For the third year in a row, my end-of-year charitable contributions included all the royalties I earned in 2024 through book sales. Annotation, my first book with MIT Press, was published in April of 2021; about eighteen-months later, I started what’s now become an annual practice.
It’s a privilege that one concrete outcome of my published scholarship—what is a modest yet material financial gain—can augment the reparative work of healing our fragile world.
Supporting Freedom Reads
This year, I’m pleased to share that I’ve donated my royalties to Freedom Reads as the singular recipient of these funds.
It’s now the third year I’ve contributed to Freedom Reads. I first did so in 2022 when my royalties were distributed among ten organizations and causes. And I also donated to the organization last year, when I wrote publicly about this tradition for the first time, noting: “I’m acutely aware that many authors outside of academia—and other creative folks, too—rely on royalties as an important source of income (like my better half, Ebony). I’m fortunate to be in a position where I can donate my book royalties, and I’m humbled people have paid to read my words.”
If you’re unfamiliar with Freedom Reads, this brief description will give you a sense of why I continue to support the organization:
Freedom Reads is a first of its kind organization that inspires and confronts what prison does to the spirit. We bring beautiful, handcrafted bookcases into prisons, transforming cellblocks into Freedom Libraries. The library is a physical intervention into the landscape of plastic and steel and loneliness that characterizes incarceration. In an environment where the freedom to think, to contribute to a community, and even to dream about what is possible is too often curtailed, Freedom Reads reminds those Inside that they have not been forgotten.
And here’s a bit more information about Freedom Reads from Reginald Dwayne Betts, the organization’s founder, as sent to me yesterday in a message thanking me for my support:
We started this project four years ago, having no idea of what to expect, and set out to do something that had never been done before. And today, thanks to supporters like you, we have opened 419 Freedom Libraries in 44 prisons and juvenile facilities across twelve states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, and counting.
Freedom Reads is about imagining and creating possibilities. When I went to prison, everything about who I am and might ever be changed. Some for good, and whatever the good of it is, I believe, is captured in Freedom Reads. Your gift helps us counter with literature what prison does to the spirit. Time spent with books can’t be time wasted, and your generosity is helping to fill time in prison with the reading we know expands minds and deepens lives.
If you have the means to do so, please consider giving to Freedom Reads.
Annotation and Redaction
Annotation begins with an example of redaction. On page 1, my co-author, Antero Garcia, and I describe a redacted version of the US Department of Justice’s Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. Antero and I playfully employed the practice of redaction ourselves, as you can see from this screenshot of our Introduction:
“Redaction,” we wrote, “is annotation.”
As a scholar of annotation, I seek out books about this literacy practice, I collect annotated texts, I cherish books inscribed by authors, and I’m keen to celebrate books and projects that experiment with the form. For instance, as the parent of a young child learning how to read, I know that one day little Ade and I will read Banned Book, written by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Gary Kelley, featuring its creative and kid-appropriate use of redaction.
One of the most important books I read this year was Redaction, co-authored by Betts and the artist Titus Kaphar. In addition to his work with Freedom Reads, Betts is a celebrated poet, writer, and lawyer. And, in my reading, he’s an annotator, too. Published in 2023, Redaction is an artistic text of singular design. It’s based on the duo’s 2019 MOMA exhibition and pairs Kaphar’s portraits with Betts’ poems comprised from redacted lawsuits.
Redaction’s Introduction, by Sarah Suzuki, Associate Director at MOMA, usefully details the process and consequence of Betts’ poetry:
In his verse, Betts impactfully employs the tactic of redaction, blanking out words and phrases from pre-existing texts to craft poetry. He uses, as source material for these poems, lawsuits the Civil Rights Corps (CRC) filed on behalf of people arguing that their constitutional rights were violated when they were forced to remain incarcerated because they could not pay bail or traffic tickets or court fees. In the poet’s hands, the technique is inverted: rather than redaction concealing the most sensitive information, here it reveals the essence of the personal stories buried within the documents. With captivating cadence and precision syncopation, Betts unearths humanity, frustration, and passion from unfeeling, pseudo-neutral legalese.
Here are two glimpses of the distinct ways in which Kaphar and Betts layer together their portraiture and poetry throughout Redaction:
In an NPR interview about Redaction, Betts discussed his motivation “to use redaction as a tool of revelation, as a tool to say something meaningful about what’s there that you aren’t noticing.” Redaction, for Betts, is a tool of revelation and noticing; elsewhere, he has described this form of annotation as a means “to reveal the truth.”
As a fellow annotator, I see no better way of using Annotation’s royalties as a humble tool to help others notice the important work of Freedom Reads.
Why Donate My Book Royalties?
Why have I embraced this tradition of donating my royalties from Annotation?
Here’s a brief story.
During the second semester of my doctoral studies at UW-Madison, about 15 years ago, I had a course with Dr. Michael Apple. On the first day of class, a student asked a rather pointed question about why we were reading not just one but two of Dr. Apple’s books in the course. He provided a thoughtful response, grounded in our curricular objectives, and then mentioned that he donated his book royalties to charity.
I remember sitting in class impressed by both the conviction of Dr. Apple’s pedagogy—that we’d read and discuss his books because they were valuable for our learning—as well as the clarity of his principles; namely, that expenses levied by broke graduate students wouldn’t line his pockets (I’d be remiss not to mention that scanned copies of all the books in the course, including his, were made freely available for students who couldn’t purchase copies).
After hearing Dr. Apple speak, my next thought that morning in class was a promise to myself: Should I become a professor and publish a book, I’d donate my royalties, too.
Well, I’m no longer a professor, but I’m still donating my book royalties to charity. And I’ll continue to do so with my next book, too.
Anticipating Re/Marks on Power
Annotation has now sold over 3,000 copies.
During my last royalties cycle—from April of 2023 through March of 2024—Annotation sold another 351 copies, including 278 print and 73 electronic “units” (that’s the lovely term that appears on my Summary Royalty Statement). It’s well-known that most books don’t actually sell many copies, and that’s certainly the case for academic books about niche topics. For decades, industry experts have suggested that lifetime sales of just a few hundred copies should be anticipated as a successful run for your typical academic text. So while it’s hard to pin down reliable statistics about average copies sold for average academic books, I’m humbled by the fact that people have continued to purchase my book about the practice of writing in books.
If you’ve purchased Annotation, thank you.
And I hope you also consider pre-ordering Re/Marks on Power: How Annotation Inscribes History, Literacy, and Justice which arrives this April.
Re/Marks on Power, my second book with MIT Press, is an interdisciplinary exploration of annotation that shows how this participatory act marks public memory, struggles for justice, and social change. My recent “cover reveal” showcased a literal snapshot of the kinds of stories and struggles that I address in my latest work.
As with Annotation, whatever royalties I earn from Re/Marks on Power will be subsequently donated. Please consider pre-ordering Re/Marks on Power from your preferred retailer today. And if, for whatever reason, you’re unable to purchase my next book, it will be openly accessible thanks to MIT Press’ Direct to Open program.
My hope for this new year is that we do not take for granted the freedom to read, write, and give.
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