On April 25, How Would a Patriot Act? (Working Assets Publishing) made news by becoming the number-one best-selling book on Amazon and staying at the top almost four days. Amazingly, this feat was accomplished three weeks prior to release and without any publicity except a handful of bloggers discussing it on their sites. Shortly after the official release, the book jumped to the New York Times best-seller list.
How Would a Patriot Act?, which chronicles the expansion of presidential powers under the Bush Administration, broke ground in other ways: in just over three months, it went from an idea to a manuscript to a bestseller. Not as well known is its manner of production: the first printing was on 100 percent post-consumer waste recycled paper and the second on 100 percent recycled paper with half post-consumer waste. The decision to use 100 percent post-consumer waste recycled paper was made at the start, to demonstrate that progressive literature could be printed in a manner consistent with a commitment to the environment—and be successful to boot. So far, 40,000 books have been printed without a tree felled. Now that’s patriotic!
