Over the last decade, I’ve written more than 3,000 posts on Writing Boots, most of them about communication. I’ve long wanted to lash the best of these posts into an essay collection that would outlast the morning on which each was published, and that would reach readers far beyond Writing Boots Nation.
A few months ago, I was approached by an organization called Publishizer. It’s an ascendant “crowdfunding literary agency” that identifies potentially popular authors at the center of obscure but rich communities like ours, and encourages them to create a crowdfunding campaign. Depending on the success of the campaign, Publishizer decides which type of publisher to take the manuscript, in order to ink a book deal.
An Effort to Understand is the title of the book. You might recognize that line from Robert Kennedy’s Indianapolis speech after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Timed for the tumultuous months leading up to our next presidential election, this book is a collection of Writing Boots essays going back 11 years, chosen particularly to interest, edify and provoke Americans who are looking, in our fractured nation, for ways to “hear more clearly and speak more truly to rebuild relationships in your family, your workplace, your community and your society.”
Here’s the synopsis, and the book proposal.
And here’s what I need from you:
If you think you’d like to read An Effort to Understand when it is published, I hope you will order it now, by using the campaign site to pre-order one or more copies—so that Publishizer can demonstrate to publishers that this author has an enthusiastic readership.
And because of the campaign’s parameters, I need you to do it this month. And while it’s on your mind—can I get you to do it today?
I'll be grateful, and when you get your signed copy, you'll be glad.
And if you help me spread the truth that we have groped for together for all these years at Writing Boots, maybe we can help achieve what Robert Kennedy called for half-century ago: “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another.”
Leave a Reply