All The Other F Words
Hellooo Big Team!
I honestly am still reeling from the week it’s been. The book is launched. Not only is it launched— in the last 72 hours, y’all have left me speechless time and time again. On Amazon, the ebook was the #944 bestselling book yesterday… out of millions. Both the paperback and the ebook were giving “real,” mainstream books by Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan a run for their money, cracking the top twenty in all kinds of categories around ag, food, science, business, and social science. On Kobo, Farm (and Other F Words) was the #2 bestselling book about North American history yesterday. And the crazy part was, somehow folx were buying books through all the official channels *and* coming through my DMs to buy books personally from me, enough that at 10pm last night, I was still trying to stay afloat on a sea of orders that I could not have been more excited to take (because honestly being able to interact with you all is really the best part). I thought like, 4-6 people wouldn’t want to buy this silly book about farming through Amazon. I underestimated that figure by about… 100.
The number of times I’ve involuntarily said “Oh fuck,” into my computer since Tuesday is incalculable.
But most special of all was all the personal messages I got. People like Big Teammate Karl Binns (a real must follow voice in ag) who sent me a pic the minute he received the paperback he ordered:
Or when Teammate Bill Farmilo shared a picture of the ebook version on his eReader:
Bill has somehow already finished reading the whole thing (how do people read so fast?). Here’s his real human being review— minus some light spoilers:
“Just finished the book last night, it really flew by! Super engaging, I learned a lot about why things are the way they are, but folding in the individual stories really helped to illustrate the impact that the policy choices have – for the most part, people are doing exactly what they are being encouraged to do…
Despite the fairly discouraging state of affairs, you still managed to strike a hopeful tone, that these are just choices we and others have made and there are other choices that we could make that could serve us better.
+1 highly recommend :)”
There was the text I got from Youngstown, OH-based journalist and dear friend Jess Hardin;
“I’m enjoying my coffee this morning and READING YOUR FUCKING BOOK!!!!!!!!! it’s brilliant already and i’m so in and proud of you for fucking doing it!!!!! sending so much love i hope you get a well deserved break soon!”
That one hit me hard. The idea that the book has become a part of other people’s regularly daily lives, let alone their conceptions of the world, is wild. I don’t know if I’ll ever get use to that being real.
Anyway, thank you thank you thank you to all the folx who have been reaching out. It’s been such a glorious pleasure to get to know you and I plan to keep getting to know you for a while longer. But quick, on to new business!
So you want to read the book, do ya?
Everyone who pre-ordered through Indiegogo should have received a copy of the eBook already. If you haven’t, please email me ASAP. Everyone who ordered paperback copies, they are on their way to me, they will be signed, and then they’ll be on their way to you, after I have personally cradled every single one in my arms and given it a personalized inspirational speech about what a good life it’s going to have being your book.
To everyone who still wants to order books— the time has come! Here’s some strategies;
It’s still an option to wait and buy it through a local bookstore (or request it and then check it out from a public library!). The wholesale bookseller that my publisher is working with is just a bit slower than Amazon, so we’re not exactly sure when it will be available for them to order, but it should be very soon. If you are interested, I’d be happy to personally reach out to an independent bookstore near you and encourage them to stock the book— you’ve just got to point me in their direction. I also *just* found out you can order it through Barnes & Noble (which in the town where I grew up, was basically our local independent bookseller).
For the most impatient among us— the eBook is your best bet if you want to literally not even finish reading this email and instead go straight to the main event. You can buy it on Amazon here for .99$, or better yet, you can go to this Google Drive folder and just straight up download it for free.
This community won’t let price or access be a barrier for anyone. We’ve got community hard copies— so if you would love to read Farm (and Other F Words) but don’t have a piece of ebook reading technology or $18 right now (or you know someone in that situation), just shoot me an email with the shipping address and we’ll make sure a copy gets to anyone who wants it, free of charge.
For ebook folx who don’t want to go the Amazon route or the free route, you can also snag yourself a full-priced ($4.99) eCopy on Kobo.
If you want a paperback, not through Amazon, and are willing to wait, I’m happy to acquire one for you and send it along personally. Here’s the deets: $18 to @sarah-mock on Venmo gets you a shipped, signed copy in the US. I will note it will take about 2 weeks to arrive (Jeff's got me beat there, but he can't send a personal note!). Just lemme know the address/who to make it out to. And fi this appeals to you, and you’re interested in contributing some community copies re: above, just let me know. :)
Finally, I have to ask for the annoying thing. As you adventure through the book, would you mind reviewing it? It’s stupid how much Amazon reviews, GoodReads reviews, Barnes & Noble reviews, Google Book reviews, etc. matter, but they do. If you liked what you read and have time to put like two sentences up on a platform that you like, that would be awesome, and I would be eternally grateful.
A Note Before You Read (or After, If You’re Bill 😆 )
I wanted to share one piece of writing that proved important to me throughout this whole book journey. See, the characters you’ll meet in Farm (and Other F Words) aren’t just characters to me. They’re friends, leaders, guides— they are people that I deeply admire despite their flaws and most of which that I care about a great deal.
