"Tapping into the Pulse" is out!

I'm happy to announce that Tapping into the Pulse: Political public opinion polling in Canada, 2013 is now officially out and available for sale!

Please visit the section of the site for the eBook for information about ordering. Ordering via Gumroad is the recommended method - you can download all eBook formats as soon as you buy!

Those formats will work on virtually any eReader or device. So after ordering from Gumroad, you can read it on your laptop, your iPad, your Kindle, your iPhone, your Kobo - pretty much anything! You can even print it out if you're old-fashioned.

Tapping into the Pulse is a retrospective of federal and provincial politics in 2013 from the perspective of polls. It is a bit of a history book, but it also delves into polling issues, particularly concerning the misses in a few by-elections and the provincial election in British Columbia. The eBook also contains very detailed records of polling results in 2013 from almost all of Canada's major pollsters. An invaluable resource for political students and junkies alike!

If you do have a Kindle or Kobo and want to download the eBook directly via the Kobo or Kindle stores, that is an option as well!

Thanks again to the 200+ Kickstarter backers who made this project possible! If you enjoyed the book, please consider reviewing it on Amazon.

Tapping into the Pulse is out!

I'm very pleased to announce that Tapping into the Pulse: Political public opinion polling in Canada, 2013 has been released! The eBook is now ready for download by all eligible Kickstarter backers. So, to you wonderful people who contributed to getting this book published, check your emails! I've sent you instructions via Kickstarter on how to get your copy. If you haven't received an email but think you should, please get in touch.

As part of the Kickstarter drive, I pledged to only release the book to the general public one month after Kickstarter backers get their advance copy. That means the book will be available for sale to everyone on March 28. In the meantime, however, you can pre-order a copy, save a little cash, and get a sneak preview of the first three chapters. Those of you who have already pre-ordered should have already received an email with your preview. Any new pre-orderers will get their preview within 12 hours of putting in the order, though most of the time you will get it within a few minutes.

To you Kickstarter backers - THANK YOU. Your support got this book written and went a long way towards supporting the continued operation of ThreeHundredEight.com. I really hope you enjoy the book. Please let me know what you think of it!

Now accepting pre-orders for Tapping into the Pulse

Just a short note today to announce that you can now put in your pre-order for Tapping into the Pulse: Political public opinion polling in Canada, 2013. You can pre-order the eBook either by clicking here or on the banner at the top of the page.

Progress with the eBook is going well, I am about one-fifth of the way into it with two of the larger chapters already completed. I will be ramping up my work on the book in the coming weeks in order to get it to Kickstarter backers by February 28 at the latest. The eBook will then be released to the public one month later (March 28 at the latest, then) but if you did not reserve your advance copy during the Kickstarter drive now's the time to pre-order!

By pre-ordering, you'll save just under 20% off the final price and will secure for yourself a sneak-preview of the first three chapters of the book at the same time as the Kickstarter backers get their full copy. It will give you something to chew on as you wait for your pre-ordered copy to be delivered a month later, in the format of your choice.

The first three chapters of the book cover the opening months of 2013 in federal politics (January to March) and the provincial scenes in New Brunswick and British Columbia. That last chapter goes into detail about how the polls went wrong and tries to answer the question of why it happened.

I hope readers will enjoy the eBook when it is finished. It is the kind of thing I would want to read, which was the reason I launched this site in the first place more than five years ago. 

Thanks again to those Kickstarter backers who made this possible, as well as to IndieBookLauncher.com for taking care of the technical aspects of publishing the eBook (including the cover art) and Paul Adams, Associate Professor of Journalism at Carleton University, for writing the foreword.

You can check out the pre-ordering page, which goes into a bit more detail about the eBook itself, by clicking here or on the banner.

Kickstarter Update #4 - We did it!

