Monday, November 19, 2007

Another Attempt to Exploit My Readers

As some of you know, my current nonfiction book project, Future Imperfect, deals with a variety of possible technological revolutions over the next few decades, their consequences if they happen, and how to deal with them. Insofar as there is a theme, it's that the future is radically uncertain.

My publisher wants to know "Which professional societies, associations and/or industrial/commercial organizations will be most interested in your book?" Off hand not much occurs to me; do any of you have suggestions? Similarly, are there any countries where such a book would be of special interest? Any fields other than economics, law, computer science and biology? Any organizations that would be likely to want to buy such a book in quantity?

What about "journals and publications" where it would be particularly appropriate to have such a book reviewed or advertised?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

My first thought is that young people would be most interested. They'll have to live through the future, after all. I especially would guess that "nerds" would be interested, so I'd consider running ads in university newspapers with large computer science departments (Cal Tech., Carnegie Mellon, you know better than I). I would also think nerds and libertarians (some overlap obviously) can be reached via Reason and Liberty, but of course you know that. Can you run ads in Silicon Valley trade journals or something like that? (For example, do Apple or Microsoft have internal broadsides they send to their employees that one can take a small ad out in, or possibly get a review in?)

Rex said...

Aviation Industry
Aviation Week magazine

Anonymous said...

City-states such as Singapore and Dubai come to mind.

Jay Cross said...

I've only read a small fraction, some time ago, but I would think that the Bar Association and the Society of Actuaries would have some interest.

There must be some society of Venture Capitalists, but I don't know it.

Obviously the publisher is looking for places to try and sell the book.

Anonymous said...

Speaking for myself, I find the topic interesting. I work part-time as computer support for a startup; I'm reasonably sure that the other guys there would feel the same.

If you're going to be around as an organization for a few decades a rational person would be interested in the future and how it affects th biz.

However there are currently only five people working at LiftPort so our combined 'buy in quantity' is pretty low.

It occurs to me that science fiction readers and fans spend a lot of time reading about possible futures - we like to say we read SF because someone has to think about where we're going (it's not all Star Wars fan boys).

I don't know offhand how you'd get the book into the dealer's room at conventions - but I know there are people who run tables who would hawk the book there.

Analog and Asimov's - monthly SF magazines - review books, including non-fiction that had an audiance in the SF community.

Brian Dunbar
Liftport

Anonymous said...

What about "journals and publications" where it would be particularly appropriate to have such a book reviewed or advertised?

Slashdot comes to mind, they carry book reviews once in a while and the topics explored in the books are in the same field of interest as many articles.

James Milles said...

Librarians are always interested in this sort of thing: American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Special Libraries Association.

jimbino said...

Don't the consultants like McKinsey get paid to consider what the future holds? And who bought books like Limits to Growth and Future Shock?

Anonymous said...

You might try the IEEE and the ACM.

chriscal12 said...

"Scientific American" and "The Economist" come to mind as popular publications well suited to reviewing your book, but I think "Skeptic" would be especially fitting, given that your book seems wary of so many important assertions (like doomsday predictions regarding global warming).

dWj said...

I would think ethics/philosophy types would find their fields relevant.

This under the rubric of "biology", but I expect neuroscientists would be interested.

Justin Ekins said...

Monitor GBN, a group company of the Monitor Group consulting firm (where I work) specializes in scenario planning in uncertain future states. My guess is they would be very interested in something like your book.

For more information, visit:

http://www.gbn.com/

Anonymous said...

Nathan mentioned the ACM, specifically, the Computers & Society group might be good to look at.

Anonymous said...

Well, the "World Future Society" at www.wfs.org comes immediately to mind. They publish a magazine called the Futurist.

Jeff

Roger W. said...

Somebody already mentioned SF readers, but SF writers I think would be in a particularly more profitable place to read your book, especially since so many SF writers are at least partially cut from your anarcho-capitalist mold. I fancy myself an amateur SF writer myself, and even having read about your project on your website and then here it didn't occur to me until this thread that I should be buying up any nonfiction books about future trends I can find (though I've been surfing The Futurist's blog for ideas for awhile now). Your marketers ought to be drooling at me right now. Unfortunately for the both of us, there's not too many publications in the SF writers' industry. Still worth a try though.