How To Measure Impact

Back to School!

Hello there. We’ve been home from our U.S. trip for a week and weekend, and we still have some lingering jet lag. It’s bizarre! We’ll think we’re all caught up and back on schedule, and then the next night we can’t fall asleep till 4:00 in the morning. I don’t remember having this much trouble with jet lag in the past, but maybe it’s always this hard and I’ve just forgotten. : ) Whatever it is, we better catch up soon, because the school year begins tomorrow, September 1st.

Related to that, on Monday evening we drove to Paris to run a few back-to-school errands, including getting Oscar’s favorite school agenda at Muji. School agendas — basically paper day planners — are required for students in France. Searching for and finding your ideal agenda feels like an accomplishment.

Our errands were also just an excuse to go to Paris for the day — one last small adventure before school starts. It’s hard to say no to the chance to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle late on a summer night.

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Measuring the Impact of Ejaculate Responsibly

It’s just a few weeks until my book comes out on October 18th! So as you can imagine, the book is taking up a lot of my brain space. (Alt Summit, the conference I put on, happens on October 7th in NYC, and Alt Summit is also taking up a lot of brain space. Have you got your ticket yet? I’d love to meet you in person!)

One of my big overarching goals with the Ejaculate Responsibly book, is to see it make a wide and deep impact. I understand it’s an ambitious goal, but I really want this book to help shift the unproductive conversations we’ve been having about abortion for decades, and focus them on something more concrete and practical. 

I know it takes time to truly and accurately measure impact, but I’m impatient, and I’m a visual learner, so I thought it would be really neat to try to visualize the impact the book is having, or is going to have. So I’ve come up with a few “impact measurement goals” that I’d love your help with.

Impact Goal Number One: The Supreme Court

My first goal is getting the book into the hands of every Supreme Court Justice, all nine of them. And not just one copy. I want them to receive a bunch of copies. I’m thinking about their staff, their interns, their clerks — and want all of them to receive copies too. I’m thinking that if a Justice’s office receives a lot of books, with a lot of personal notes from people impacted by the Supreme Court’s decisions, the Justices are more likely to pay attention to the book and more likely to read it. 

So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to kick things off by ordering a book to the five justices who voted to overturn Roe: Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett, and Thomas. I’m going to invite you to send books too!

UPDATE! After 24 hours, this is how many books have been ordered so far:

Send a copy of Ejaculate Responsibly to a Supreme Court Justice

If you’re up for it, please send a book to a Supreme Court Justice. To any of the nine. Even if you know they’re already getting a copy. I want to make it as easy as possible. 

1) Here is their mailing address:

The Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20543

Of course, you can switch out the name for whomever you want to send to:

The Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice
The Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Associate Justice
The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice
The Honorable Elena Kagan, Associate Justice
The Honorable Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice
The Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice
The Honorable Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice
The Honorable Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice

2) Here are links to popular online bookshops (you can order the book from any bookshop you like!):

Bookshop.org — independent booksellers
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Amazon

3) Here’s a message you can copy and paste: 
When ordering a book, if you choose “gift options,” you may be able to leave a note. Here’s a note you can use or adapt if you’d like.

Dear (Chief) Justice X, I wanted to make sure you received this book, Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion, by Gabrielle Blair. The book makes a compelling case for holding men responsible for causing all unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortion. I hope you will read it and that it can inform your deliberations and voting decisions around issues related to unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Sincerely, [Your name] [Your address]

If you’re using Amazon, here’s shorter message (there’s a 213 character limit):

Dear (Chief) Justice X,
I am gifting you this book, Ejaculate Responsibly. Please read and consider its contents.
Sincerely, [Your Name]

4) One last step! Once you’ve ordered the book, please fill out this super quick form! This will make it easy for me to track how many books have been ordered for each Supreme Court Justice. As I gather the info you send in, I’ll update the image of the justices above to reflect the number of books each one has been sent, and I’ll share the new image with you, so that you can see the impact too.

Remember, the book comes out on October 18th, so if we order books for SCOTUS right now, they’ll receive those books around October 18th. And I think it could make a huge impact on them if they suddenly receive a lot of copies of Ejaculate Responsibly. It’s a hard title to ignore, and a cover design that demands to be noticed.

I hope you really love this idea!

I’m super into it and I can’t wait to update the image with new numbers. I hope you send a book to SCOTUS and fill out the form so that I know you sent one.

I’m giving this idea a try and if the response is positive, I’ll introduce more goals leading up to the book launch. I’m thinking about a wide variety of people and groups, like book clubs, fraternities, libraries, religious leaders, high school coaches, and all of our Senators and Governors. 

Related to this effort, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I cut the book way down, and kept it short and sweet for a few reasons:

1) I want the book to be really approachable and easy to read; enjoyable, quick, and not overwhelming.
2) I want the book to be really shareable — small enough to keep it in a bag or backpack, lightweight so it’s not a burden, and something can give it away easily.
3) Maybe the biggest reason is that I wanted the price point to be as low as possible, and a small paperback book is a great way to do that. I know it’s not realistic to bombard a Supreme Court Justice with lots of copies of a $50 coffee table book, but a $14.99 paperback is perfect for that purpose.

Making an impact is one of the reasons I really wanted to write a book, not just another newsletter or blog post or Twitter thread. Sending a link to a Supreme Court Justice just doesn’t have the same effect as sharing a book with a striking cover. A link is easily shared, but also easily ignored. A real live book sends a stronger message. 

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Lately On Design Mom

A recipe for French Onion Burgers plus Herbed Aioli — imagine the taste of French onion soup as a burger. Perfect for a gourmet end of summer BBQ.

The home tour of Bridget Griffen. Bridget and her partner bought her mother’s home — a modern farmhouse in Daytona, Florida.

How to make your own Vintage-style Classroom Posters from any poster you already have.

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That’s all for now. Feel free to comment on anything I mentioned above, or whatever’s on your mind. I hope you’re having a relaxing week.

kisses,
Gabrielle

P.S. — Original Illustrations of SCOTUS by Shelly Tan and Adrian Blanco for the Washington Post.