Publicity
drorzel | October 6, 2009We're six days into the DonorsChoose challenge, and at the time of this writing, ten people have contributed just over $1,700 to the Uncertain Principles challenge entry. That's an impressive average, and I thank you all for your generosity.
I also offered a number of incentives, and Lauren Uroff is claiming one:
I'd like to take you up on your offer to answer questions. The first question I'd like help with is telling me how to tell my teenager about wave-particle duality, the classic experiments that show light is both a particle and a wave, and why he should care.
As It happens, I have…
drorzel | October 5, 2009In this week's issue of Publishers Weekly there's a short review (scroll down) of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog (which will be released December 22):
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Chad Orzel. Scribner, $24 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4165-7228-2
What do dog treats and chasing squirrels have to do with quantum mechanics? Much more than you might imagine, as Orzel explains in this fun introduction to modern physics based on a "series of conversations" with his dog Emmy. Dogs make the perfect sounding board for physics talk, because they "approach the world with fewer preconceptions than humans, and…
drorzel | September 24, 2009One of the photo caption contest winners, Nick O'Neill, has finished his galley proof, and posted an early review of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
Casual physics intro books are quite possibly the hardest subgenre of physics books to write. Textbooks and further upper-level reading have expectations both of what you already know and how quickly you should pick up new material. Generally, those who pour through these types of books will read and reread until they've figured things out, regardless of how well the text actually explains things. Casual intro books, on the other hand, exist…
drorzel | September 22, 2009The scheduled release of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is three months from today. This is, as you most likely know, a book based on the frequent conversations Emmy and I have about physics:
To mark the pre-anniversary, Emmy has decided to use social media to showcase her physics knowledge: She's answering physics questions on Twitter. Post a question, tag it #dogphysics, and she'll answer it there. If you've got a philosophical objection to Twitter, you can leave a comment here, and get your answer via the Twitter link above.
So, if you've got a question about physics that you've been…
drorzel | September 21, 2009I got email a couple of weeks ago asking if I'd be interested in appearing at the Empire State Book Festival in Albany next April. While I recognize intellectually that I will be an Actual Published Author by that time, this still feels sort of weird. Anyway, it's in Albany, so of course I said yes. Not a real big logistical hurdle for that one...
This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I am happy to do talks, panels, whatever that will help promote my book, the subject of physics, or science in general. I don't have any formal book-tour plans at this point, but that's mostly…
drorzel | August 24, 2009"So what do I need to do, again?"
"First, you have to pick a username. So people know who you are."
"OK. How about 'Emmy the Magnificent, Queen of Niskayuna and Surrounding Regions.' That should do the job."
"Ah, no. That's 64 characters. Nobody would ever reply to you with a username that long. How about 'emmy_orzel'?"
"You just want to get your name in there, and hog all the credit. How about 'Queen Emmy'?"
"Fine, queen_emmy it is."
"OK, so now what? When do I get bunnies?"
"What bunnies? It's a Twitter account. There are no bunnies on Twitter."
"Birds, then. This will help me catch…
drorzel | August 17, 2009The results of the estimation contest are in. There were 164 serious entries (I excluded the $12,000 and $1,000,000 "guesses" from the final data). The mean value guessed by commenters was $83.30, and the median was not far off, at $77.12. The standard deviation was high-- $43.10-- but as you would expect with a large sample, the standard error (or standard deviation of the mean) was small, $3.37.
Or, in convenient graphical form:
That's a histogram with $20 wide bins showing the number of guesses in a given range. A pretty nice distribution, on the whole.
The red line indicates the actual…
drorzel | August 14, 2009This wooden box sits on top of my dresser, and every afternoon when I come home, I dump the change from my pockets into it. It's getting close to full, as you can see:
I've got a couple of extra galley proofs kicking around, so here's a contest:
Guess the total dollar value of the change in this box.
Leave your guess in the comments. I will take the box to the bank next Monday, and have the change converted to folding money. At that time, the commenter whose guess is the closest to the actual dollar value of the change in the box (above or below) will receive a galley proof copy of How to…
drorzel | August 14, 2009A cosmologist, a science writer, three best-selling science fiction authors, a best-selling mystery novelist, and a Nobel laureate walk into a bar--
Oh, wait, that's not the opening to a joke. That's the list of people who have provided blurbs for my book... Kind of an eclectic bunch, but I'm pretty psyched. I'm not quite sure why the final list of blurbs gets locked in this early-- we don't even have the cover copy written yet-- but it's set now, and they look pretty good:
"Chad Orzel teases out the mysterious and seemingly incomprehensible side of advanced physics and makes it…
drorzel | July 22, 2009The ScienceBlogs upgrade put a bit of a kink in my plans for monthly book hype, but I didn't want to let the day pass without noting that the official release date for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is five months from today. (You can pre-order it from Amazon, where they're offering to pair it with a book by some theorist guy).