Because of all of that, I’ve been terrified of what these people would think about the way I’ve portrayed them. I’ve worried they’d see the whole book as a betrayal, as “gotcha” journalism, as a trap that I lured them into with my agricultural background and my understanding nods. I never wanted to do that, and that was never my intention. So at like 3am sometime in October 2020, when I was deep in draft-writing mode and also anxiety and exhaustion, I wrote myself the following letter, in the hopes that it would help remind me what this whole thing was about, and guide this project through a treacherous sea of uncertainty. And now I share the last/best part of that letter with you, so you might know a little more about the why, and the how, for me:
I believe in people above all. I believe there is nothing more persuasive, more beautiful, more infuriating, more sad, or more profound than the ways we make each other think and feel. I believe that the stories we tell about each other are sacred. And I believe that there is no greater act of love, hope, or faith in a more perfect future, than to tell another’s story. To cultivate another person’s infiniteness and immortality by sharing about their experience. This work is soul food.
So when you tell people’s stories, do it with love. Think of every glorious, beautiful thing the person you’re writing about has done, and write as if that’s the person they are— one capable of greatness. Hold them to the truth always, lovingly confront lies whenever they’re spoken, but don’t silence them. Everyone deserves to speak and to be heard. Suspend you biases, except your bias towards truth, justice, and love. And most importantly, love the people you write about, in all their brokenness and imperfection. Don’t lie about them, not to protect them nor to protect yourself. See them as they are and love them for their truth. Make a place for them in the community, invite them to join, and make them welcome. It is their choice, to come or not. But it is your duty, to love them by telling the truth as best you can.
Your life is infused with meaning by a combination of love and sacrifice. The debt you might repay is to do that for the people you love, too.
Sarah
Big Team Spotlights
First of all, there was a fabulous virtual launch party last Thursday (in place of this newsletter) where I got to meet and learn about so many of you. It was so fun for me personally, I’d love to do it again. Would people want to do like a recurring week-night discussion/happy hour event? I’m thinking every other Tuesday, 6-8pm et? If you have thoughts/interests, please bring them over to the discussion-club slack channel. Otherwise, I’ll just include a zoom link in next week’s email.
On said call, folx met Rhishi Pethe who had Connie Bowen in his phenomenal newsletter last week.
We also heard about Emily Bowers’s presentation on Harry Potter and the Sensory Experience (a great video you should watch *immediately* if you’re trying to spice up your Friday).
Since then, I’ve heard from Allison Stawara, who’s an M.S. Candidate in Entomology at the University of Georgia, who’s working on this fascinating research:
“The scope of my research is looking at utilizing living mulches between beds of cucurbits (zucchini in this case) as a "refuge" site for beneficial insects, acting to buffer the non-target effects of broad-spectrum pesticides on those insect populations, and then observing the rate of recolonization of the focal crop plants. We're hoping to see some sort of harmonization between beneficial/predatory insects and chemical control, which could justify a reduction in current, chemical-heavy control. The tricky thing is multiple cucurbit pests also are major disease vectors, and we have the general prophylactic/early-and-often culture of pesticide application. Those two things get tied up into farmer risk aversion, hence the pesticide overuse. The general layout is zucchini being grown on raised, black plastic mulch beds; the + living mulch treatments have a mix of crimson clover, teff, and buckwheat planted, and the broad spectrum insecticide we chose was Pyganic.”
I also bought The Farming Game at Teammate Walker Orr’s recommendation. I’m seriously considering turning it into a drinking game once it arrives. If you have played before and have any hot tips, please share.
A final addition from last week, it was Big Farm Teammate Abby Long who contributed the third picture of the Really Phallic Carrot. I want you to know that this week, I received two great phallic vegetables, a green pepper and a carrot, but I promptly lost them in my IG and email inboxes. If you are the person who sent one of those two, would you mind re-pinging me? I’ll put them on my desktop this time, I promise.
In the meantime, enjoy this memes (that I’m like three weeks late to):
Last F(ew) Things
I promise next week’s newsletter will be back to a more normal cadence of interesting writing and not just book news. Bear with me y’all. It’s a whole thing.
Related to the above; If you have a virtual book club, meeting, class, family reunion, rap battle, podcast, pee-wee sheep lead, etc. that you would like to invite me to, to say hi and talk about agriculture and maybe hawk some books, my “Invites” tray is open. Shoot me an email (and if you have shot me an email, I’m desperately wading my way towards you in my inbox and I’m coming!).
If you’re new to Big Team Farms and want some explanation for what the F you just read, check out The Intro Newsletter and more recent additions by visiting Big Team Farms online.
Do you have announcements that would be relevant to the 1,300 or so members of the Big Team? Feel free to shoot me messages about projects, resources, job posting, etc. And to everyone who’s done that already, or who has asked questions that I haven’t yet responded to, look out for those in the next couple of newsletters.
Captain America and the Winter Soldier is officially over, and the drought until Loki has begun. Bryan and I have filled it so far with Shadow & Bone, a truly bad show that we watched in full in two days. My best-in-class description; “Game of Thrones starring Avatar (the Last Airbender), but for 15 year olds this time.” Very much the 2021 Vampire Diaries, where a universe of incredibly powerful and unnaturally beautiful people decide the world revolves around a teenage girl who has weird dreams about Prongs. If y’all watch it, please head over to the pop-culture-theorizing slack channel and tell me what you think and what I should watch next (and why it’s Ted Lasso). I’m also really into I’m Sorry. I’m not a parent, but I really like it anyway.
Don’t forget to share this email!
Stay safe out there, dear ones. Don’t forget, if you have funny gifs, thoughts, comments, stories, questions, feedback, catchy song lyrics, good podcast recommendations, or anything else to tell me, I’m right on the other end of this email.
Rock on,
Sarah
P.S. Okay last one: