This is the second installment of our series on publishing popular philosophy books.
This is a guest post by Kevin Zollman, at Carnegie Mellon University, c0-author (with Paul Raeburn) of The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting: How the Science of Strategic Thinking Can Help You Deal with the Toughest Negotiators You Know--Your Kids (McMillan, 2017).
When Helen asked me to write about my experiences writing a trade book, I realized that my story cannot be imitated. Not because I’m an extraordinary talent that others couldn’t emulate, far from it. Nor am I the most successful philosopher at doing public engagement, others have done a lot more.
Mine is a story with many accidents and lucky breaks. But, then again, so too is almost every story of academic and public success. In that, I think there is something important: starting to become publicly engaged as an academic requires serendipity. You must recognize it when it comes your way and seize it. I will tell my story and point out how easily I might have missed an opportunity that turned into another and another. You can’t follow my path, but in seeing how much it twists and turns, perhaps you can come to appreciate the value of your own meandering.
The story starts, as so many do, with an email. A young journalist for the local paper, Andrew McGill, reached out. Andrew had taken a game theory class as an undergrad at Penn State, and always thought it had interesting real-world applications. Now at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he had an idea: why don’t we write a “Dear Abby, but with game theory” column. He knew he couldn’t do it himself, so he searched for local professors who taught game theory and landed on me.
Andrew and his editor, Lillian Thomas, asked to set up a meeting. I chuckled at the idea and thought “this might be fun.” I talked with them, and Andrew’s excitement for the idea was infectious. I agreed to do a trial run. They would get questions from around the office, send me a long list, I would choose ten and write answers. They would read the answers, choose a few to print, and run it on a Sunday. If it did well, they said, it might become a regular column in the paper.
It would have been easy for me to say no. I was still pre-tenure. This wouldn’t go on my CV, it wasn’t paid, and it wasn’t particularly high profile. The Post-Gazette is a nice paper, but it’s not going to get national attention. Beyond all this, I could have passed it off as something for someone else with more stature. I wasn’t even the most senior game theorist in the philosophy department at CMU, much less at the university or in the city of Pittsburgh. If I wanted to say “no,” I had plenty of excuses. On the other hand, I wanted to connect with people outside of academia. This wasn’t the way I initially imagined doing it, but it was an opportunity. I decided I wasn’t too afraid of my colleague’s potential criticism. This seemed like fun. So I said “yes.”
The piece ran. My colleagues’ reactions were all over the map. Many were supportive and said it was cool. A few criticized me for getting details “wrong.” (This is a common refrain when doing popular work. If you don’t include every caveat that would go in an academic publication, someone will tell you about it.) One colleague at another institution scoffed and wondered why I debased myself doing something so silly.
Andrew and I hoped that people might write in, excited about how game theory could improve their lives. We thought this might become a regular thing, where I could talk about game theory with ordinary curious folk. After the piece ran, I got a few comments but not many. No one wrote in with questions, and I never heard back from the Post-Gazette. I thought that would be that. And it was, for over a year.
Jennifer Breheny Wallace is a talented freelance journalist developing a personal brand around parenting. She had come across game theory and wondered if it might apply to parenting. She sold the idea to the Wall Street Journal for a short piece. She searched around for people writing accessible things on game theory and found my “Dear Abby” column at the Post-Gazette. Jennifer reached out to me to see if she could interview me to get some ideas and some quotes. But, she warned me, she was on a tight deadline – we needed to talk soon.
I was traveling that weekend to some conference or another, and it would have been easy for me to say that I didn’t have enough time. I wasn’t particularly qualified; I don’t even have kids. And if I wasn’t the most senior game theorist in Carnegie Mellon’s Philosophy department, I certainly wasn’t the most senior game theorists in the world. There are plenty of game theorists who have kids, who are more senior than me, and more famous than me. Despite all this, I thought, “why not?” I warned Jennifer about my woeful lack of qualifications and offered to chat with her during my long layover in Atlanta.
She called, and we had a great conversation. While she didn’t know much game theory to begin with, she picked up the ideas very quickly. I floated ideas to her, she suggested them to me. She was obviously exceptionally bright and had a great mind for this kind of work. We talked for quite a while and came up with a bunch of interesting ideas. She distilled some of those into a short column that ran a few weeks later.
