Help me extend the reach and impact of We Have Never Been Woke
The book has had a stellar launch. Here's how YOU can help keep the momentum going.
Happy holidays, one and all. I’ll be in Arizona for the next couple of weeks visiting family, recharging for the next leg of the book tour, and getting the proposal for my next book polished up and shopped out (some details on that project here).
I’ll also be launching a few essays in the coming weeks including:
A piece exploring whether and how the arguments and dynamics explored in We Have Never Been Woke apply outside the U.S. context (will likely launch around Christmas).
A piece analyzing if and how the arguments of We Have Never Been Woke may take on a different significance and meaning with Trump in the White House (an essay that will likely be timed with inauguration day) — bouncing off a question I’ve been asked multiple times in events and interviews since the election.
An essay on (self) censorship and conformity in the symbolic professions, following a conference I’ll be speaking at in early January on this topic (if you are around Southern California and this is a subject that interests you, there are still some slots for folks who want to register to attend).
Stay tuned!
But first, I have a request for you, the readers…
Up to now, We Have Never Been Woke has been a smashing critical success. It’s also been commercially successful. It missed some of the bestseller lists because those are determined by first week sales and, in my case, the book had a decent but not gangbuster first week but then built rapidly and is seeing strong growth over the first two months – a growth curve that’s starting to look exponential (even as most other successful titles have strong first-week sales and then rapidly drop off).
All good things. To everyone who picked up a copy of the book for themselves or even bought multiple copies to give them to others, thank you so much!
As it is the holiday season, I should mention that We Have Never Been Woke would make an excellent Christmas gift for that special person in your life who is interested in the history and political economy of the knowledge professions.
If that person is you, consider adding it to your wishlist or dropping some hints (Fathers: as someone who worked in retail for many years, no one ever knows what to buy for you. You’d be doing your loved ones a big favor by mentioning you might be interested in this book if it is, in fact, something you’ve been considering). Info on how to buy the book from your preferred vendor and your preferred format is here.
For those who’ve already invested in a copy, I hope you find the book to be accessible, compelling and insightful. So far, the feedback from readers in comments and emails has been very warm.
Ultimately, as a scholar, my primary concern is not necessarily to maximize profits — it’s to have as many people as possible read and engage with the book and its content. On that front, there are several ways that you (yes, you!) can help expand access and interest for We Have Never Been Woke to those who don’t yet have a copy. This post will walk through some options. Most of the suggestions just take a few minutes and cost nothing. However, at scale they can make a very big difference in enhancing the impact and reach of the book.
Request We Have Never Been Woke for your local public library
Public libraries are great places where people of all ages and from many walks of life end up gathered together. Books available at public libraries can reach many constituencies that I might not otherwise interact with through other means.1
Most contemporary public libraries have websites allowing you to search their existing catalog – and if they don’t yet have a particular book, but folks in the community want the library to have that book, there’s usually a quick form that can be filled out to request that a text be added to the collection. Librarians are often quite responsive to these requests.
To illustrate what the process looks like: the closest public library to me here in Stony Brook, NY is the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library (a lovely place). On the library’s home page, there is a link under the “About” tab that allows residents to request any book they don’t currently own.
With respect to this particular library, I submitted a request right after the book launched. I also donated one of my own copies. Consequently, if you search for We Have Never Been Woke in the Emma S. Clark catalog, you’ll see they actually have three physical copies – all apparently checked out at time of writing (a great sign!). They’ve also acquired licenses for audio and digital versions of the book.
Put simply, my own local library is loaded up with copies across multiple formats. However, there are many public libraries nationwide that don’t yet have any version available. That’s where you come in! It’d be a big help if you could take a moment to
Search your local public library website to see if they have a copy on hand, and
Request the library acquire We Have Never Been Woke if it isn’t yet available
It just takes a few minutes, and readers doing this at scale could greatly expand the reach of the book (as an added bonus: if you haven’t been able to buy your own copy yet, this is a great way to check out the book yourself without any out-of-pocket cost – all while doing a service for me and your community).
