Perhaps one of the most radical ways to distribute literature, our Lit Kit is one big box full of everything you need to table at an event, or set-up a local radical literature distro. Rather than us sending out 1,000 separate orders for books to isolated individuals, the Lit Kit lets us send out 100 boxes to people who then act as agents on the ground, making contacts in their community and forming the roots for future collaboration. After years of extensive field research, our leading mad-scientists have come up with the perfect ratio of free stuff and stuff to sell to maximize the number of minds infected with radical ideas, and to ensure a return on your investment to sustain the battle. The Kit includes multiple copies of everything we distribute, and gives it all the maximum wholesale discount without requiring you to order the full wholesale quantity of each item. Paul likes to think the Lit Kit is the best idea he has had in years and the Kit’s popularity seems to back that up.
The Lit Kit has been modified since these photos were taken; the list here represents the exact contents.
One Lit Kit Includes:
- 4 - Recipes for Disaster
- 4 - Expect Resistance
- 4 - Days of War, Nights of Love
- 4 - Work
- 4 - From Democracy to Freedom
- 4 - No Wall They Can Build
- 4 - Contradictionary
- 4 - Off the Map
- 4 - The Russian Counterrevolution
- 6 - Poster Mix Kit (150 posters total)
- 50 - Immigrants Welcome Stickers
- 50 - Police Stickers
How to Use the Lit Kit
One of the things that make the Lit Kit, and CrimethInc. propaganda in general, unique is the combination of free items and books for sale. Most distros skip the free stuff, which creates quite a barrier for people who are interested in what you have to say, but are hesitant to make the commitment required by using their limited monetary resources. Having free items at your table lets people see what you are about and decide for themselves without having to spend money. Usually, in our experience, people come back excited about what they read, have good stories to tell about talks they had with their friends, adventures putting stickers and posters up in public places, etc. Also, they often ask how you can afford to give away all this stuff, and you point to the books for sale—“This is how.” The books sell, and the bigger, more complicated ideas get out into the world. We suggest setting up your table with a ‘free’ section and a ‘not free’ section; put the books on one side and the 370 posters, stickers, and zines on the other. People will love it and you’ll love the feeling that comes with giving so much stuff away.
The Economics of the Lit Kit
But we all have to pay the piper, at least in this particular compromise we’re making with the capitalist system, right? We have to pay the printers for all of these materials and you have to pay us, so we can pay the printers, so we can keep making these materials available … So, how can you sustain giving away the materials? By selling the books. We have structured the Kit so that if you sell all of the for-sale items at prices around what we sell them for, you will make about $400. This allows you to pay off the cost of the Lit Kit, and have about $180 to re-invest in your own projects. And you can repeat the process with what is likely to be more and more success each time as word spreads. $180 can pay for a lot of stickers to be printed, silk screens to be burned, photocopies to be made and other more imaginative uses we’ll leave up to you. Used properly, the Lit Kit really can become the seed for all kinds of radical activity right in your very own community.