Going All In to Get Out the Youth Vote

Vineyard Gazette, Maia Coleman:

The new book, which has topped the charts in Amazon’s New Young Adult 20th Century American History category since its release, is self-published, Ms. Caplan said, noting the importance of pushing the book through the publishing process prior to the election. The independent imprint also gave Ms. Caplan free rein to price the book on a pay-what-you-can basis, she said.

In a nod to the Vineyard, Ms. Caplan named her imprint Heath Hen after the prairie chicken native to the Vineyard that went extinct in 1932.

“I’ve been coming here regularly for about 20 years and one of the things that makes the Vineyard so special is the degree of civic engagement one sees…If there’s a place where the culture of voting can be celebrated, it’s the Vineyard.”

Ms. Caplan has chosen to donate a portion of the book’s proceeds to three national voting organizations — the Campus Vote Project, the Election Protection coalition and VoteRiders — that specifically encourage youth voting.

Looking ahead, Ms. Caplan said she is considering updating the book in a future edition with the results of the 2020 election and the statistics of youth voter turnout, which have particular relevance in this contested election cycle.

Read the full article here.