A NonReview of Yves Smith’s Econned, Plus Some Questions About Selling Books
by cactus
A NonReview of Yves Smith’s Econned, Plus Some Questions About Selling Books
I’ve been swamped – a lot of work at work, deadlines for my book (more on that below), and family issues to contend with so for the past few weeks I’ve been cooped up with zero downtime. Friday I managed to crawl out of my hole… at least for the time being. I remembered that Yves Smith’s book, Econned, was due out. Yves’ blog, Naked Capitalism is one of my daily reads and I’ve been looking forward to her take on the whole Great Recession.
Long story short, I visited two bookstores – both had sold out. I placed an order for the book at Barnes and Noble and was told it would be available this week.
All that is a good sign for Yves Smith, and I wish her well. But I was wondering… what can one do to make one’s book more likely to do well? Obviously, with a book coming out later this year – in August – its something I have an interest in knowing. (The book is already for sale at some online locations. Here’s the Amazon link to the book. As an FYI, given how little the bio of me is, there’s a surprising amount that’s incorrect.)
The book is – we think – a bit unique. We looked at a how a large number of issues – from abortion to crime to the economy – evolved over the length over each administration from Ike to GW. (In a few instances, where the data is reliable, we go back to Hoover.) And we let the data speak, as regular readers can imagine from the posts I’ve written. I’ll give you an example – my own political views, as one can imagine from the fact that I occasionally post at Angry Bear, are generally slightly left of center. And when this project started some years ago, I hewed closely to what one might term a slightly left of center view on crime, namely that the way to reduce crime is to focus more on rehabilitation. But the data shows that the Presidents under whom crime fell by the most were the ones who, once you account for demographics, put cops on the street, locked people up, and threw away the key. And that is precisely what we show.
I’m not sure I’m happy that the results on crime are what they are. Philosophically, I’d be a lot more comfortable being able to state that we should spend more time and effort and resources on rehabilitation relative to punishment, but the data shows what it shows. And my comfort level, frankly, is irrelevant, when it comes to determining what reduces crime. And the one thing my co-author and I agreed on from the start was that we would post the data (in a nice graphical format thanks to Nigel Holmes, a brilliant artist the publishing company hired to make our graphs look nice), whatever it showed.
Now, that is going to cause a major problem. See, on some issues, there doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship between a governing philosophy and outcomes. For instance, stock market performance seems to be unrelated to the president’s party, or even to how well the economy did. But (its not exactly a surprise to readers of this blog) on a lot of issues, particularly the economic ones, Democrats tend to outperform Republicans. And we think we’re able to nail the cause of this disparity. We also feel we’re able to do a good job of showing that the cause is related specifically to the occupant of the White House, as opposed to, say, Congress, God’s will, the public’s voting patterns, or whatever else.
And as regular readers know, stating that politicians that followed a certain policy produced better economic outcomes than politicians who followed the opposite policies seems to leads to uncomfortable conclusions for some people. As uncomfortable, for instance, as my epiphany on looking at the data on crime. But some people simply refuse to give up cherished beliefs. Its easier to attack the messenger. So though we call it like it is, and we call it for Republicans when Republicans have the better argument, I have zero doubt whatsoever that our book is going to labeled “liberal.” Which is a pity, because the book is not intended to cheerlead. In fact, its intended to poke and prod both sides into keeping what works from their side and giving up what doesn’t.
OK. So there it is. That’s what the book is about. How do we sell it? Anyone have concrete ideas? Bear in mind, this has to be something we can do. People always tell me to go on the Daily Show or some similar program. I don’t exactly have any media exposure (my co-author does), but I’d love to do it. However, there are a lot of people trying to go on TV to peddle their wares or their opinion. Heck, even people who know they’re going to get publicly humiliated by Jon Stewart show up with big smiles on their face. And my guess is that a lot of people think, like I do, that they have something unique that can change the world if word gets out. So what do I do from here?
A few minor steps I’ve taken…
1. I took out websites in my name and the book’s name. What should go on them at this time?
2. I took out twitter accounts in my name the book’s name. I’ve never used twitter before in my life. What do I do with these now?
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by cactus
cactus,
I know little about the book market so all I can do is wish you well and buy a few copies…
Instead of Stewart why not try Colbert? Might get better publicity that way???
Good luck!
I have no good ideas either Cactus, but it would be wonderful to have a set of “facts” that both sides could agree on before the inevitable policy debates. I think your crime study is an interesting example. Locking up people and throwing away the key reduces crime is somewhat like the guy who kills everybody in the city leaving it to God to sort out who were the enemies and who were the innocents. The enemies are dead, but at what cost?
cactus,
Great job so far!
