Imminent Death of the Paper Book Predicted, .GIF at 11

I got a royalty statement yesterday for How to Teach [Quantum] Physics to Your Dog (it continues to sell steadily, which is very gratifying), which includes a breakdown of the sales in terms of different formats. That reminded me of a particular annoying quirk of many recent discussions of the state of modern publishing, which… Continue reading Imminent Death of the Paper Book Predicted, .GIF at 11

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, Now With More “Quantum”

New cover for How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, coming soon to a retailer near you.

If you’re making your weekly check of the ebook editions (Kindle, Nook) of my quantum book (I’m not the only one who regularly looks at these, right?), you may have noticed a change: they’re no longer sporting the original black cover you’ll see in the right sidebar, but a new cover based on the smash… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, Now With More “Quantum”

How to Teach Physics to Your Thai Dog

The cover of the Thai edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog

The list of editions of my books in character sets I can’t read just got bigger: I got author copies of the Thai edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. The cover is the “featured image” above (and I’ll copy it below for those on RSS), and I love the goofy tongue on… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Thai Dog

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog: A Review Is In

I’m trying not to be Neurotic Author Guy and obsessively check online reviews of How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog every fifteen minutes. I’ve actually been pretty successful at it, so successful that I didn’t notice the first posted review at Amazon until my parents mentioned it to me. It’s a really good one,… Continue reading How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog: A Review Is In

Are Books and Kindles Correlated?

I’m trying not to obsessively check and re-check the Dog Physics Sales Rank Tracker, with limited success. One thing that jumped out at me from the recent data, though, is the big gap between the book and Kindle rankings over the weekend. The book sales rank dropped (indicating increased sales, probably a result of the… Continue reading Are Books and Kindles Correlated?

How Good Is BookScan Anyway?

One of the big stories in genre Internet news was Seanan McGuire’s post last week, about reactions to the early release of some copies of her book, and the hateful garbage thrown her way by people outraged that the ebook didn’t slip out early as well. And let me state right up front that the… Continue reading How Good Is BookScan Anyway?

Dog Physics: More Popular Than London Call Girls

A correspondent from the UK sends along this picture from the Waterstones outlet in Heathrow airport: As you can see, How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog is #55 on their bestseller rack, just ahead of Confessions of a London Call Girl. I’m not sure what this says about London call girls, but I’m… Continue reading Dog Physics: More Popular Than London Call Girls

How Many Books Is That?: Modeling Amazon Sales Rank

A few months ago– just before the paperback release of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog— Amazon started providing not only their Sales Rank data, but also sales data from Nielsen BookScan. Of course, the BookScan data is very limited, giving you only four weeks, and the Sales Rank data, while available over the… Continue reading How Many Books Is That?: Modeling Amazon Sales Rank

Benford’s Law of Amazon Rankings

Late last year, Matthew Beckler was nice enough to make a sales rank tracker for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Changes in the Amazon page format made it stop working a while ago, though, and now Amazon reports roughly equivalent data via its AuthorCentral feature, with the added bonus of BookScan sales figures.… Continue reading Benford’s Law of Amazon Rankings