spring, the book is now coming out this fall (September 30) and, according to Chelsea Green publisher, Margo Baldwin, Lamont's surprise victory only helped solidify the house's assumption that a paperback was needed on stands…now. "We always had a question as to whether the book should have been done as a paperback to begin with," Baldwin said, adding that, when the house saw the build-up coming from Lamont's campaign, bumping the book seemed like the logical move. The paperback will retail for $12.95 versus $25 for the hardcover. And the redesigned cover is much more politicized, proclaiming via a starburst "How the Democrats Can Win!"
By cutting the typical lag time between hardcover and paperback in half, Chelsea Green is hoping to make the most of the two-year political cycle that extends from the fall mid-term campaign through the presidential election of 2008. The Vermont-based press will print 25,000 copies, which the authors will support with a seven-college tour this fall in conjunction with People for the American Way and Drinking Liberally. A November appearance is planned for The Colbert Report..