Hi friends. We’re not big on making statements—we hope our work speaks for us most of the time—but these are extra-troubling times and we were inspired by Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC to share what we’re doing to meet this moment.

There’s this idea of “locus of control” that we think about a lot at times like this when the static is overwhelming and it’s easy to feel helpless. It’s a great way of cutting through the overwhelming static so you can focus on what you actually can do. 

Maybe your locus of control is very small and encompasses only the freedom of your thoughts. Maybe you can set priorities for your personal spending or a project you manage, maybe you have an online platform, or maybe you have an artistic outlet or are good at writing letters or making a compelling argument. There are always going to be more things outside your locus, like you can’t control what others think or do (and honestly that’s probably a good thing). But we bet most of you have a lot more influence than you think.  

One of the most important factors that increases the impact of acting from your locus of control is Martin Seligman’s “Learned Optimism,” the idea that you can change your situation through concerted effort, focus, and perspective. You can find this idea in a few of Dr. Faith’s books, and she and Joe wrote about it extensively in How to Be Accountable. 

What’s in our locus of control as a company? How do we stay optimistic? That’s a moving target, but here’s what we’ve got so far:

• Sharing our existing resources. In other words: getting you the books you need more than ever. Since the beginning, we’ve created work by and for those of us living closer to the margins than the center. We’re prepared with resources for survival, action, and care in a national crisis because crisis isn’t new to us. 
• Adding new resources. We are actively adding new titles to our catalog that provide support to those most harmed. Books and decks take a couple years or longer but we’ve been putting out a flurry of zines since November and acquiring more all the time. Let us know if you have requests. Or submit your own idea and we’ll see if it’s a fit.
• Shoring up our policies and procedures. We’ve recently improved a bunch of existing policy and procedures around privacy and security, and refreshed our team on it.
  • To protect our team: We already had a policy that was basically “don’t call the cops or let them into the building unless extreme violence is occuring.” We added more specifics about what to do if, say, ICE knocks on the door (don’t let them in or talk to them) and made sure our workers know what to do. 
  • To protect our customers and community: We won’t share your private data with anyone, ever. We’ve added some more layers of security, and we added a bit about online safety to our FAQ in response to reader questions. We are continually improving our data security practices. 

• Offering sliding scale prices on our published books.We’ve done this for a long time and everyone wins—if you can afford less, you can pay less, if you can afford more, you can pay more. 
• Sending books to people in prison. We have a mutual aid program to send books to imprisoned readers whenever they ask, which is nearly every day. The community chips in to help with the cost of the books so the authors can still get royalties. Based on the mail we get, this is changing lives.  
• Donating books to causes we care about. Requests for donated books have skyrocketed this year. Instead of pulping our overstock, we donate as much of it as we can. If your organization can use books as leverage for doing better work, hit us up on our contact page.
• Being in community. It’s sometimes harder to figure out how to do this as a business. We’re not tiny, but we’re not big enough to make a huge splash. We do some “I’m a local business owner and I care about this issue” advocacy stuff, which doesn’t usually feel very impactful. Our Portland office is at a bus stop, and one of our team members has stepped up to pick up trash every day and maintain the trash can there. We host a Futel public phone and just added a free bookshelf.
• Not being butts. We recognize that everyone’s feeling jagged and having a tough time. Us too! This is one of the harder ones, but we are trying extra to be kind and patient even in the most frustrating interactions or when we have to say no to something someone really wants. Is “trying not to ruin anyone’s day” a worthy entry into our locus of control list? We think so. 
• Always getting better at what we do. This is a choice we make every day. Being able to do the things on this list is what gets us up every morning. Publishing and distributing more books and zines that people want, selling more of them, reducing our costs, improving our systems and efficiency, improving morale, increasing our wages… being better at the business part isn’t the goal in itself, but it’s a force multiplier for the good we’re trying to do.  

A lot of the items on this list are things we’ve been doing for years. That’s not a brag: it comes out of necessity. Many of our readers and team members are certainly in more danger than before from recent and upcoming executive actions, but, unfortunately, none of these threats are entirely new.  

As our friends at Chickasaw Press said of our common ground when we started working together, “We are the voices that are being muffled.” But that is also our greatest strength, because when times get tough, we’re prepared. For better or worse, the margins are our comfort zone.

So we’re sorry to say that we’re as ready as we can be. None of us can stop the tide alone, but we can stand together against it.

Want to boost these actions? You probably have a long to-do list of your own, but if you’re struggling to find a path forward, here are a few ways to get started:

• Buy books! Read zines! If you’re getting ones by us, the best ways to support us are to get them either directly from us, from your local independent bookstore, at Bookshop.org, or check them out from the library. 
• Want to help distribute our poster catalogs to your local coffeeshops and other community flyer spots? Drop us a line.
• Send a care package to a friend who’s having a hard time.
• If you know someone who’s really struggling, talk to them about it! Talking about what’s wrong saves lives. Here’s a handy resource shared by our author Sascha Altman DuBrul.
• Pitch in to help send our books to people in prison.
• Make a list of actions in your own locus of control. Feel free to share with us if you’d like, we love to see this stuff!

Thanks for being in this with us.