Each library’s website is different. However, most of them do have a materials request form somewhere on the homepage. If you can’t easily find the form when you’re perusing the site, you can often perform a web search and the form will probably come up. For instance, if I hadn’t been able to find the form on the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library website, I could have just typed this into a search engine:
And as you can see, the form comes right up!
Filling out these forms is fast and easy. Typically, all you have to do is provide the following information:2
Author: Musa al-Gharbi
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Year: 2024
Hardcover edition ISBN: 978-0691232607 (publisher online listing)
Ebook edition ISBN: 978-0691232614 (publisher online listing).
Request We Have Never Been Woke for your college or university library
In addition to ensuring access at your local public library, if you happen to be a student, faculty or staff member at a college or university, you can check to see if the book is available at your school’s library as well — and you can use the same information above to help snag a copy for your campus if they don’t have one yet.
For instance, at Stony Brook University (where I teach), they have one physical copy in the library (currently checked out) and licenses for digital copies as well. However, if they didn’t have a copy yet, it would be easy to request they acquire one. The materials request form is found in the “Research” tab of the primary menu, under the “Support” subtab:
Here I should emphasize again that the specific layout of websites varies a lot. However, the form is usually readily available with a little searching.
For instance, at Columbia University (where I got my PhD), the library only has a digital copy available at present. If current staff, faculty or students wanted to request the purchase of a physical copy, it’s easy! However, the site layout is a little different than at Stony Brook. For Columbia University Libraries, the materials request form is under the “Feedback/ Help” tab:
This is one of those things where no one should opt out assuming someone else will surely submit the request. Even if you’re right, the more users who send these requests, the more likely it becomes that librarians will actually buy a copy, and the more copies they’ll likely try to have on hand. So, really, the more the merrier with these acquisition requests!
At my University of Arizona (where I got my BA and MA), they have a tab right on the top of the main page for the library called “borrow and request,” and the “request materials” form is right there in that menu:
Like Columbia, U of A seems to have a digital copy on hand but not a physical version. If anyone at the University of Arizona wants to make a request for a physical copy, they can – just navigate to the form using the directions above and include the ISBN number for the hardcover edition.
Finally, at the community college I graduated from, the materials request form is at the bottom of the library home page, under “Faculty Services.” However, if you click on the relevant link, you’ll see that you don’t actually have to be a faculty member to request a book purchase – students and staff are free to use the form to suggest materials too.
Cochise College does not currently have a copy available in any format. If anyone currently affiliated with Cochise wants to make a recommendation to the librarian using the materials request form, you’d have my thanks! That same gratitude would extend to anyone else who helps bring my book to a college or university that doesn’t currently have copies on hand.
If you’re affiliated with an institution of higher learning, please do consider checking your library catalog to see if the book is available in physical and digital form, and if it’s not, just take a moment (if and when you can) to put in a request. It’s a great way to expand access to the book and, again, if you haven’t picked up a copy yet yourself, it’s an easy way to read the book without paying a dime (although, of course, I strongly urge everyone to buy a copy if they can!).
Review We Have Never Been Woke
Let me start with the version of this request that just about anyone could do:
Ratings and reviews from verified customers can be really helpful for convincing people who are on the fence about a purchase to “take the plunge.” If you purchased the book on a site that allows people to rate their purchases (like Amazon), and if you’ve read the book and enjoyed it, please consider taking a moment to rate it when you can.
Of course, a five-star (or otherwise maximized) review would be the best, but just provide your honest assessment. The simple act of adding stars/ points is great – but if you have positive comments to contribute, so much the better.
Likewise, if you participate in sites like Goodreads, adding a quick starred review would be very helpful (and positive comments would be still more helpful).
If you’re part of any “in real life” book discussion groups, advocating for others in the group to buy and discuss We Have Never Been Woke would be great.
If you’re an academic, consider reviewing the book for an academic journal. Reviews — especially positive reviews — can be helpful for spreading awareness of a work within and across disciplines.3
And if you’re a journalist or literary person, please consider reviewing the book for any outlets that haven’t reviewed the book yet.
