Book Writing
drorzel | May 2, 2010Over at the Book Publicity blog, Yen takes up the question of Internet publicity (via SF Signal):
Yesterday I spoke at an AAR / Association of Authors' Representatives panel together with Connor Raus (who runs digital advertising agency CRKWD) about understanding social media and how to use it effectively -- as you know, a favorite topic of mine here on The Book Publicity Blog. I don't have time to summarize the entire panel here (and you don't have time to read a summary of the entire panel), but I did want to tackle the issue of timing, a common question among book publicists, authors,…
drorzel | April 15, 2010The pace has slowed, but there are still occasional sightings of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in my Google vanity searches:
It turns up on library blogs with some regularity. This particular one, from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is nice because it's not just a rewrite of the publicity copy
I was really excited to see Daily Kos show up as one of the sites found by the blog search, because they have bazillions of readers. It was only a plug in a comment, but still...
The strangest-- in a good way-- mention recently was this passing reference in a newspaper column from Michigan,…
drorzel | April 12, 2010No blogging this weekend, and not even a Links Dump for Monday morning, because I was busy with non-blog stuff all weekend. Such as fencing in Lake Steelypips:
OK, maybe that's too grandiose a name for the little decorative pond in our back yard. It's not all that large, but it is big enough to put SteelyKid at risk should she fall in, so it needed to be fenced. The actual fencing operation was dead simple, but was delayed for a bit when I forgot that I really ought to enclose the electrical outlet (for the pond pump) in the fence, requiring a second trip to Lowe's.
Between that and an…
drorzel | April 9, 2010There's no rest for the wicked, as last weekend's hectic running around is followed by another busy weekend, with some on-campus stuff on Sunday as part of our annual Accepted Students Days. More importantly, though, I will be on a panel at the Empire State book Festival on Saturday from 12:45-1:30 pm:
BLOOK: Going from Blog to Book
Empire State Convention Center, Meeting Room 4
Books derived from blogs are a publishing phenomenon of the past few years. Why is there an audience for previously digital content in analog form, and what does this say about the future of the book? Hear from a…
drorzel | April 5, 2010Not a full Obsessive Update (because not much happened over the weekend, when we took SteelyKid to my parents' place for Easter), but a quick reminder to folks in the Ithaca, NY area: I'll be giving the physics colloquium at Cornell this afternoon at 4pm. If you're in the area, and want to hear me talk about communicating science and the use of blogs, it's at 4pm in the Schwartz Auditorium in Rockefeller Hall.
It's going to be a long day-- I have a class at 9:15, then I'm driving to Ithaca. SteelyKid stayed with Grandma and Grandpa (day care is closed today and tomorrow), so I'll be going…
drorzel | April 2, 2010I forgot to schedule a blog post to remind people to tune in to my appearance on WAMC's "The Roundtable" yesterday morning, talking about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. If you missed it, and have fourteen minutes to kill, they have the segment on their audio archive now.
It went well, and I had fun. I was really flattered when somebody at work asked if I'd gotten the questions in advance-- actually, I only got into the studio about three minutes before the interview started. Nice to see that a real radio studio looks pretty much like what you see on tv and in movies, only smaller, as is…
drorzel | March 29, 2010A flurry of things to kick off the new academic term. Reviews and news:
A nice write-up on Wired's GeekDad blog by Kathy Ceceri, about last week's homeschool event. Includes a picture of me giving a tour of my lab.
ZapperZ says that I'm not teaching physics, I'm teaching about physics. Which is probably fair, as he defines the terms. Of course, How to Teach Your Dog About Physics isn't as good a title.
And a bunch of upcoming events:
I'll be on WAMC's Roundtable this Thursday at 10am (well, after the news report that runs at the top of the hour).
I'm giving a Physics colloquium at Cornell…
drorzel | March 25, 2010Been a little while since I've done an Obsessive Update, but a few noteworthy things have come up recently:
A very nice review at Pet Connection: "this brilliant and (relatively) simple book explains the basic premises of quantum physics in terms that dogs and most English majors can understand." Which is not to say that English majors are less likely to understand it than dogs-- English majors are a big part of our target audience, and it's nice to hear that it works for at least some of them.
Another blog review, this time at Synergy of One: "Throughout the book, the author's extremely…
drorzel | March 22, 2010I gave a talk today for a group of local home-school students and parents, on the essential elements of quantum physics. The idea was to give them a sense of what sets quantum mechanics apart from other theories of physics, and why it's a weird and wonderful thing.
The title is, of course, a reference to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, and the second slide was an embedded version of the Chapter 3 reading. I set the talk up to build toward the double-slit experiment with electrons, using the video of the experiment made by Hitachi. Here's the talk on SlideShare:
What Every Dog Should Know…
drorzel | March 5, 2010Another dramatic reading of a chapter from How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, just because. This is Chapter 4, which is based on the original Many Worlds, Many Treats post that kick-started the whole thing:
I'm sitting at the computer typing, when Emmy bumps up against my legs. I look down, and she's sniffing the floor around my feet intently.
"What are you doing down there?"
"I'm looking for steak!" she says, wagging her tail hopefully.
