Sojourners Uses E-mail to Create a Best-seller

Most of the best-selling books that mix religion and politics have come from the religious right. But that reign was challenged in January when “God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It” (HarperSanFrancisco) entered The New York Times' best-seller list at No. 11.

Written by Jim Wallis, executive publisher of Sojourners magazine, the book clearly is a product of the religious left. What's more, it was driven onto the best-seller list by an e-mail campaign urging readers to make it a best seller, according to Sojourners publisher Tucker Ball.

Why focus on the best-seller list? Because the listing would draw attention to the progressive faith movement and get wider distribution for the book, said Ball, speaking last month at the Direct Marketing Association's Nonprofit Conference in Washington.

But it wasn't going to be easy. Sojourners estimated that it had to sell 10,000 books in one week on Amazon.com to make the Times' list.

And the metrics weren't promising. Sojourners, a progressive faith magazine started in 1971, has 145,000 readers. Its e-mails generate a 40% average open rate and a 6% clickthrough. The conversion rate is 30% for donation solicitations and 70% for calls to action. Based on those averages, it could expect to sell far less than 10,000 books.

So starting Jan. 10, it sent out a series of almost daily e-mails, asking readers to help it make history by driving the book onto the list. Each one included a thumbnail image from the site, and links to Amazon.com for ordering. In addition, recipients were informed of the book's progress throughout the week. (One subject line said: “Success: God's Politics on Amazon.com's best-seller.”) Readers who opened the e-mail but did not click through were sent a follow-up. The book also was hyped in Sojomail, Sojourners' weekly e-mail newsletter that was started in 1999.

On Friday, though, Sojourners had only 75% of the clicks it needed. So it sent out an action alert message, urging people to buy from independent booksellers, and to request the magazine while they were at it. The last e-mail in the time frame focused on upcoming media appearances, including an unlikely guest slot by Rev. Wallis on Comedy Central.

Then came the happy follow-up. Readers learned the next week that the book not only had made the Times list, but that it was No. 2 on Amazon, No. 3 on Barnes & Noble.com and No. 1 on Barnes & Noble's religion list. In addition, it had drawn several thousand subscriptions and 8,000 new sign-ups for the newsletter.

Sojourners had similar success during the recent presidential campaign (even though the favorite of the religious right won the election). It informed readers that it had to raise $70,000 to put an ad in The New York Times during the Republication National Convention in New York.

The message of the ad and the preceding campaign?

That Christians were not obliged to vote for George W. Bush, and that there were other issues besides abortion and gay marriage — i.e., poverty, the environment and the war. The headline: “God is Not a Republican. Or a Democrat.”

Bush won the election. But Sojourners raised almost $500,000, persuaded 125,000 people to sign an online petition and then had the burden of living up to its promise that it would spend every dollar it raised over the $70,000 on ads in local papers (including those in Jerry Falwell's and Pat Robertson's hometowns).

“We were floored,” Ball joked. “It created about two months' worth of work.”