So far, We Have Never Been Woke has enjoyed very strong reviews in a number of journalistic outlets — it was even rated one of the best books of the year by Mother Jones! However, while the book has received strong coverage in flagship outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and The Atlantic, literary publications have not yet picked it up. If you’ve read the book, and you love the book, consider pitching a review to New York Review of Books, LA Review of Books, Public Books, or any other outlet that hasn’t yet published a review. You’ll have my thanks!
Invite me for a talk
After the holidays, I’ll be continuing my book tour in order to connect with more audiences about the arguments and findings of We Have Never Been Woke. If I’m in your neighborhood, come and see me while I’m passing through, or reach out to add an additional stop to my itinerary while I’m in town.
If I’m not scheduled to appear where you are, let’s change that! And if I’ve already been to your community but you missed me, I’d happy to pass through again, logistics and finances permitting -- hit me up!
Details on the tour and how to book me are available here.
Talks are super useful for helping me reach large numbers of people who are not yet super familiar with my work. They’re often very helpful for moving units too. But perhaps most importantly, they often serve an important community-building role.
Talks are not just useful for helping me build connections, they also facilitate people within an institution or town identifying and forging bonds with likeminded peers. I’ve witnessed this first-hand at multiple stops – groups getting new members who were invigorated by the talk and discussion; scholars who hadn’t previously engaged much planning new collaborations after chatting with myself and one-another over dinner or (in my case, non-alcoholic) drinks after an event. And so on.
Use We Have Never Been Woke as a reason to gather together people in your community to talk about issues you’re interested in! You never know who will show up or how social networks might evolve as a result.
Add We Have Never Been Woke to your syllabus
We Have Never Been Woke is of potential relevance for classes across a range of fields. It looks at the history and political economy of the knowledge professions. It engages deeply with the cognitive and behavioral sciences, social psychology, and the sociology of morality. It helps contextualize contemporary political and sociocultural struggles (including the 2024 U.S. presidential election). Scholars across the humanities and social sciences could probably find many ways to incorporate the text (or selections) into their classes.
While I was writing the book, I piloted sections of the work-in-progress for a class I taught at Johns Hopkins called, “The Knowledge Economy and Inequality.” Students responded very well to the material – they clearly found it compelling and accessible, and it provided good grist for discussion (and as I note in the acknowledgements, thinking with them about the material also helped me improve the work and its readability).
Colleagues Steve Teles and Amna Khalid have assigned the book to students in their courses (the former for a grad seminar, the latter for an undergrad course) and relayed that their pupils really enjoyed the book and it worked really well for their classes. In fact, the students were so enthusiastic that, in both of those cases, I was persuaded to pop by the campus and talked with students about the book, answer their questions, and so on. It was great!
We Have Never Been Woke may likewise be an excellent text for your classes to help students think more deeply about a range of sociocultural and political issues or to survey key literatures and illustrate their relevance to contemporary topics.
Reaching students is really important for ensuring the long-term impact and legacy of a work. Assigning the book on your syllabus can help move units without any additional cost to yourself — but most importantly, it can help ensure the work stays in the conversation and bridges intellectual generations. The book was written for posterity -- your assignments can help the text achieve that ambition.
For those who are open to assigning the book in their class(es) but haven’t personally acquired a copy yet — if you’re a verified instructor of a relevant course, you can request an exam copy via the Princeton University Press website and save yourself some scratch while enhancing the longevity and reach of the work.
Cite We Have Never Been Woke in your research or reporting
In a recent profile in the New Yorker, journalist Andrew Marantz aptly noted, “An irony of al-Gharbi’s work, as he knows, is that his critique of the élite consensus can only spread if it is picked up by élite consensus-makers: he’s just a symbolic capitalist, standing in front of other symbolic capitalists, asking them to cite him.”
And here I am, formally asking you to cite me!
For journalists, columnists and bloggers, consider mentioning We Have Never Been Woke and key facts or arguments therefrom in your stories, as relevant. A good deal of sales and attention the book has received to date has been driven by coverage in mainstream media outlets. I’d love to see that continue.4
For academics, citing the book, its facts, and its arguments in your own peer reviewed papers and books can be of great help in enhancing the reach, longevity and scholarly impact of the book (this is especially positive citations, but as my advisor Peter Bearman showed, even negative citations send a signal that a work is important and worthy of engagement).