Yesterday was an incredible day of generosity, as we bounded from 72% funding to over 100%! That means that Tapping into the Pulse will be written and published as an ebook! Thanks so much to all of you for pledging and helping to spread the word about this project. I had worried that my funding goal was too ambitious and had figured it would come down to the wire, but I'm blown away that we reached our goal in just 21 days.

I'm really touched, as it validates the work I've put into this site over the last five years. It is terrific to see that there is support for this sort of independent work in Canada. Thanks so much!

So that's it then, right?

No! Though the funding goal has been reached, there is still plenty of incentive to keep the ticker going:

Pledging $10 or more secures a Kickstarter backers-only edition of Tapping into the Pulse, at least one month before it is set loose on the public. That means reading this eBook at the end of February (the deadline I have set) instead of the end of March or beginning of April.

Pledging $10 also means that you'll save money! When the ebook is released to the general public on Amazon, and potentially elsewhere, it will be priced at more than the minimum $10 pledge. So, reserve your backers-only edition and save!

There are still plenty of ridings to be claimed for a historical profile that will be posted on this site before the 2015 federal election. A pledge of $75 gets you the riding history of your choice and a pledge of $100 means I will toil over an analysis topic of your choice. Put me to work!

And then there is the warm and fuzzy feeling that you're guaranteed (note: not a guarantee) to get when you pledge. It means you support independent polling analysis and the continued operation of this site. And, it also means more going to me: Kickstarter takes an impressively small portion of every pledge while Amazon, on the other hand, takes a much larger share (we're talking three to seven times as much)!

I think we're too late in the funding period, and too close to the holidays, to reach any reasonable stretch goal. But there are plenty of reasons why you should pledge before the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 27.

The cover poll

Yesterday, I posted three cover mock-ups that were created by the good folks at IndieBookLauncher.com, who have generously donated their services to the project. I asked for your opinions, and they are in. Your choice was overwhelming. It wasn't even close. And some of you had, er, particularly strong opinions.

The cover on the left received 85% of the fake ballots cast in this informal, unscientific "poll". The cover on the right - which was the most controversial entry - received 9% support. The cover in the middle, which was actually my favourite (it reminded me of Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise, which is probably why I wouldn't have selected it), received just 6% support.

Now, I may have inadvertently biased the sample when I posted on Twitter that the cover on the left was already emerging as the most popular. There was a lesson in how not to conduct a poll there. Nevertheless, the cover on the left follows most in the style of ThreeHundredEight, so it makes sense that this ebook - a product and extension of ThreeHundredEight - should follow in the same style.

Thanks for voting! The cover on the left will be the cover for Tapping into the Pulse. I'll post a revised, refined draft of it later in the week.

Again, thank you so much for your generosity in this Kickstarter drive. I'll do my best with the book to live up to the awesome standard that has been set by you all.

We'll get back to your regularly scheduled polling analysis shortly. We just need a new poll to come out... *crickets*

Kickstarter Update #3 - Cover options!

The Kickstarter project to fund Tapping into the Pulse: Political public opinion polling in Canada, 2013, covering polls at both the federal and provincial levels throughout the year, continues to chug along. We are at 72% of our funding goal - which must be met for the book to be published - thanks to the generous support of 143 backers. But we only have 10 days to go!

If everyone who has already pledged gets a friend to pledge the minimum amount to secure an advanced copy of the eBook as well, we'd achieve our funding goal today!

In past updates, I've outlined the chapters that will be in Tapping into the Pulse and announced that Paul Adams, associate professor at Carleton University, would be writing the foreword.

Today, I'm pleased and grateful to announce that Saul Bottcher of IndieBookLauncher.com has generously donated the services of his Canadian company so that this book can be published. IndieBookLauncher.com will be taking care of the technical aspects of publishing Tapping into the Pulse, ensuring that the conversion to various eBook formats is done professionally and allowing me to focus on the writing of the book. But what is more exciting is that IndieBookLauncher.com will also be designing the cover. Check out their website for some of the great covers they have already done and some samples.

