Getting Friendly
OK, brace yourself. It’s that time of year again. Santa and the Baby Jesus are stomping our way like an unholy, steroidal pro-wrestling team. We can either lock ourselves in our rooms until mid-January (without TV, radio, or Internet access) or we can suck it up and do our best to navigate the capitalist feeding frenzy in a way that doesn’t entirely turn our stomachs or violate our politics.
Enter AK Press. We won’t bullshit you: the holiday season is a big deal for us. In part because it’s when we sell a lot of stuff, pay our rent, pay the printing bills, and generally get our heads above water. And, in part, because it’s the time of year when we see our political labor of love reach many more people. Consumerist orgy? Revolutionary advance? Yeah, the contradiction makes our heads spin, too.
We’ll probably post a few gentle suggestions for holiday gift ideas over the next week or so, but today we want to highlight one in particular: the Friends of AK Press.
The Friends of AK Press is a subscription-based program in which folks donate a certain amount of money each month in order to a) receive every book AK Press publishes (which is generally about 20 per year) for free, b) get a 20% discount on everything we distribute (including books, CDs, DVDs, clothing…everything), and c) earn our undying gratitude.
The funds we receive from Friends of AK Press are our most dependable source of income. In the ebb and flow (mostly ebb) of today’s economy, “dependable” is a very nice thing. All the donations we receive go directly toward publishing projects, which means the radical ideas keep flowing. Here’s how it works:
Friends decide how much they’d like to donate per month. Given printing and shipping costs, the minimum is $25 ($30 for folks outside the US), You can choose an ongoing subscription, which means we bill your credit card for that amount each month until you tell us to stop, or choose a fixed time period: 3 months, 6 months, a year, etc. The minimum membership is 3 months. We really encourage people to get ongoing subscriptions (for more than the minimum amount, of course!), but that’s your call.
AK Press needs your support more than ever. And now there’s something extra in it for you…Join today, and tell your friends!
Sign up now, and you (or the lucky person you’re gifting) will get a stylish tote bag featuring the new Friends of AK logo, designed by Josh MacPhee! If you’re already a Friend, just refer someone else, and if they mention you when they sign up, you’ll both get a tote bag. And that’s not all: If you keep referring Friends after your first, you’ll get a $20 AK Press gift certificate for each additional new Friend you sign up. (Make sure your friends put your name in the comments field when they sign up, so that we know to send you your gifts.)
We’re running this special deal for a limited time–basically until we run out of tote bags–so do it now, do it often. As an added incentive, we’ll let you in on a little secret: Because we have some late books that are finally making their way to the printer, along with our regularly scheduled titles, the next few months will be a windfall for Friends of AK Press. Among the books that should see the light of day between now and February are:
- Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry, Richard Singer and Delfina Vannuci
- Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now, Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee
- Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic-Industrial Complex, edited by Anthony J. Nocella II, Steven Best, and Peter McLaren
- Anarchism and Its Aspirations, Cindy Milstein
- Paradoxes of Utopia: Anarchist Culture and Politics in Buenos Aires, 1890-1910, Juan Suriano
- Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World, edited by Kolya Abramsky
- We Are an Image from the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008, edited by A.G. Schwarz and the Void Network
- Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future, Matt Hern
- War of the Worlds: How the Economy Was Lost, Paul Craig Roberts
Convinced? If so, go here to sign up yourself or a pal.
Many Thanks,
The AK Press Collective