Interview me for your publication or podcast
I’m eager to talk to as many interlocutors and audiences as I can. In order to support the book launch, I’ve done dozens of interviews about We Have Never Been Woke for podcasts and media outlets in the U.S. and abroad. I’m happy to make myself available to you, too, logistics and bandwidth permitting.
One caveat is that I’m currently on book tour, and I also teach classes, I have a family, I’m about to start writing my next book, and I get a lot of media requests. As a consequence, my time is often tight, and I can’t accept all invitations. The book’s publicist, Megan Posco (megan@poscopublicity.com), helps to vet requests and manage my interview calendar — she’s the ideal point of contact for any interview requests.
To set expectations: we often have to pass on requests from outlets or programs with small and/or niche audiences, and sometimes we have to get creative to make things work with bigger programs too. But I try to make things work as often as I can, and the only way to know if we can swing and interview is to reach out. So please do hit us up if you’d be interested in an interview, and let’s see what we can do.
To date, media interviews and podcasts have also been super helpful for introducing my work to new audiences and helping to move units. I’m happy to keep talking to people about We Have Never Been Woke so long as interviewers still want to host conversations about it.
Help bring We Have Never Been Woke to new markets
Right now, We Have Never Been Woke is in the process of being translated into simplified Chinese for publication in mainland China. Fantastic news!
I know I speak on behalf of the publisher when I say, we’d be delighted to help translate the book into even more languages downstream. Given the particularly high salience for WEIRD cultures, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Danish seem like low-hanging fruit (I’ve done interviews with reporters for articles published about the book in all of these languages).
If you or someone you know might be interested in working with Princeton University Press to translate the work into another language and/or distribute it in international markets, please reach out to the PUP International Rights team here.
In the interim, for those who are eager to share or talk about We Have Never Been Woke in other languages, here are some non-English language resources:
Interviews
Book Reviews
Dagens Nyheter (Swedish)
El Heraldo de Mexico (Spanish)
HuffPost Italia (Italian)
Recommend this Substack
As I note in the “About” section for this newsletter, Symbolic Capital(ism) is intended to be non-redundant with We Have Never Been Woke, but will explore adjacent facts, arguments, and themes. Consequently, introducing people to this Substack is a nice way to introduce them to my work more broadly.
There are a few ways you can help recommend Symbolic Capital(ism) to others:
Substack has a feature allowing you to recommend to others any Substack that you personally subscribe to. It’s super easy. You just search up the one you want, and click “Recommend.”
For instance, I’m already recommending Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin. But if I wasn’t already doing that, I could just search his name in the “Search Substack” bar at the top of my feed, and then click the “Recommend” button when his newsletter comes up (which currently reads “Recommending” because I clicked that button a while back).
Recommendations can really help drive subscriptions a lot! For instance, I currently have about 31 users recommending Symbolic Capital(ism), and this has yielded me over a thousand subscribers -- that’s a very significant impact from a few dozen people hitting the “recommend” button!
On the flipside, there are a couple-dozen newsletters that I personally recommend, and I’ve generated lots of new subscribers for each of them as well:
In directions, we can see the power of the “recommend” button. It really does help connect writers with new audiences. If you subscribe to this newsletter and enjoy it, please consider formally recommending it.
Folks can also directly recommend my work in the body of Substack essays as relevant. For instance, I was humbled and honored to see Nate Silver recently note that he’s currently reading We Have Never Been Woke (despite skipping most other books about “wokeness”) because he really enjoys this newsletter.
These types of mentions within essays can be super helpful.
Restacking posts from Symbolic Capital(ism) can also make a big difference. For instance, this share and endorsement from Dan Williams helped introduce me to four new paid subscribers and an even larger number of unpaid subscriptions (thank you so much, new subscribers, for your interest and support, and thanks to Dan for sharing!).
I’m hoping to use this Substack to build a community of interest around We Have Never Been Woke alongside it’s planned follow-up, and to explore broader issues and themes related to both books. Helping connect people with this newsletter is a great way to help expand the reach and impact of my current book and the next one – it’s easy, free, and can be quite impactful.