Saul has done three mock-up, draft concepts for the cover and I'm happy to present them here for comment.

Which of these three covers do you like best? Do you have any thoughts on them? Let me know! You can leave a comment on the site, or at the Kickstarter project page, or you can send me an email.

I'll be compiling your responses in an informal poll, and announce which cover has been chosen in the next week.

Let me also take this opportunity to remind you about the rewards at the $75 and $100 levels. In addition to an advanced copy of the eBook, the reward entitles you to a choice of riding whose history I will profile or, at the $100 level, an analysis topic of your choice. These will be published at this site before the next federal election.

Since last week, the following ridings have been claimed with these rewards: Winnipeg South Centre, Beauce, Skeena-Bulkley Valley, and Winnipeg North, in addition to the ones that had previously been claimed (Kingston and the Islands and Kitchener-Waterloo). Some very interesting ridings! But they will also only be profiled if the funding goal is reached - so let's get that bar to 100%!

Thanks again to all those who have already pledged. It goes a long way to help support the continued operation of this site, which is maintained by only minimal advertising revenue. It is greatly appreciated!

Kickstarter Update #2 - some news!

As of this morning, the Kickstarter project for the writing of an eBook on political public opinion polling in Canada during 2013 has reached just over 50% and has gathered the support of 112 backers! Thanks so much to everyone who has already pledged. We still have 18 days to go in this 30 day funding drive, so we are on our way to just surpassing our goal.

Check out the Kickstarter project page for more information, and last week's update for a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.

On to the news for this week. Firstly, Political public opinion polling in Canada, 2013 is not much of a title. It isn't a bad sub-title though!

The full title of the eBook will be Tapping into the Pulse: Political public opinion polling in Canada, 2013. Hopefully, this will be just the first annual edition of Tapping into the Pulse!

I'm also pleased to announce that Paul Adams has generously agreed to write the foreword for Tapping into the Pulse!

Paul Adams is currently an associate professor at Carleton University, in the journalism faculty of the university's School of Journalism and Communication. Professor Adams recently gave me a quick tour of the faculty's new building, and they have some mightily impressive facilities.

Professor Adams has also worked as a journalist for the CBC and The Globe and Mail, where he played an important role in polling coverage at the time (the resources they had back then would make your mind boggle). He also worked with EKOS before moving into the academic world, has written a few books, including the most recent, Power Trap, and writes a great column for iPolitics. Thanks Paul!

One last thing I wanted to highlight was the reward levels of $75 and $100, a level at which a few of you have already pledged. At the $75 level, you can claim a riding that I will profile going back to 1867. I've enjoyed doing these and I look forward to having the incentive to do a few more! The ridings already claimed are Kingston and the Islands and Kitchener-Waterloo. I'm particularly looking forward to profiling Kingston and the Islands, a historic riding (it was represented once upon a time by our first Prime Minister) and home to my Alma mater! Kitchener-Waterloo, or at least a predecessor riding, was also represented by a famous Prime Minister for a time: Mackenzie King.

At the $100 level, you have the option of a riding history or an analysis topic of your choice. It hasn't been locked-in yet, but one backer is looking to see an in-depth analysis of party support by gender and age.

These analyses and riding profiles, which will be posted on this site before the 2015 federal election, will also only get done if our funding goal is reached. Hopefully, that can act as an extra incentive! And some of you who have pledged at these levels still need to let me know what topics you'd like me to cover.

I'm still open to suggestions for new rewards that could be offered at the $20, $30, and $50 levels. Let me know your thoughts! And let's keep the ball rolling on this project - if you have already pledged or can't afford to, please help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. Every little bit helps!

eBook Kickstarter Update

I am excited and grateful that the "Political public opinion polling in Canada: 2013" Kickstarter project has gotten off to such a great start, with 32% funding in less than a week! Thanks so much to all who have pledged so far and to those who have helped spread the word. Let's keep it up, as this book does not get done if we don't reach 100%!