After that airport conversation, I largely forgot about it. She wrote me a kind note when the column ran, and I assumed – like the Post-Gazette piece before that – this would be the end. But, it wasn’t.
Just a few days later, I got an email from Amanda Moon, then an editor at Scientific American’s book imprint (part of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). Would I be interested, she asked, in turning the idea for that column into a book? (Amanda had contacted Jennifer, and Jennifer suggested she talk to me.)
I was really unsure about how to respond to Amanda. I had all the same reservations I had about talking to Jennifer. What does a childless young philosopher have to say about game theory of parenting? There are academics who’ve written academic books about game theory and family dynamics. Who was I to put myself out there? What’s more, the most I had ever written for popular audiences was the one-page Dear Abby column. Could I really write a entire book?
I stared at that email from Amanda for a long time. I typed out an email politely declining the invitation, but something stopped me from hitting send. After sitting on it for a little bit, I wrote to Amanda expressing my interest but also my reservations. Amanda suggested pairing me with a popular science writer. Enter Paul Raeburn, a popular science writer who had written several books on the science of parenting. Amanda had just finished editing his previous book, and he was looking for a new project.
I don’t think Paul would mind me saying this: he was skeptical of the prospect of working with me. He hadn’t done much coauthoring, and he was worried that my writing would be impenetrable. Even worse, I might try to ruin his writing with details, technical terms, and the like. Would this just be a giant fight that would end up producing a mediocre book (or worse, no book at all)?
I’m eternally grateful that Paul decided to take the leap. Still somewhat skeptical, he spearheaded the book proposal that Amanda took to her editorial board. They approved it and we were off. Paul and I met in New York for an intense weekend and came up with a list of potential chapters. We divided it up and started to write. I was amazed at how quickly Paul could digest technical material that was new to him. (This is a common refrain in my interactions with science journalists. They seem to be, as a rule, incredibly quick studies and very smart.)
In the end, Paul and I worked together very well! I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I learned a lot from both Paul and Amanda. Their guidance was invaluable, and I’ve distilled some of the lessons they taught me elsewhere.
Our timeline would make an academic’s head spin. I signed the contract in January. We delivered the first draft to Amanda in August (of that same year). After a few rounds of revision and copyediting, the final version was sent to production less than a year after we signed the contract. The book, The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting, was published in April.
The Game Theorist’s Guide opened many doors. Since we published with a major trade press, we had a PR person. Excerpts of the book were published in Scientific American, Fast Company, and LiveScience. I wrote a few OpEds that FSG helped place. We did some radio and podcast interviews. All this put me on the map. It’s led to a lot of interviews on a variety of topics. Through the book and this later work, I’ve built a list of contacts – a critical thing in public engagement – and that list has helped me place other popular pieces.
The book got a lot of positive press, but didn’t sell as well as any of us hoped. That might be partly because it came out just as Trump was securing the republican nomination – people were not in the mood for lighthearted book about how to use economics to win fights with their kids. But who knows? Many good books don’t sell well, while others succeed. Maybe it just didn’t strike a cord with people. There’s a lot of randomness in this world. I’m proud of the book, and I’m glad I did it.
Working in the popular press is difficult. My book didn’t sell as many copies as I hoped. Most of what I pitch still gets turned down. Unlike with academic journals, I rarely get any comments. Sometimes I just never hear back, or if I do the email will just say “Thanks, but we’re going to pass.” My batting average with the popular press is probably worse than with academic journals. Of course that’s hard to see; you will only see my successes. I have a folder full of OpEds that never got published and a popular book proposal that will never find a home. I’m working on a couple of ideas for new trade paperbacks, but they may not go nowhere. We’ll see.
As I reflect about my particular story, there is one generalizable lesson: when opportunity knocks, answer the door. If your early attempts fail, keep trying. My story shows that small things lead to bigger ones. As academics, we have lots of reasons to say “no.” It’s not the perfect opportunity, other people seem more qualified, it takes time we might spend on other things, and it’s downright frightening. We also have plenty of reasons to say “maybe later.” Right now is always the worst time for an academic, but to a journalists tomorrow is already too late. If something comes up, say yes and say it right away. You never know what might come next.
Kevin Zollman is a professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on game theory, philosophy of science, and social epistemology.
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