How about contacting lib and conservative blogs and see if you can post excerpts as topics?
I would make a list of people to send a free copy to for review unless that is what the publisher is going to do. You have to get people who have access to many other people to talk about your book.
Certainly sending a copy to various bloggers can be a start to reach bigger names. Send some to the various money/social issue editors of some 2nd or 3rd tier news papers around the nation.
Any connections with your alma mater econ department? Or other schools? Even if some of the grad students talk about it in the school news it will help.
Doesn’t hurt to send a copy to congress people. Certainly gear the intro letter toward those interested in the topics covered ie: Sanders, Kucinich, Franken, etc. I’ll let others pick the repubs that would take the data for what it is.
Can you get on your local news with it? A Sunday local program news show?
In the mean time, they must get your bio correct. You do not want to waste any time of publicity having to correct such errors. It time lost selling the book.
Mike,
Call John Kremer of Taos, New Mexico after you have read everything at his book marketing website. He’s a OneStopShop for expertise and assistance. He bills at $500/hr “for the most power-packed book marketing consultations available anywhere.”
http://www.bookmarket.com/consulting.htm
.
buff,
I (and I assume my co-author) would happily appear on any show we could find to promote the book. The trick is to figure out how to get on.
FWIW – I don’t crave celebrity. My original plan was to write the book under the pen-name “cactus” but that got vetoed early in the process. Beyond that, in my teaching years, I don’t get stage fright talking to groups, but neither do I get any “jollies” from it either. Hopefully that attitude will help if the opportunity comes, but the negative is that I never really sought out the public eye so I don’t know the process…
Terry,
Neither rehabilitation nor punishment is going to have much of an effect on crime if a significant percentage of the people arrested and convicted of crimes and then either locked up and/or put through rehab are innocent.
sammy,
That’s not a bad idea, but its something that would have to be done closer to August.
divorced,
I think the publisher is going to make up a reviewer list, but get our input on it.
I’m hoping my co-author has some newspaper contacts… there are sections of the book that I think can be taken out and printed as a one or two or five page excerpt in a newspaper or magazine.
I think you’re right about trying the political angle. I have some potential contacts that perhaps I should tap. Right now I cannot send anything out – the “galley proofs” are going to be ready probably around the end of the month, and we have to review those. So my guess is that it will be a few months before the publisher can mail out copies, but I can start trying to find some of those people now.
Thanks for the tip. I’m checking out his website now. I’m not sure I can justify the $500/hr to my wife, but I’m going to start by buying his book (1001 Ways to Market Your Books: For Authors and Publishers). We’ll see from there.
cactus,
It would be sweet if you good line up a speaking arrangement with Politics & Prose bookstore in D.C. They get a lot of C-SPAN coverage.
http://www.politics-prose.com/
Aside from the book, there is enough free information available at Kremer’s website that you may never need to make a call. You could outline your marketing plan, fax a copy, and follow up with a call if deemed necessary.
Publicity, advertising, marketing. Or, advertising, marketing and pubilicity. Otherwise, advertising, marketing and publicity. On the other hand, marketing, advertising and publicity.
Any one of those approaches should prove effective. Oh, and don’t forget that in publishing the quality is not the point. It’s all a matter of perceived appeal. “Looks interestng. I’ll take it.” “I’ve heard a lot about it. I’ll take it.” “Great review. I’ll take it.” Marketing, advetising, publicity.
If your publisher hasn’t committed a healthy marketing budget to the project you’re screwed. It may be a book, but it’s just another product to the public.
One other thing. You state, “I hewed closely to what one might term a slightly left of center view on crime, namely that the way to reduce crime is to focus more on rehabilitation. But the data shows that the Presidents under whom crime fell by the most were the ones who, once you account for demographics, put cops on the street, locked people up, and threw away the key. And that is precisely what we show.” I find it interesting that an econommist is publishing a study of a socio-psychological issue. It’s an incredibly complex issue. Obviously I haven’t yet read the details of your data collection procedures or even the factors that you selected for review. I hope you did a damn good job because even if you didn’t the conservatives will pick it up as the gospel truth and run it up the pole. In fact those findings may guaranty the success of the book regardless of the validity of the research.
Please can you tell us where to buy an online copy, book title, etc.
I would love to buy an e-copy now.
Thanks
Never heard of them, but I guess I should look into it. I can easily make a trip to DC.
Jack,
Publishers tend not to allocate much of a budget except to the try and true authors. And it makes sense – they’d lose a lot of money if they did anything else. Ours has been very supportive and even hired a graphic artist to make our work look nice. However, I’m not sure how much further the budget will extend. I’m happy to put some money into this endeavor – I want the ideas to get out, after all. Exactly how much will have to be worked out with the ex-GF; when you’re no longer single, you no longer control your own purse-strings.