Update (Dec. 3): You can check out my article for The Globe and Mail today, detailing the latest federal aggregation and the seat breakdown it could deliver. Also, it has a neat-o interactive chart of all the projections I have done for the Globe since the 2011 election. And we reached 35% yesterday! Thanks again - if we can keep up growth of three or four points per day we will reach our goal with a little time to spare!

I'll be updating the project here and on the Kickstarter project page every Monday as we approach the finish line of Dec. 27. And there are a few things to go over today, including an outline of the eBook and some new rewards!

(For more on the project, see here or visit the Kickstarter project page.)

But first, let's get to the outline of the eBook. The idea behind the book is for it to be a historical record of the year in politics but also the year in polling, and to keep it fun and interesting to read. I'll be breaking the book down into 14 chapters (plus a foreword and introduction) as well as some reference tables at the end of the eBook. These will breakdown and record this site's aggregations, as well as tabulate all the public domain polls that firms are willing to include. That means federal, provincial, and leadership data.

Here's a brief outline of the chapters to give you a taste of how the book will be laid out, as well as a bit of the style. These titles are tentative, of course:

1. The Decision: January to March - The federal political landscape begins to shift as Liberals consider who they will select to be their next leader.
2. New Kid on the Block: New Brunswick - New leader Brian Gallant wins a by-election to enter the legislature, as his Liberal Party takes advantage of faltering Tory support.
3. Failure: British Columbia - The B.C. New Democrats and the polling industry come up short in the province's general election.
4. Trudeaumania 2.0: April to June - The federal Liberals surge into first place as the party chooses Justin Trudeau as the leader to take them into the 2015 election.
5. The Flood: Alberta - An effective response to a natural disaster bolsters Alison Redford's PCs, but Wildrose is not going away.
6. Dynasty in Trouble: Manitoba - A hike in the PST results in a drop of support for the four-term NDP government.
7. A Test of Leadership: Ontario - The Liberals choose their new leader after Dalton McGuinty steps down, and a series of by-elections put PC leader Tim Hudak in a tough spot.
8. The Calm Before the Storm: July to September - A summer of anticipation as federal politics slowly heats up.
9. La charte: Quebec - A controversial new charter boosts the fortunes of the Parti Québécois, as a new PLQ leader takes the lead.
10. Smooth Sailing on Troubled Waters: Prince Edward Island - Robert Ghiz hovers above the fray as the opposition jostles for position.
11. One-Term Wonder: Nova Scotia - The historic breakthrough of the New Democrats in Nova Scotia is dealt a blow at the ballot box.
12. Crisitunity!: Newfoundland and Labrador - The NDP shoots itself in the foot just as the Liberals choose a new leader and the Tories continue their slide.
13. The Great Wall: Saskatchewan - The most popular leader in Canada makes a move against the Senate.
14. Scandal: October to December - The Senate scandal poisons the Conservative well, turning Justin Trudeau's honeymoon into a long engagement.

Now to new the rewards. I received some feedback to the effect that  my rewards aren't great. Pledges of $10 to $100 earn you an advanced copy of the eBook in a number of formats, with more generous pledges getting you up the supporter category ladder (pledges of $250 or $500 get your business or a charity of your choice ad space on this site as well). Perhaps that isn't enough.

So, I've decided to edit two of the reward categories:

Pledges of $75 will get you a copy of the eBook and your name listed in the Majority Government supporter category, as well as a Riding History for a federal riding (current boundaries) of your choice, to be posted on this site before the 2015 election. I have already done ones for Toronto-Danforth and Calgary Southwest. Want me to do your riding? Here's your chance!

Pledges of $100 will get you a copy of the eBook and your name listed in the Natural Governing Party supporter category, as well as an analysis on a topic of your choice or a Riding History for a federal riding (current boundaries), to be posted on this site before the 2015 election. Please get in touch with me first about the analysis topic you'd like me to tackle, to ensure that it is appropriate to this site and doable.

