Help Wanted: Distribution Coordinator for Narco News Books

Nancy Davies’ “The People Decide: Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly,” a new DVD, and “Cowboy in Caracas” by Charlie Hardy Roll Off the Presses this Spring

By Al Giordano
Publisher, Narco News

March 5, 2007

The date approaches when Narco News Books will publish the first edition of “The People Decide: Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly” by Nancy Davies. The book is going through its final copy edits and will soon go to press.

The People Decide: Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly” by Nancy Davie

We announced this project on January 30. Since then, hundreds of Narco News readers have pre-ordered gift copies the book through donations to The Fund for Authentic Journalism. The author, Nancy Davies, won’t be doing a book tour. She would rather continue being your eyes and ears in Oaxaca for the next stages of that people’s Popular Assembly and that struggle against the dictator Ulises Ruiz.

Beginning on March 27, at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, your colleagues and I will be on a whirlwind tour through the Northeastern United States calling attention to Davies’ important work and all the stories we report from throughout América. We’ll be rolling through Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and perhaps Quebec and Pennsylvania. Narco News Books will be at the April 14 Anarchist Book Fair in New York City (and we’ll be celebrating our newspaper’s seventh anniversary in the Big Apple on April 18 – mark your calendar).

The public response to the news that this international newspaper will publish the book has been enormous. That’s good news for the popular struggles we report, and good news for this newspaper: Davies is donating her proceeds to The Fund for Authentic Journalism. The editors, introduction writers, the cover artist, and everyone else who has worked long hours to get this book ready for press have done the same. Originally I had planned on stuffing the envelopes and licking the stamps myself to send the book out to those who pre-ordered it. And if you or somebody doesn’t sign up for this job, I’ll be doing just that from the places where I’ll be on tour this spring.

A major international publishing house did agree to distribute the book – but wants a 60 percent of the proceeds. Others have offered to distribute it for as low as four of the seventeen dollars the book will cost. I’d rather lick the stamps myself, and see those funds go to keep Narco News publishing (and open the door to our publishing of more books culled from Narco News reporting).

But the thought occurred to us here in the newsroom that maybe, just maybe, there is a colleague or reader out there that will volunteer to open a new flank in the breaking of the information blockades. And so this is a “Help Wanted” ad.

Help Wanted: Book Distributor

Narco News Books seeks a responsible and dedicated friend of the project to coordinate the distribution of “The People Decide: Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly” from somewhere in the United States, preferably, but not limited to, the Northeast.

The job description is as follows:

• Maintaining a PO Box or street address, and an email address, to which book orders will be sent.
• Checking those addresses for orders at least three times a week.
• Storing books, envelopes, stamps, etc., safely at home, office or nearby.
• Shipping books at least twice a week to everyone who orders them.
• Shipping various hundreds of books when they come off the presses: Estimated date is late March or Early April (I will personally help lick stamps and envelopes for that phase).
• Shipping books, in bulk, to those bookstores that order them, and to Narco News lecturers on university tours, the first of which is taking place in April in the Northeast US.
• Maintaining and protecting the confidential information on all who order the book and keeping good records.

Pay: Little to none. The Fund for Authentic Journalism and Narco News will pay all the costs of materials and shipping and provide a very modest monthly stipend to the distribution coordinator.

Applicants for this position should send an email to Newsroom Coordinator Chris Fee at chris@narconews.com expressing their interest, telling us about themselves, and listing at least three personal or professional references with email addresses. We are particularly interested in applicants that are already colleagues or friends of this project, or that come recommended by them. The most convenient geographical location for us would be a coordinator in the Northeastern United States, but applicants from other regions will also be considered.

We would like to fill this position rapidly, so please don’t dawdle in expressing your interest.

Wait, there’s more…

The Other Oaxaca DVD
and a Cowboy in Caracas

Simultaneous to the release of “The People Decide: Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly” by Nancy Davies, a new DVD will also be made available: “2006: The Other Oaxaca.” It will feature six video newsreels – three in English, three in Spanish – about Oaxaca’s popular struggles by The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign.

“Cowboy In Caracas: A Personal Account of Venezuela’s Democratic Revolution” by Charles Hardy

Also, this spring, Curbstone Press will publish “Cowboy In Caracas: A Personal Account of Venezuela’s Democratic Revolution” by Narco News correspondent and School of Authentic Journalism professor Charles Hardy. Charlie has donated copies of his book to The Fund for Authentic Journalism as gifts for donors. “Read this important book, and drop the propaganda sandwich in the trash where it belongs,” writes Peter Coyote, and James W. Russell wrote a powerful introduction.

And we will announce another project – really, a bombshell – in the coming days that is likely to soon create other potential gifts and merchandise to support the Authentic Journalism renaissance.

In sum, Narco News, almost seven years old on the Internet, is about to enter the physical world outside the Internet as never before. One sign of that can be seen in the phenomenal lightning-fast growth of the Narco News network on Myspace.com, an effort begun just four months ago by readers that has drawn more than 800 participants not just to be in closer contact with Narco News, but also with each other. The high demand at colleges and universities for Narco News lectures and workshops is another indication of our coming of age into a more direct and immediate coordination with our readers.

Thus, the right person(s) at this, the right time, may find him and/or her self at the helm of a rather important and busy new publishing house of books and other items, and will be a very key and appreciated operative on this team.

The job of distribution coordinator might be ideal for you. And you might be the right next member of this team. Let us know right away by sending an email to Chris Fee at chris@narconews.com. And I look forward to our envelope stuffing party very soon.

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