So Mayer

A People-centric, Vision Transforming Social Protection System in Chile Through GSL, municipalities deliver integrated social assistance, employment, health, and childhood services at national scale.

Chile has rebuilt access to welfare around a municipal “one-stop shop”. Gestión Social Local has reached 10 million poor and vulnerable people across 339 municipalities, trained 10,000+ municipal workers, & processed more than 13 million benefit requests since 2019 buff.ly/GI3jGpI #ShareGoodNewsToo

Losing the Plot: The “Leftists” Who Turn Right What do we make of former friends who fell down the rabbit hole of the Right?

Hi! Do you think Tucker Carlson “has a point”? Do think Platner platforming Holocaust deniers isn’t really a big deal? Do you think the “Epstein class” is short for “good w/ $$”? Well, my pal @kathrynajoyce.bsky.social and I wrote an article just for you! inthesetimes.com/article/form...

Questions of Race and Repair The idea of making amends for slavery has a long genealogy in Britain. Catherine Hall examines this history alongside vital questions of race and repair for our present moment.

How might the wrongs of slavery be properly acknowledged, and redressed in Britain? What could each of us do?

Catherine Hall considers both historical and contemporary questions of race and repair.

Maybe, may I hazard, if mainstream publishers & bookstores published more of what people care about & want to know in nonfic (#ownvoices, nuance, documentary sources, complex solutions, good writing) & paid fairly so marginalised writers can have time to write, they might... sell more?

It's also the fact that this is their managerial model of publishing as an industry: it's all lean, nimble, responsive, innovation. And (as with universities, tech & actually everywhere that managerialism touches), it's a total on its arse failure.

😂😂😂

I do like to put the latest "smart guy big thoughts wow" next to romance on a new releases table just to watch it be visibly extremely unsold

BAD LANGUAGE is 176 pages, about 42K. It's such a relief.

I’m here for the shorter nonfiction paperback. I’ve been reading nonfiction from Fitzcarraldo editions and the NYRB imprint and most of them come in at around 40,000. Exactly the correct size for a handbag and a weekend read.

Or Epstein-adjacent radical feminism, as I like to call it

I just wanna talk to the publishers and buyers who think these are going to sell

*END of the net book agreement

Like, so much? It's landfill publishing. Arrives pre-pulped. I blame the Net Book Agreement for letting supermarkets in UK dictate what books "sell".

Pay attention to the things fat people won’t do. We know the built environment is crumbling because it collapses for us first. We know air travel is getting shittier because it pinches us the hardest. We know medical care is getting more expensive and more evil because it make us the problem.

a. piece. of. software. is. not. the. type. of. entity. that. can. gain. consciousness.

Put the Message in the Box / Migrations, by Mary Chapin Carpenter & the Mountain Goats 2 track album

I have adored Mary Chapin Carpenter's work for decades. One of the great honors of my life to collaborate with her on this single of two covers of songs we love, out today! themountaingoats.bandcamp.com/album/put-th...

Maybe, may I hazard, if mainstream publishers & bookstores published more of what people care about & want to know in nonfic (#ownvoices, nuance, documentary sources, complex solutions, good writing) & paid fairly so marginalised writers can have time to write, they might... sell more?

Girish! Hi 💞

The abstract alone is worth the read.

This is excellent stuff.

Oh yeah. So sophistiqué, such coding. All that big brain energy to make a slot machine that's also a wife-servant. Played on all fronts. Seems complicated to me.

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🔥

always read @suchmayer.bsky.social

“Magic 8 ball frequency algorithm” is so perfect.

I say it’s a slot machine for words, but everyone yells at me when I say that.

I like this better.

I do the slot machine gesture too! 🍋🍎😭

Definitely! We need more small nonfiction books, nonfic chapbooks, etc. I've got piles of @uminnpress.bsky.social's Forerunners series because they're short, provocative, & inexpensive. And @punctumbooks.bsky.social's Dead Letter Office imprint rocks. More of this, please!

All of the Guardian's books industry coverage comes straight from James Daunt tbh. Whither Waterstones goeth, so goes "the industry." It's true to the extent that W is a monopoly that shd be illegal, but false in terms of spread of readers, publishing & bookselling not seen top down.

Yes I think if I ran a press it would specifically be for novella length nonfic. The problem is still $$$ tho, so I guess it’s… if I ran an imprint at a large press I would specifically do novella length nonfic etc etc etc

Peninsula & 404Ink did this brilliantly until post lockdown / Ukraine related paper and shipping costs literally torpedoed it. Sales were good, but the price point wd have had to shoot wayyyyy up. it's a format readers love.

Aw sob, no one wanted the latest cut and paste hatespeech Richard Dawkins or pop economics book? Kathleen St*ck didn't earn out (speculation)? Oh no non fiction is kaput.

Rephrase "stack 'em high" clickbait churnalism is crashing out. I'm crying.

But also...

bsky.app/profile/such...