I don't have any splashy announcements to roll out for the five-month countdown. I have, however, updated dogphysics.com, adding a page for the recent contest winners, and updating the book information page with blurb quotes (actually, three of the four so far-- I…
drorzel | July 14, 2009It's been a while since I posted an update on the status of the book-in-production. Things are moving along-- the second (and hopefully final) pass proofs are in the mail now, and assuming those are ok, that's about it for the text. Then it's just a matter of waiting.
I asked a friend at work who does photography on the side to take some pictures for possible use as an author photo, and he came through with some great shots of me and Emmy talking about physics:
(The books were chosen to be amusing to the half-dozen people who will recognize them.)
As you can see, Emmy is pretty photogenic.…
drorzel | July 3, 2009After a long baby-induced delay, we are finally ready to announce the winners of the How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Caption Contest and Poetry Contest. I've obtained a few more copies of the bound galleys from the publisher, so we'll be giving two awards in each contest
category: one for each photo, one for Cuttlefish poetry, and one for non-Cuttlefish poetry.
And the winners are:
Photo 1: The award goes to Nick at #25:
Photo 2: The award goes to Eric Goebelbecer at #8:
Honorable Mention: Dave W. at #11 and Konrad at #30.
Let's ask the judges what they thought:
Chad: All three of the…
drorzel | June 25, 2009Just a quick reminder post to note that you can win an advance proof copy of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in one of two ways:
By captioning pictures of the dog with physics apparatus
By writing short poems about dogs and physics
Regarding the last one, I'm thinking of adding a second poetry prize for "Best poem by somebody who isn't the Cuttlefish." So if you've been intimidated by squidly verse, don't be...
Entries for both contests are open through this Sunday, June 28th.
drorzel | June 24, 2009There's an interview with me, plus bonus comments from Emmy, over at Paw Talk:
Words of advice for fellow pet owners?
If you're looking to get a dog, I'd recommend visiting your local animal shelter, as you can find lots of great dogs there. And take walks with your dog-- every now and then, I see people who just leave their dogs penned up in the yard, and that's just sad. Get out, see the neighborhood, and get a bit of exercise. Yeah, it's a drag sometimes, especially when it rains, but it's better for both of you.
Emmy: Treats. Lots and lots of treats. Also, don't trust the squirrels. They'…
drorzel | June 22, 2009
There once was a dog from Niskayuna...
The previous post announced a photo caption contest for a chance to win an advance proof copy of my book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, six(-ish) months before it's available for purchase. I thought I should include something for the less visually inclined, though, and I do have two extra galley proofs, so...
Announcing the Official How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Poetry contest. The idea is simple: write a short poem involving both dogs and physics in one of the usual short verse forms (haiku, limerick, double dactyl, whatever, as long as it has…
drorzel | June 22, 2009
Today is six months to the day from the official release date of my book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It feels like I ought to do something promotion-like to mark this date, and I have a couple of extra bound galley proofs (seen above with Emmy), sooo.....
I hereby announce the first of two contests giving you, the blog reader, a chance to win an uncorrected galley proof copy of the book six months (ish) before you can buy it. The idea is simple: below the fold are two pictures that just cry out for amusing captions of some sort. The person who comes up with the best caption will get…
drorzel | June 19, 2009Tom Levenson's series about the writing of his Newton and the Counterfeiter continues with a piece on the getting of blurbs for the cover:
Newton and the Counterfeiter (Amazon, Powells, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound) is by far my best-blurbed book, boasting enthusiastic and generous praise from a very diverse crew of luminaries — (David Bodanis, Junot DÃaz, Timothy Ferris, Brian Greene, Walter Isaacson, Sylvia Nasar, and Neal Stephenson).
This follows, as I wrote last time, a much sparser field of those who promoted my three previous books. How — and why — did I go for this level of long-…
drorzel | June 13, 20091) If you search Amazon for my name, you get four results: the book-in-production, two books where I'm mentioned in the acknowledgments, and a fourth book where I am apparently cited as a source for the "assume a spherical cow" joke.
2) Weirdly, I have a fan site, of sorts. I have no idea who's responsible for that.
3) The publicity copy on the inside cover of the bound galleys starts out:
In the New York Times bestselling tradition of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, author Chad Orzel uses the seemingly ordinary-- a family pet-- to explore and explain the complex and deeply cool world…
drorzel | June 12, 2009Tom Levenson has another post up in his ongoing series about the writing and publishing process of his new book, this one about generating publicity. At this point, he's gone past what I've experienced so far, but this is fortuitously timed, as I got a note from my editor yesterday saying that the bound galleys are in. Woo-hoo!
There will be pictures and so on when I get my copies (probably next week). This seems kind of early-- the book itself won't be out for another six months-- but I assume that the folks at Scribner know what they're doing. Anyway, I eagerly await Tom's next installment…
drorzel | May 25, 2009I'm still recovering from DAMOP, so no really substantive blogging today. I did want to mention a couple of recent developments regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I think I mentioned a while back that the Portugese rights had been sold. Not long after that, the Korean rights were sold, and last week, the Chinese rights sold. So, there are editions in the works for languages I don't even share a character set with.
I don't envy whoever has to translate this into Chinese. Then again, somebody already translated "Many Worlds, Many Treats", so maybe it isn't that bad...
This is cool not…