Jack,
We focus mostly on econ issues because its what we know. But people vote based on abortions, family values, crime, and other things as well. So we look at how those issues evolved as well. We take a stab at explaining why each issue evolved – in some cases its a law or regulation that changed, or whatnot. But in other cases the data tells a story.
Consider the murder rate, for instance. We seem to be explain most of it with the amount of spending on law and order, the percentage of the population that qualifies as male and 18-25, and one more thing. That one more thing, is not something we can measure directly – the data isn’t there, but it is going to piss a lot of people off who like the law and order spending variable. We proxy that one more thing with movements of the share price of Ruger relative to the S&P 500.
So yeah, we don’t know the criminology literature. But we think we have enough new here to get around that.
Bill,
Right now we’re still in the final edits process. Lots of back and forth with the publisher. (They are very, very, very good at going through this letter by letter and asking for clarifications, corrections, and improvements.)
The book is not actually going to ship until Aug 11. I don’t know what the plans are for e-books, but I will ask the publisher.
cactus,
I’m only pointing out thagt a social issue such as crime has multiple and complex antecedents. Those antecedents are not easily measured with accuracy and then often correlated with some measure of criminal behavior. The degree of possible error multiplies. The political potential of such measurement out comes is such that the subtleties of complex antecedents, measurement error and the potential falacy built into correlations of activities make the data ripe for cherry picking. What is useful to a political point of view will be soopted and what is contrary to that point of view will be disregarded. One opens a pandora’s box of possibilties, none of them good.
The one thing we can be sure of is that significant poverty leads to crime. Opportunity helps to direct individuals to an honest life style. If I remember correctly it was no less a respected “researcher” of behavioral phenomenon than Galton, maybe it was Pearson or both, that was able to demonstrate clearly that it was sub par intelligence that kept the Jews of 19th Century England from making socio-economic advances. Their disregard for the issue of discrimiination wasn’t a concern. The numbers may not lie, but often the researchers don’t have a clue as to their actual meaning.
Just make sure you keep AB informed if you do a book tour of any kind! I want mine signed!!!
Luck
No analysis of the past will tell you if something that’s never really been tried, works. That also goes if there have been small-scale attempts but your data isn’t good enough to see the effects – perhaps because you don’t have the right granularity, or you don’t divide data by the right variables.
In other words, proving that law enforcement works doesn’t really tell you that something else doesn’t work. I don’t know a lot about crime – but I know that large-scale studies of educational outcomes tend to wash out the most interesting details.
I was not suggesting that we lock up a lot of innocents, but I think–hope?- we lock up a lot of people who should not be locked up or at least not as long as we lock them up. The problem is how you determine who needs to be locked up for a long time and who either does not need to be locked up or does not need to be locked up for as long as we do it. Sort of like seperating the enemies from the innocents. The cost of course is not just in the wasted lives–and the loss to the economy– but the costs to taxpayers of building and staffing prisons and then still having to make the choice when the budgets run dry and you have to deal with early release.
Hmmm…. having worked as a sociologist for a few years, I am a little confused about your surprise of the crime issue. It is well documented that societies that curtail freedom and use the state apparatus to enforce the rules have low crime rates, while societies that encourage freedom and put limits on the power of the state have high crime rates. It should be obvious if you isolate deviants [criminals in this case], use the power of the state to both enforce conformity and remove deviants from the general population, you can reduce the deviant [again criminal] activity. The true political divide is over the creation of deviant behavior. Yes, we create criminals and deviant behavior by creating laws! In general, conservatives want to impose punishment on the activities that THEY consider deviant or criminal [see drug laws, sodomy laws, property crimes, etc.], while the liberals do the same thing with their concerns [environmental, business fraud, sexual assault, race bias, etc.]. I haven’t spoken to many people who think that a violent offender needs to be rehabilitated instead of just locked up, especially with all the media attention given to violent crime, because there are few people who think that murder, rape, or assault is an acceptable behavior. What I am tring to get across is you are right that that the levels of crime are effected by social policy, but just not quite right about the mechanisms.
By the way I enjoy the Gladwell books precisely because it creates a buzz for real in-depth discussion based on real studies. Hopefully, your book can do the same!
Good point Dave. Far too much time and resources are devoted to societies reactions to crime and how to identify the most effective responses that may reduce or curtail criminal activity. Far too little time and effort is spent attempting to clearly spell out the antecedents to crime and criminal behavior. Worse yet far too little concern is given over to the effort to create social and economic circumstances that might ameliorate those antecedents to crime. I guess the point becomes, why study causation of phenomenon if there isn’t any significant interest in its modification.
