About this project
From Washington, DC to Moscow, from São Paulo to Aleppo, the most reactionary elements have gained state power and intend to force their tyrannical vision of the world on everyone. People are pouring into resistance movements as it becomes increasingly clear that there is no institutional solution for any of this. Ever eager to play our role in propelling and informing today’s struggles, we’re back with two ambitious books about the issues of the hour: borders and democracy.
We’ve been publishing books for nearly twenty years now. Both of these are fully written and ready to go, but we want to try a new approach to funding and distributing them.
Using kickstarter (again) to partially cover the immense up-front costs of printing the books will enable us to make the PDFs free for anyone to download, forever, from day one. This way, we won’t have to be focused on recouping our cost as fast as possible to pay printing debt—a process that usually involves moving the debt around while paying it off over the course of years. If this succeeds, we will be able to offer the best of both worlds: high-quality print versions that will circulate for decades and free PDFs to spread virally.
If you simply wish to use this campaign to preorder the books, they will be cheaper here than they will be after publication. We’ve also prepared reward levels for people who wish to distribute the book. At each quantity, the books are priced below what their wholesale prices will be upon release. This is the best time to order the books and help the campaign.
Print specs: Both books will be approximately 200 pages, perfect bound with PUR glue, printed with two colors throughout on 100% post-consumer recycled paper by unionized printers in Québec—with our usual standard of world-class writing, design, and production quality.
From Democracy to Freedom
From Democracy to Freedom grew out of years of dialogue between participants in social movements around the world. Exploring how recent uprisings have been catalyzed and limited by democratic discourse, From Democracy to Freedom explores the difference between government and self-determination, proposing new ways to understand what we’re doing when we make decisions together.
No Wall They Can Build
No Wall They Can Build scrutinizes the borders that control movement around North America. Drawing on nearly a decade of solidarity work in the desert between Mexico and Arizona, the authors uncover the real goals and costs of US border policy, who benefits from it, and what it will take to change it.
Additional Rewards
Personalized Early-Access PDFs – We’ll email personalized PDFs of both books to backers one month before the general release. Personalization may include any name or inscription you’d like, to be submitted through questionnaire at conclusion of campaign.
Bulb & Hand Sticker Pack – Two 3.5" stickers printed on durable, clear vinyl, both weather and fade resistant. Made exclusively as rewards for this Kickstarter campaign, deploy these with pride.
Days of War, Nights of Love Special Hardcover Edition – The best edition of Days of War we've ever made, this is limited to 1,000 copies and will never be available as a regular item on our online store. Smyth sewn binding between heavy boards complete with sewn-in black ribbon bookmark. Detailed photos here.
Borders Poster – We’ve worked with some of our favorite artists to produce a new design in the same series as our classic pyramid poster: “Borders: The Global Caste System.” 14" x 23", full-color, printed on both sides.
$20k Stretch Goal: Stickers and Translation
For this campaign, the vast majority of each pledge goes to pay for producing and shipping the books; that’s why our stretch goal is so high. If you help us raise enough money, however, we can take this to the streets, helping to create an atmosphere of opposition to the border clampdown that is taking place all around the world right now.
Stickers - If we reach our new goal, we can make 50,000 copies of this sticker, offset printed at 3” by 5”. We’ll send out five free with each copy of No Wall They Can Build in the rewards and make them available in bulk afterwards for $0.05 to $0.20 each (5 for $1 up to 500 for $25).
Translation - If we reach our new goal, we can prepare a Spanish PDF version of No Wall They Can Build to offer free in perpetuity, so this project can serve as a bridge between communities in struggle. We will also offer a Spanish translation of the Borders Poster, and sticker as a PDF.
As usual, we’re glad to work for free—we just need your help to get these projects out to as many people as possible. If we meet our goal, we will be able to keep these books in print and make the PDFs available free of charge, forever. Thank you for your continued support.
Risks and challenges
We have decades of experience publishing books, the texts are complete, and we have printing quotations and press time reserved. There are no unknown details. If we hit our goal, nothing will stop us from publishing these books and fulfilling the rewards for the backers.
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