It has been a little more than a month since I announced my forthcoming book on paleontology and evolution, Written in Stone, and I have been hard at work on the manuscript. As it stands now the book is about 3/4 complete. Provided everything stays on schedule I should have a first draft of the whole book finished in about a month.
But finishing the manuscript, while of primary importance, is not my only concern. I am a virtually unknown science writer publishing my first book through a relatively small house. That means that I cannot sit idly by and expect lots of people to take interest in my book. I will have to work hard to get the word out.
Presenting my book to the widest audience possible is going to require planning, persistence, and a bit of luck. Keeping up my presence on the web through this blog, Dinosaur Tracking, Twitter, &c. will be essential, especially since I am hoping to get some higher-traffic bloggers to eventually review the book. It would save a bit of time to just focus on my manuscript, but the benefits of staying visible outweigh those I would receive from taking a break.
Even so, I cannot rely on the ever-shifting blogohedron alone. In order to reach wider audiences I am going to have to take advantage of more traditional popular science outlets like newspapers and magazines. That is a little difficult to accomplish right now, but fortunately there is going to be a nine month break between the completion of my book and the date when it will hit the shelves. With any luck I will publish a few articles and editorials during that time (as well as start serious work on my second book) to reach people who don't read science blogs.
I'm also hoping to make at least a few appearances at bookstores (and if I'm really fortunate, local colleges and museums) to promote the book. As much as I loathe New Jersey I must admit that there are plenty of potential venues at which to arrange events. The unfortunate thing is that I will probably have to stay pretty local, or within about a three hour driving radius of where I now live. I do not foresee being able to launch a full-blown book tour around the country, so my ability to reach people outside the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states might be limited.
Then there is the academic side of things. One of the problems I have encountered over and over again during the bookwriting process is that I do not have enough letters after my name. I am not a professional scientist and therefore am not as marketable as someone who is. Therefore I am trying to make sure I keep up with academic publications as I continue to push for more visibility among the public. Right now I have one peer-reviewed paper in press and I have four more history of science papers in progress. I am hoping to finish at least two of them before the year is out. Such papers will not be an instant fix, but I still want to cultivate my academic contributions as I continue to reach out to the public. It is a complicated balancing act.
None of these things occurred to me when I began writing my book. I hadn't a clue about the process of getting a book from something I typed up on my computer to a finished, dead-tree product on shelves. As soon as the prospect of becoming professionally published materialized, however, I knew that it would take a lot of work to make sure my book gets the reception I feel it deserves. I have poured countless hours and all the effort I can muster into this book, and I will do everything within reason to let people know about it.
For now, though, the most important thing is making sure there is actually a book to promote! That task occupies most of my "free" time, but I do not want to let these other issues slip away, either. It is a balancing act, one made all the more difficult by the fact that I work an 8-hour day job unrelated to my writing, but every minute I spend on this project is worth it. I cannot wait until you all get a chance to read the finished product.
- Log in to post comments
I'm quite sure that the Boston Skeptics would be happy to host you when you're ready to do your book tour! No doubt the Skepchicks in Philadelphia would be as well.
May I suggest that you follow the example of established book sellers and provide an largish sample of your prose from the book? A little like flipping through the book in a bookshop? As a UK reader of your blog this would be the only way to judge your opus, other than blind faith.
Thanks for the tip, Joshua! I will definitely have to look into setting something up with both groups. I may also do a little bit of traveling during the preparation of my next book, so that might give me some chances to chat with people who might otherwise be out of reach.
The amazing thing to me is that you are able to do all this and stay married! I can't wait to read it the finished product, either.
It is mostly a matter of scheduling. While I work Tracey works on her knitting and other crafty projects and we agree to put down what we're doing at a specific time so that we have some time together at the end of the evening. If I was just set to run naturally I would probably work late into the night every night, but my marriage is more important to me!
Good work, Brian! 3/4 done so far is awesome!
An in press article counts as a publication, by the way. So use it! You should get your agent to check if your publishing house has a table at the AAPAs, because that's always a good venue to get noticed.
My guess would be to say don't worry a lot about letters behind your name. I've read a few good science books that were written by journalists who didn't have any science degrees. They'd obviously done their homework, talked to the experts and although there were telltale signs that they weren't trained in science, I thought they'd managed the book quite well.
Examples: Can't remember the author's name now, but he wrote on the history of the AIDs virus and covered the controversy that erupted between Dr. Gallo (US) and Paris. Another thoroughly enjoyable book on science was Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Getting journal articles out is a great idea though. I'm jealous you're getting so many out in so short a time. It took us 3 and 4 years to get two ecology papers out (one this past May, and another appearing this coming April). This has been such an arduous process I'm half-seriously thinking I'll not bother with this again.
Then you come along and you're writing a book and writing journal articles and have a blog and write for Dinosaur Tracking.....you know you're making some of us look bad here. :-)
Anyway, 3/4 done on your book! Nice!!
Well, Brian,
You're always welcome to stay with J and I if you're in Vermont. And I would be happy to do any outreach here at the university if you want to try promoting your book there. We have a comfy couch you could crash on - I know there's a Borders and a Barnes and Noble in town.