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26 October 2001

Executive Director's message

by Shawn Carlson

Citizen Scientist Book Deal

Well, it's all over but the signing ceremony. Citizen Scientists has been purchased by Little, Brown and Company, a subsidiary of Time Warner. The company has a great reputation in the publishing industry with more books on the New York Times Bestsellers list than I could easily list here. And they have the power of Time Warner behind them.

All my life I have been working for love and not for money. Just this once I was hoping to get paid. My agent thought that the book could be worth more money than my MacArthur Fellowship and I was so hoping she was right. Unfortunately, the publishing contracts these days are quite a bit lighter than they were before September 11. (I turned the final proposal into my agent on September 10.) Back then (seems so long ago, doesn't it?) a New York Times #1 Bestseller would move 20,000 copies a week. This week's #1 (a Little, Brown book, by the way) is moving only 6,000 per week. The whole industry is depressed and so my contract isn't as rich as it might have been. Still, the advance will allow me to move my family into our own home for the first time ever, and for that I am so grateful. (My wife has been looking at houses for the last four months!) You have no idea how much I am looking forward to being able to rebuild my personal laboratory. So over all, I'm very happy with the deal.

My editor at Little, Brown and Company is an extremely smart lady named Debra Baker. Her vision will help make this a much better book. Of all the editors I met with, Debra was the one who had the deepest insights into what I was trying to accomplish and the best suggestions for how to make this book one that will have a long shelf life. And she's got a great working style. She and I are going to work very well together, I'm sure.

We'll probably change the name from Citizen Scientists back to Chasing Franklin's Kite (my original title), and use Franklin as a metaphor and touchstone to organize the work. So if you see any references to Chasing Franklin's Kite in the future, it's not a new work.

Delivery date is in about 12 months, and the book should appear the following Fall. I will keep you all posted as the project moves forwards. But the book and the promotional tour are going to bring a great deal of attention to the great unsung heros in the citizen scientist community, as well as to the Society that is dedicated to supporting them.

 

Speaking of Books…

Last January New York Times reporter Claudia Dreifus gave SAS national exposure by profiling me in their weekly science section. Claudia then sold her own book of interviews to a major publisher and it's now out on the newsstands. I just got my copy this week. It's called Scientific Conversations, and it's published by Times Books. You'll find the SAS interview in the "Communicators" chapter on page 123.