Well, The Day has arrived! The Open Laboratory 2007, the 2nd anthology of the best science blogging of the year, is now up for sale on Lulu.com!
Yes, you can buy it right here!
In a few weeks (and I will be sure to tell you), the book will also available in online and offline bookstores.
You can read the background story, see all the submitted entries and the winning 53 posts.
All the kudos go to this year's editor, Reed Cartwright for doing a magnificent job on every aspect of the process - from summoning posts for submission, getting volunteers to judge the posts and providing all sorts of technical tools that made everyone's job easy, to the final touches in making the book look absolutely gorgeous.
I have ordered the first copy so we can check how it looks like when printed and if any errors need to be fixed before the book is accepted by Amazon.com and the meatspace bookstores. Lulu's prices have gone up a bit since last year - sorry.... But if you cannot wait for that, you can order right now, of course - right here (and if you have missed out on the first edition from 2006, you can still order it, on Lulu.com only).
I would also like to thank the judges for spending their holiday break reading, commenting on and grading all the submitted posts and making our job that much easier. They are (in no particular order): Anna Kushnir, Tara Smith, Tiffany Cartwright, Greta Munger, Karen James, Anne-Marie, Jennifer Forman Orth, Michele Kiyota, GreenSmile, The Ridger, Abel PharmBoy, John Dupuis, Alex Palazzo, Blake Stacey, Greg Laden, Michael Rathbun, Dave Bacon, Egon Willighagen, Martin Rundkvist, Arunn Narasimhan, Mike Dunford, Steve Matheson, Brian Switek, Peter McGrath, Chris Rowan, Kevin Zelnio, John Wilkins, Anton Zuiker, Jeremy Bruno, Ian Musgrave and Mike Bergin. Please visit their sites, look around, boost their traffic and say Hello.
And tell all your friends to go here and buy The Book!
Update: Thanks to all who have written blog posts promoting the anthology:
10000 Birds
The Other 95%
Pondering Pikaia
The Tao of How
Minor Revisions
Talking Sense
Astroblog
Science After Sunclipse
And He Blogs
The Nervous Axon
Backreaction
Laelaps
Living the Scientific Life
The Digital Cuttlefish
Greg Laden
The Beagle Project Blog
Bootstrap Analysis
The Real Paul Jones
Podblack Blog
Confessions of a Science Librarian
The Greenbelt
Bad Astronomy
Education & Careers
Technology
Comments
Cool! Thanks so much to you and everybody who made this possible for the effort and the good work. Best,
B.
Posted by: Bee | January 14, 2008 7:37 PM
Nice ... my father wants one again, a late Christmas present!
Posted by: The Ridger | January 14, 2008 7:39 PM
Congrats Bora and everyone involved. This is no small effort. Such an amazing thing to create. I hope it goes a long way towards telling the world about the wonderful things you do. :)
Posted by: BrianR | January 14, 2008 9:32 PM
Whoa, it's quite a LOT (50%) more expensive than last year. And I haven't bought last year's yet. Now I'm trying to decide if I should just buy last year's first, and buy this year's later. Hmm...
Posted by: Eva | January 14, 2008 10:47 PM
I'm confused on the publisher. Is it Cortunix, or Lulu.com, or Lulu Press... What is the citation for the book?
Posted by: kevin z | January 14, 2008 10:58 PM
Well done, one and all!
Posted by: The League of Unicycling Girrafes | January 15, 2008 12:25 AM
The book last year was cheap because it wasn't sold through any retail sites, just Lulu.com, as such there was no retail markup involved. This year we are trying to sell it through retail sites, which has forced an ~$10 markup in price, because the retailers need to make a profit on it. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to discount the price on lulu.com, but that means that Bora/scienceblogging.com gets ten more dollars in royalties when you buy from lulu.com.
We've purchased a global distribution service, and have received an ISBN that specifies Lulu.com as the publisher of the book.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | January 15, 2008 10:50 AM
Will someone be bringing copies to the science bloggers conference?
Posted by: Monado in Toronto | January 15, 2008 6:32 PM
Not enough time for that, unfortunately.
Posted by: Coturnix | January 15, 2008 6:37 PM
Cool! Good to know this is available.
Posted by: True Flies | January 15, 2008 6:43 PM
The person at Lulu who work with the conference last year got a promotion and we were unable to pickup with her replacement and go. The replacement is still working on what they can do with the conference this year. So the assumption that Lulu was 100% on board this year was off, and 5 days is simply not enough time to get Lulu to process any old book.
If we have the budget I'll see about having a kiosk with the pdf running on a lap top.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | January 15, 2008 7:32 PM
We're having a `sample' printed at Kinko's. It should be on hand for viewing at the conference, please come by and admire my typesetting.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | January 16, 2008 12:00 AM
I apologize to say that this volume is too much expensive. I do understand what you are trying to explain, bro Reed. Ten dollars profit is too much for individual book. At this prize, lulu.com should make the hardcover one. My suggestion is that high quality book with the cheap prize can maintain our scientific community, especially for poor people who want to buy the book. It is not like that your project was successful last volume, then the prize is increased next. I am PhD student in Japan, but I am Thai-citizen. I agree that the scientific blogs is very good and helpful sources for knowledges and I love it.
This is just my opinion. If someone does not like it, I'm sorry anyways.
Posted by: Noppon | January 30, 2008 1:21 AM