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Revolution by the Book The AK Press Blog

AK Press needs your help! C’mon, it’s easy!

Posted on August 3rd, 2011 in About AK, AK Distribution

Hopefully we can all agree that anarchist publishing is more important than ever these days, and it’s essential to get anarchist books and ideas out into a world desperately in need of them. But the fact is, it takes a lot of time and energy to keep a project like AK Press running, and we are a small collective always trying to do too many things, so we need help from our comrades to make sure our books reach as many people as possible!

We know that you all are a helpful bunch, so we thought we’d provide this quick list of ways you can plug in from wherever you happen to be, to help get the word out about AK Press and our books. Local outreach is one of the best ways folks around the country (and the world!) can help us out, because we just can’t be everywhere at once (try as we might).

5 Easy Ways You (Yes, You) Can Help AK Press:

1. Review AK books online:
Are you an Amazon.com customer? We won’t judge! Write Amazon reviews or make Amazon reading lists of AK Press books you’ve read and enjoyed—this helps increase our online visibility and makes it more likely that someone will stumble onto (and buy) one of our books that they might really enjoy. Are you on Goodreads? Do you have your own blog? Anywhere you can review our books online is a great help. And if you don’t mind sending us a copy of your review (or pointing us to it online), we’d love to see what you have to say!

2. Talk AK up around your town:
Do your local library and your town’s bookstore have our books? Stop by and ask—and maybe even drop off a copy of our catalog (we’ll send you catalogs, just ask!). Do you know of a coffee shop, food co-op, etc. that would be a good home for a stack of AK Press catalogs? Let us know and we’ll send you some to put out there! Is there a local publication where you could publish a review one of our books? Drop us a line and we’ll send you a review copy!

3. Get AK into your school:
If you’re in school, you have a number of unique opportunities to help us out—and a built-in audience! Ask your school library to order AK Press books. Show your favorite AK Press titles to professors who might be interested in using them for future course readings (they can contact us to get a copy to look over!). Write reviews of our books in your school’s newspaper. Talk to academic departments or student organizations about bringing in an AK Press author as a speaker. Use that coveted student organization funding to start up a reading group, lending library, or infoshop! The list is almost endless…

4. Become an AK tabler, or start your own distro:
Do you attend local shows, conferences, or political events that might benefit from a table of AK Press books? Do you go on tour with your band? We’d be thrilled to set you up with a wholesale account, talk you through the ordering process as much as you like, and help you spread the word about the events where you will be tabling. Not quite ready for wholesale ordering? Just let us know what events you’ll be attending, and we can send you some freebies (catalogs & stickers) to distribute.

5. Start a reading/study group:
Even small-scale outreach helps! Could you round up a group of friends, or start up a reading group as part of your political organization, or hell, even start a virtual reading group online? Put in a group order for an AK Press book (or one of our distributed titles) and we’ll give you our reading group discount! We’re also happy to suggest relevant titles if you have a particular topic of study in mind.

And there you have it. We told you it was easy! Of course, we’re always open to other suggestions, so if you have any grand ideas of your own, we’d love to hear them. If you’re interested in helping out, please get in touch for more information and to get things going!

Contact us at:
sales@akpress.org for wholesale, bookstore, library, reading group, or tabling/distro orders, or to request catalogs
publicity@akpress.org for review copies, author booking, or to let us know about a review you have written

Thanks for your help—we couldn’t do it without you!