Debate Continues to Surround Marketing of Obama Book

Of late, Chelsea Green, the publisher of Robert Kuttner's Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency, appears to be presenting a conflicting message to the bookselling community.

Last month, Chelsea Green decided to restrict the sale of Obama's Challenge for its initial weeks of availability to Amazon.com by distributing special discount coupons for a print-on-demand edition at the Democratic Convention in Denver, a move that triggered strong industry reaction. The POD edition was available only on Amazon.com, which Chelsea Green said would work "to create demand that will result in selling through all copies in the marketplace" and was "launch strategy and promotion, not an overall sales strategy."

This week, Chelsea Green took further steps to promote the book. The publisher's homepage prominently features a YouTube marketing video for Obama's Challenge, which encourages a net-roots campaign linking bloggers, book groups, progressives, reviewers, and media. Posted on September 5, the video concludes with a pitch to bloggers to embed the video as a widget on their sites and to offer readers a code that the website describes as a way "to get a huge discount from Amazon" and to help make the title a New York Times bestseller.

Against this backdrop, Chelsea Green has also mailed galleys of Obama's Challenge to booksellers. With the galley, accounts in California received a letter, dated September 5, that characterizes the initial Amazon.com marketing move as an effort to "turbo-charge" the sales of the book, and that "it's not a decision [Chelsea Green] would make again."

When Chelsea Green first announced the exclusive agreement with Amazon.com before the Democratic National Convention, ABA President Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, wrote in an open letter in BTW, "What I find most troubling about Chelsea Green's decision to exclude all channels of distribution save one -- for what might be the prime sales period of a very topical book -- is that they have chosen expediency at the expense of supporting those values that underpin a free society that depends on open market access." Shanks added, "Using existing technology and an extensive network of booksellers -- again both indie and corporate -- I am convinced that Chelsea Green could have achieved its sales goals, reaching readers, and selling many copies of their timely book." --Dan Cullen