"I'm pretty certain that there's no steak down there," I say. "I've never eaten steak at the computer, and I've certainly never dropped any on the floor."
"…
drorzel | March 3, 2010I've been buried in work, so I haven't had time to do any real blogging, but I do want to post a quick reminder of this week's signing:
-- This FRIDAY, March 5 (that is, the day after tomorrow), I will be signing books at the Vestal, NY Barnes and Noble at 7pm. I'm not entirely sure what they expect, but at the very least, I will be signing books and answering questions. If they want me to read stuff, I can do that, too, and will bring along the unpublished dialogue that I read at Boskone.
If you're in the Binghamton area, and are looking for a way to kick your Friday night off with some…
drorzel | February 26, 2010A couple of upcomign events related to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
-- Next FRIDAY, March 5, I will be signing books at the Vestal, NY Barnes and Noble at 7pm. This is the big-box chain store closest to my hometown, and my parents report already getting calls about it, which is weird but cool. If you're in the Broome County area, stop on by.
-- I will be at the APS March Meeting in Portland March 14-18 (getting in a little early, leaving a little early). I'm giving an invited talk, but haven't been able to line up anything more public, alas.
-- I'm giving a Physics colloquium at Williams…
drorzel | February 17, 2010A couple of reviews, an offer, and a mystery regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
The reviews:
A review at suite101 that went up a while ago, but I somehow missed in the vanity search. It's a nice, detailed review, and if I had to pick a pull quote it would probably be: "You can be prepared for a good scientific romp throughout Orzel's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Thinking like a dog is a big help."
Scott at a physics teaching blog has a more recent review: "I often pick up books and don't bother finishing them. This book kept pulling me back to discover what oddity was next. I…
drorzel | February 12, 2010Miscellaneous stories and links about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
-- There's a nice review by Margaret Fisk (who has been reading it for a while, and mentioning it on her blog, which kept turning up in the vanity search):
Orzel does a wonderful job of finding physical parallels to explain quantum concepts in ways that make a reasonable amount of sense, whether in the behavior of dogs on a walk or the "magically" refilled food bowl. Though scientifically inclined, through a series of events I ended up with little formal training, and this book is written for people in just that situation…
drorzel | February 9, 2010Just a reminder, I will be on KSOO radio Tuesday evening, 6:30 pm ET, if you'd like to hear about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog on the radio at the end of an extremely long day. If you're in broadcast range of Sioux Falls, SD, tune it in, or you can listen live via their web site.
I'll also be at Boskone this weekend, reading book-related stuff on Sunday morning. If you're in the Boston area, stop by. If you're not, well, there's still no way to experience a convention over the Internet. Sorry.
drorzel | February 8, 2010The usual "This is the stuff that looks interesting to me" post, based on the preliminary online program. Subject to change if they move things around, or if I discover something I overlooked that sounds more interesting, or if I decide I'm hungry, and opt to blow off panels in favor of food.
This year's program is lighter on panels, but includes both a signing and a reading. Which will be a very different experience than years past...
Friday 7pm Harbor 1: The Singularity: An Appraisal
Arguably the idea of the Singularity -- a period where change happens so quickly that life afterwards is…
drorzel | February 7, 2010Miscellaneous stories and links about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
Kathy Ceceri, who wrote the story about the book that ran in the Times Union, has posted the full article on the Home Physics blog. The link to the paper itself may very well disappear behind a paywall, but this post should remain accessible.
There's an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that I can't read because I'm not a subscriber, and I don't remember the password needed to access it via the library subscription. If anybody has access and would like to tell me what it says, that would be cool. (UPDATE: I've…
drorzel | February 6, 2010A couple of things happening in the next week, for those who would like some How to Teach Physics to Your Dog.
On the radio side, I am scheduled for an interview at 6:30 this Tuesday, Feb. 9, on KSOO's Viewpoint University. If you don't happen to be in the Sioux Falls, SD area, they do have a "Listen Live" button on their web page.
On the live-action side of things, I will be at Boskone next weekend, and am scheduled to sign books at 1pm Saturday, and to do a reading at 9:30 am Sunday. I realize that's sort of early in con world, so to make it worth your while to get up that early, I plan to…
drorzel | February 3, 2010It's been a while since I've done a fun with graphs post about the Amazon sales rank of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, but that's not because I've stopped tracking it. It's getting to be enough data, though, that it's worthwhile to look on a slightly coarser scale, so here's the sales rank data binned by day:
This shows some clear structure, specifically two points with dramatic drops (that is, dramatic improvements in the Amazon rank-- smaller numbers are better), followed by slow climbs. The two big improvements correspond to the immediate post-publication blog boost, and the…
drorzel | February 1, 2010Two events in the next couple of weeks at which I will be appearing live and in person:
1) This Thursday, Feb. 4, I will be giving a talk at the University of Maryland, College Park at 3:30 pm in the Lecture Hall (room 1110) in the Kim Engineering Building. The title of the talk is "Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters, and How Weblogs Can Help." Which reminds me, I need to tweak those slides...
Lest I get overly nostalgic about Our Nation's Capital, there's snow predicted for Friday and Saturday, just in time to potentially screw up my flight home.…