Backers who have already pledged this amount will be contacted so that they can claim their riding or analysis topic. Backers who have already pledged less than $75 but are interested in these rewards do have the option to increase their pledge. I will list the ridings and topics claimed in the FAQ section of the Kickstarter page.

I am open to suggestions for rewards that could be added to the $20, $30, and $50 categories. Please leave them in the comments below, at the Kickstarter page, or shoot me an email.

Now back to your regularly scheduled polling analysis. The federal polling averages, for instance, have been updated this morning.

ThreeHundredEight: The eBook! Kickstarter Project

I am excited to announce that I have launched a new Kickstarter Project for the funding of an eBook.

This eBook, tentatively and boringly titled "Political public opinion polling in Canada: 2013", will give a detailed and in-depth retrospective of the past political year in Canada through the lens of - what else - polls.

Divided into 14 chapters, the eBook will tell the story of the past year in federal and provincial politics within the context of polling, with the federal narrative divided into four chapters of three months apiece. In between those quarterly appraisals, 10 chapters focusing on each province in Canada will summarize a year in provincial political polling. But the eBook will not just be a recitation of numbers, it will be a tale of the year in politics and how polls can inform our understanding of what is going on. And yes, how they can also distort our understanding and mislead us.

The eBook will also contain charts of this site's aggregations for the year, as well as detailed tables of polls that have been released throughout 2013. This will make the eBook an invaluable resource for students of politics, those who work in and around the political world, as well as us hopeless political junkies. If the project is successfully funded, the plan is to make this an annual drive and publication. It will be a unique record of polling in Canada going forward.

The goal that I have set to have the eBook funded is $5,000, which must be reached within 30 days. It is an ambitious goal, but one that I think is realizable (if everyone who visits the site today pledged $1, the project would be funded in a matter of hours). It is also, I believe, a fair valuation of the work that I will need to put into the project to get it done by the end of February 2014.

Don't know what Kickstarter is all about? You can find out more here. TL;DR? It has been a very successful tool for funding creative projects. Pledges are made and only charged to the contributor if the goal is reached. If we fall short of the funding goal in 30 days, no money changes hands and the project does not go ahead. If we reach our goal before the 30 days are up, then we can brainstorm for some other projects to fund before the deadline! Say, a retrospective of 2012 as well or a blow-by-blow account of the 2011 election? Why not both!

You can make your pledge and track progress by visiting the project's Kickstarter page, which you can also reach by clicking on the banner at the top of this page.

So what do you get if you decide to pledge, in addition to helping to get the eBook published? Pledges of $10 or more will get you a copy of the eBook when it is completed, at least one month before the eBook is made available for sale to the general public. Pledges of $5 or more will get your name listed in one of the following supporter categories: Member of Parliament ($5), Official Party Status ($10), Third Party Status ($20), Official Opposition ($30), Minority Government ($50), Majority Government ($75), and the Natural Governing Party ($100).

A note to business owners: a pledge of $250 will get you listed in the "Governor General" supporter category as well as give you the rights to a banner ad on this site for two weeks (please get in touch with me first to ensure the ad meets this site's guidelines). A pledge of $500 will get you listed in the "The Crown" supporter category, the rights to a banner ad for four weeks, and the eternal gratitude of an adoring public.

Of course, individuals who want to pledge that much are free to do so as well, and I'd be happy to put a banner ad on this site for a charity of your choice (with their permission).

For those who don't have an eReader of any sort, the book will also be available to pledgers in PDF format.

I hope that potential pledgers might also consider the funding goal as an opportunity to contribute to the continued operation of this site, which is funded only through a minimal amount of advertising revenue.

Any and all pledges will be most appreciated, and in return you'll get what I believe will be both an enjoyable and interesting book to read, as well as a useful resource. If you do decide to pledge: thank you so much! If you can't afford to right now, please consider spreading the word! Let's get this project funded!