Inside LabourStart

It’s important for us to sell labour books – and LabourStart is uniquely positioned to do so.  This article from four years ago explains why and it’s still relevant today.

I wanted to update you on book sales in the first quarter of 2009.  It’s a bit complicated, as we’ve sold books four different ways.  Here is breakdown, listing the gross and our share (net).  All totals are in US dollars.

• Powells – $29.00 – $2.17
• UCS – $712.13 – $71.21
• Middlesex Univ. Press (Global Unions) – $1,589.85 – $387.74
• TUC (Hadi Never Died) – $1,482.79 – $930.87

The total income we received, therefore, is $1,391.99 (£946.95).

Obviously we make the most money when we sell directly from publishers (the TUC and Middlesex University) but it’s easiest for us, and most useful to our readers, when we co-market with UCS.

For that reason, today I’m going to relaunch our book-of-the-day feature, except as book-of-the-week, and hope to promote some of the very best labour books over the next few months.

I’ve also launched a UnionBook group called ‘Union Books‘  to discuss labour books.  We should refer writers, publishers and readers to that group.