And of course, if you’re coming across this essay and you’re not already a subscriber, do consider subscribing (and then recommending this newsletter!).
In any event, thanks so much for reading Symbolic Capital(ism). I’m cooking up some great essays in the coming weeks, and I’m looking forward to seeing how our conversation evolves in 2025 and beyond!
A Quick Note of Thanks
It’s been a whirlwind few months. I’d be remiss if I didn’t close out this essay by thanking some of the folks who helped ensure the book has enjoyed the impact it did. It’s really been a team effort.
My literary agent, Andrew Stuart landed We Have Never Been Woke with Princeton University Press, and is working with me on the second book now. A good agent makes a big difference, and a great agent makes all the difference. If you’re looking for representation, allow me to recommend Andrew in the strongest terms. It’s been a joy to think and work with you – looking forward to seeing what we cook up next.
My editors at Princeton University Press, Meagan Levinson (now at Cornell University Press) and Eric Crahan, shepherded the book through the process.
Julia Haav and the rest of the team at PUP helped market and distribute the book at a level that is almost unparalleled among university presses. If you want an academic publisher that can reach trade levels of circulation, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that does it better than Princeton.
Merissa Czyz and the rest of the team at Index Audio helped me record the audio version of the book. I’d never done anything remotely like that before, and if it “works,” it’s only because of their coaching, editing, and production.
The book’s publicist, Megan Posco, has juggled an insane number of interview requests, and helped maximize the public impact of the book. We’ve been emailing each other daily for months now. Here’s to many more!
My booking agent, Akhil Jonnalagadda, has helped with identifying speaking opportunities, negotiations, logistics and managing my schedule. Each talk has a ton of moving pieces -- it’d be tough for me to function without Akhil these days.
Provost Lejuez, Dean Lindenfeld, and my faculty colleagues in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University have facilitated this journey every step of the way. I could not have managed the launch and book tour without your accommodation and support.
My brain trust: Shamus Khan, Peter Bearman, Andreas Wimmer, Fabio Rojas, Steve Teles, Jon Haidt and Amna Khalid – without your previous and continuing guidance and support, who knows that the heck I’d be doing right now, but it definitely wouldn’t be this.
Last but never least, my wife Fatima, who daily inspires and challenges me, keeps me grounded (and also, on my toes), and who holds down the fort so I can go on tour with back-to-back dates in multiple cities without our children falling into neglect and despair. All this after previously enabling the occultation that let me research and write the darn book! As I note in the acknowledgements of We Have Never Been Woke (and in many interviews about the book), I wouldn’t be doing any of this stuff were it not for your fateful decision to hitch yourself to my (at the time, quite rickety) wagon.
All said, 2024 has been wild. Only God knows what the next 12 months have in store, but I’m eager to find out, and I hope you, the reader, will continue to join me on this journey. And thanks in advance (or in retrospect!) for your help in expanding the reach and impact of We Have Never Been Woke.
Incidentally, I composed much of We Have Never Been Woke in the Sierra Vista Public Library (my wife and children relocated to Arizona shortly after NYC public schools closed because of COVID-19, and stayed through the end of that summer. I stayed with them as much as I could).
As far as I can tell, audiobooks don’t have ISBN-13 numbers, so that’s one piece of info I can’t provide. However, many libraries do allow folks to request audio versions of books too. If you’re personally into audiobooks or you think others in your community might be, you can feel out your local library for options.
Sometimes, paradoxically, academic journal reviews can reduce citations of original work while greatly increasing citations of the reviewers because many end up citing the review in their papers instead of directly citing the work that got reviewed. In my estimation, it’s all gravy: if a review spreads awareness about the work within and across disciplines while also helping the reviewer rack up their own citations — that’s a win-win in my book, even if it costs me some citations here and there.
If you can link to this information page when you talk about the book, even better. It provides info to let people quickly buy it on whatever site and format they prefer, and also introduces readers to my Substack. But at the end of the day, I’ll be in your debt if you keep the book in public conversation, with or without a link (or regardless of which link you use).