Terry,
I presume/hope that our legal system has the basic ability to separate out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Most of the “throw away the key” types have focused on repeat or heinous offenders.
“What is useful to a political point of view will be soopted and what is contrary to that point of view will be disregarded.”
Yes. It will. But if the conversation can at least be moved to a point where basic groundrules as to what you can and cannot do with data (e.g., Sowellizing stops being accepted) it becomes harder to shade what is and what isn’t being said by the data. That at least moves us closer to an agreement on past outcomes, eliminating the craziest options.
“The one thing we can be sure of is that significant poverty leads to crime. “
Not sure I buy that without an amendment or two. Significant poverty without the opportunity to ameliorate it, yes, I would agree.
But we also see significant wealth leading to crime when there’s no punishment for it.
homunq,
The book is not intended to answer every question inthe world. Its intended to lay out facts about what happened. In the course of writing the book, we realized we also had to take a stab at explaining why. But if we can people to accept the idea that you start from actual facts and then work out an explanation, we’ll be happy. If they don’t accept our explanations for some things, that’s fine as long as they have a better one.
But one thing is
Dave S. and Jack,
I agree with most of what both of you wrote. That said, I can only note that administrations that went out and put a lot of money into law enforcement and had something of a law and order rep tended to see murder (which I should have been clear, is the crime we focused on) rates drop. There were, of course, factors outside their control – demographics and the number of guns on the street make a difference as well.
I realize that we could have written a volume of books on the subject, but its just one chapter in the book, and we could have written a volume on any of the issues we cover in the book. We try not to give short shrift to any of them, but our main purpose is to advance a philosophy (i.e., the facts matter, look at them consistently the same way every time).
I’m not trying to cop out here, merely to explain that it is impossible for us to cover all nuances given what we are trying to accomplish. Now, if our approach gets copied by people who write an entire volume on crime, or abortions, or the national debt, we’ll be very pleased. But we could not do that and write the book we intended.
“Now, if our approach gets copied by people who write an entire volume on crime, or abortions, or the national debt, we’ll be very pleased.”
My concern is that such a report is more likely to be coopted by Fox News and the Glenn Becks of the media with no explanation of potential short comings of the data collection process and the interpretation issues. My first rresponse to the finding is that those law and order regimes may coincide with far better general economic conditions which alone may account for the reduction in crime. That murder is the specific crime that you focused on causes me to be all the more sceptical. Murder is usually a crime of passion with no economic intent. It happens suddenly and often only partially with intention. I’d be surprised if the perp is thinking too clearly about the consequences of the action at the moment it occurs.
Layfayette in comments at Economistview popped this note up:
From Bloomberg today: {Obama Defies Pessimists as Rising Economy Converges With Stock By Mike Dorning
March 10 (Bloomberg) — The political consensus may be that President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy has been weak. The judgment of money in all its forms has been overwhelmingly positive, and that may be the more lasting appraisal.
One year after U.S stocks hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen more than 68 percent, and it’s up more than 41 percent since Obama took office. Credit spreads have narrowed. Commodity prices have surged. Housing prices have stabilized.
“We’ve had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Co. in New York. “If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the president.” }
Jack,
If murder rates coincide with anything, its not the economy so much as demographics… there is a cohort that commits crimes, call it the males 18-25 demographic. When that is rising, murders tend to increase. The best economy we had since WW2, the period from 1961 to 1968, also coincided with a rapid increase in the murder rate. Note that this was also the period in which poverty fell by the fastest.
As to being coopted… it will happen regardless. But if they coopt us on murder rates, they’ll have to explain why they don’t coopt us on economic issues… where the data, as Stephen Colbert noted, has a liberal bias.
rdan,
We have an appendix at the very end looking at Obama. And yes, as I posted here a month or so ago, his policies so far resemble those of GW.
Which is why I do not expect a spate of double digit growth in real GDP per capita as we did under FDR following the Great Depression.
For a second time recently I heard an interview on WBAI, Guns and Butter/Bonnie Faulkner, with Michael Hudson. Scathing is the word. About Obama’s economics, more so about Bernanke. The Village Idiot is an approximation of his opinion of Bernanke though he through in the word smiling. A tool of the banking industry seems to be what he was saying. Debt peonage for the working class is the goal of the Administration as described by Hudson. One data item he threw out relative to the bank rescue by the Fed,
total bad mortgages is less than one billion dollars. So why all the hundreds of billions given to the banks. And he’s was none too nice in describing the Fed nor Treasury.
Does anyone know more about Hudson? Is he a crank or respected contributor? He claimed that no professional economist outside of the banking industry thinks that Bernanke is competent.