Refresh.

A little over a year ago, I wrote a book called You Deserve a Tech Union. It’s a short book that describes the labor movement sweeping the tech industry, and shows that you — yes, you — can be part of it. That you deserve to be part of it.

Here’s what it looked like when it first launched:

But it doesn’t look like that any more. Now, You Deserve a Tech Union has a whole new look.

And here it is.

You might remember that not long after the book launched, my publisher closed its doors. Shortly after that, I reacquired the rights to the three titles I’d published with them. As part of that rights transfer, I agreed to remove the publisher’s branding from any books I planned to keep selling, and to make them look like, well, mine.

And after several months of work, I’m delighted to say that’s exactly what I’ve done: the redesign of You Deserve a Tech Union is finished, and I couldn’t be happier with it. What’s more, it’s available for purchase anywhere books are sold.

Prefer pixels to paper? Here’s a peek at the updated ebook:

Even cats love it.

Sorry for all the photos; I’m just really, really excited. As you might imagine, it’s been a heavy few months on several fronts. But throughout it all, working on this refresh has been a steady source of joy. I love looking at the finished product, and I hope you do too.

Much of that joy came from the folks who helped make this redesign happen. First and foremost, Ron Bilodeau turned my ramblings into InDesign magic, and expertly shepherded this book through production. Many of the authors affected by my former publisher’s closure fielded my questions while they were trying to rescue their own books, and I’ll always be grateful to them for that. Jason Santa Maria gave me some invaluable help as I designed the new cover, and throughout the entire process. And of course, She patiently weighed in on updated proofs, new cover ideas, and just generally made everything possible by being her typical wonderful, supportive self. Every book takes a village, and this little refresh is no exception.

And I do mean refresh. If you bought the earlier version of You Deserve a Tech Union, this is essentially the same book. It’s not a new edition. But at the same time, it’s much more than a simple visual update. The book’s design has changed, sure, but I’ve also made a host of tiny fixes throughout: typos have been fixed, outright errors corrected, and the book’s index has been completely redone.¹ All that’s to say I’ve been thinking about this as a refinement of the original version, and an important one at that.

Even with all those updates, this little book hasn’t changed in one important way. It still argues that you — yes, you — are a tech worker. It also argues that by standing with your fellow tech workers, you can build a tremendous amount of power together. And then, it shows you how to do just that.

I just don’t have the words to say how excited I am by this latest version, and what it’s turned out to be. And now that it’s out in the world?

I can’t wait to see where You Deserve a Tech Union goes next. Where you’ll take it next.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

This has been “Refresh.” a post from Ethan’s journal.

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