This is likely to turn out to be one of the most important projects that I had the opportunity to work on in 2011, and that I will continue work on through 2012.

P.S. There is 20% off pre-orders for the physical book, e-book, or both until January 30, 2012.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Publishing April 1, 2012
BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE
A Toolbox for Revolution
ASSEMBLED BY ANDREW BOYD WITH DAVE OSWALD MITCHELL

A “how-to-think” manual for 21st century activism
Prank websites. Militant carnivals. Flash Mobs. Virtual sit-ins. Guerrilla musicals.

From Cairo to cyberspace, from Main Street to Wall Street, today’s social movements have a creative new edge. Social activism in the digital age is melding prank and PR; blurring the boundaries between artist and activist, direct action protest and pop art. These principles that make for successful creative action are more common today than we realize—yesterday’s Wikipedia blackout in protest of #SOPA is one of many prominent examples—but their foundations rarely get hashed out or written down.

Until now. In the irreverent, activist tradition of Steal This Book and The Anarchist Cookbook comes Beautiful Trouble, out April 1, 2012 from OR Books.

In Beautiful Trouble, seasoned pranktivist Andrew Boyd assembles the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest in order to place it in the hands of the next generation of change-makers. Part manifesto and part reference guide, Beautiful Trouble is the anti-textbook—a dynamic, 21st century how-to that brings together ten grassroots groups and dozens of seasoned artists and activists from around the world. Among the groups included are Agit-Pop/The Other 98%, The Yes Men/Yes Labs, Code Pink, SmartMeme, The Ruckus Society, Beyond the Choir, The Center for Artistic Activism, Waging Nonviolence, Alliance of Community Trainers and Nonviolence International.

Beautiful Trouble is not another how-to manual; it’s a how-to-think manual. In the shadow of austerity and ecological crisis, the urgency of this political moment demands resources that will transform outrage into effective action. Click here for a look inside.

Andrew Boyd is an author, humorist and twenty-five-year veteran of creative campaigns for social change. He led the decade-long satirical media campaign “Billionaires for Bush.” He co-founded Agit-Pop Communications, an award-winning “subvertising” agency, and the netroots movement The Other 98%. He’s the author of three books: Daily Afflictions, Life’s Little Deconstruction Book and the creative action manual The Activist Cookbook. You can find him at andrewboyd.com.

Dave Oswald Mitchell is a writer, editor and researcher. He edited the Canadian activist publication Briarpatch Magazine from 2005 to 2010, and his writing has been published in Rabble, Reality Sandwich, Rolling Thunder and Upping the Anti.

Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution, Assembled by Andrew Boyd
Publication date: April 1, 2012
Paperback, $25, 978-1-935928-57-7
E-book, $10, 978-1-935928-58-4
400 pages
Visit www.beautifultrouble.org

For more information, or an interview with the author, contact Fern Diaz at fernanda.diaz@orbooks.com or (212) 514-6485.

Thank you, each and every one of you, who helped to promote and fund the Beautiful Trouble Kickstarter campaign.

I was on the road last week, so I didn’t have a chance to post an update on the campaign. Not only did we hit the target, we flew right past it in the final hours.

I see lots of familiar names in the list of project backers. Thank you, again.

In addition to the 246 individuals who contributed to Beautiful Trouble, we also received a very generous commitment from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Add to that the previous support of another Canadian labour organization, several generous contributions from a “friends and family” round of outreach, and the support of a US foundation and our amazing publisher, and we’re really off to the races.

The third Beautiful Trouble book sprint kicks off later this month, and the book design is well underway. In the coming weeks, we’ll be re-launching the www.beautifultrouble.org Web site and making the book available for pre-order in a variety of formats.

I keep pushing the team to not constrain the vision for the project to just “a book,” and I’m excited to get back to thinking about how the Web can play a role in making the content widely accessible, and also allowing it to live and grow over time.

As the Occupy movement spreads across the globe — including right here in Toronto — I can think of a better time for a resource that shares the “design patterns” of creative activism.

I look forward to making some beautiful trouble with all of you.

Dear Friends,

I am hoping you can help me spread the word about a project of passion that I embarked on earlier this year.

Almost ten years ago, I made a friend, mentor, and colleague that would change my life. His name is Andrew Boyd: he’s an activist, troublemaker, and author of the Activist Cookbook, which was published in 1997.

Over the years, Andrew has given me many opportunities to learn from him and to work with him, and in return I’ve consistently badgered and cajoled Andrew to update the Activist Cookbook for the digital era.

This past January — much to my surprise — he agreed.

Shortly after, we were off-and-running thanks to a bit of seed funding from the Canadian labour movement. Since then, we’ve been joined by a fantastic editor (Dave Oswald Mitchell, previously editor of Briaripatch Magazine, a publisher (the amazing O/R Books, mind-blowing partners like the Yes Men/Yes Labs, Ruckus Society, and SmartMeme to name a few, and — most importantly — more than 40 cutting-edge political troublemakers from around the world have joined the project as contributors.

It’s a fantastic enterprise — perhaps one of the most important projects that I’ve ever worked on — a complete re-invention of Andrew’s Activist Cookbook for the complex times that we live in. We’re taking the best ideas and tactical innovations and distilling them into a design manual and web toolbox that anyone can use to design effective creative actions.

As for funding, luckily there’s this cool new Internet-powered thing called KickStarter ;) …which makes helping out more fun and collaborative. Basically, if you throw down a little something (or, even better, a big- or medium-sized something), then you get something back. For a $60 pledge, for instance, we’ll mail you a signed copy of the book once it’s published. For $250, you’ll get a copy of the infamous “Iraq War Ends!” prank New York Times signed by the Yes Men.

http://beautifultrouble.org/

Have a look at the rewards, watch the project video, and then please consider helping to make this project happen by spreading the word or helping to fund it.

We’ve just hit our $12,000 goal (thanks to more than 200 people who’ve contributed). But there are still 38 hours to push this to the next level, and to let even more people know about it. Every dollar received over our goal will be invested in keeping the web component of the project growing and evolving for years to come.

Our aim when we launched this crazy project was to put the best creative tools and tactics in the hands of the next generation of changemakers. Can you help us get it there?

http://beautifultrouble.org/

Yours in trouble,

Phillip.

P.S. Any kind of support is helpful! Even a tweet or a Facebook share can help ensure that we reach people that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Thanks for your support. :)

P.P.S. Here’s a pre-written tweet, if you just want to quickly re-tweet something: https://twitter.com/#!/phillipadsmith/status/123766929994432512