News

I had the chance to meet several new amazing people at a lecture last week, including Anni and her wife Mary. Anni wrote this super flattering tumblr post I thought I’d share here!

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In a small world coincidence, a former student turned friend and colleague of mine, Adi Marom, was in Copenhagen last week teaching a workshop and saw a copy of my book on one of the student’s desks!

It’s so amazing to know that people around the world are (hopefully) finding the book helpful. And while pictures of your books are fun, I’d love to see some pictures or video of projects the book has helped you realize! Email them to me or post a link in the comments and I’ll post them here.

I’ve decided to keep Marketing Mondays up on my side, but due to lack of comments on the posts I figured most people just aren’t all that interested in what I’m doing on that front. But as a quick recap – I went to World Maker Faire 2011 right here in New York a couple weeks ago, and spent a couple hours on Saturday at McGraw-Hill’s booth for a meet-the-author session:

The squishy robot giveaways were a hit, and I even got to meet Hee Jung, from Make: Korea, who is part of the team that is translating my book into Korean! I also want to thank McGraw-Hilll for being gracious hosts. The blown up poster version of my book cover for the booth was great.

I spent plenty of time wandering the Faire, and this was one of my favorite sights:

Yes, that is a fire-breathing dragon trucked in from Michigan and made mostly from tires and scrap metal. If you ever get the chance to attend one of the Maker Faires, I highly recommend it!

As for other marketing activities, my efforts so far have resulted in requests for my book from several MIT professors, and an invitation to meet a few of them next time I’m in the Boston area. If you’re an educator who could used a complimentary copy of the book, please let me know in the comments or send me an email and I’ll have one sent right out to you.

I got this note from a reader last week:

I want to thank you for your wonderful book, “Making Things Move”. About three years ago I had an idea for an art piece that required motion… a very slow rotation. It was a long, painstaking, and also fun and rewarding process trying to figure out how to get there, and eventually I did.

But then my art life became so much easier: A friend of mine pointed me to your book, and it has been tremendously helpful. I learned so much that I decided to re-build the mechanism I had originally constructed and make a quiter, smoother, sturdier, battery-powered, and altogether better one. This weekend, I will be showing that piece at the Dumbo Arts Festival as one of their indoor installations. I’m adding a link below so you can see what it does.

Thank you so much for this well-written, well-organized, and altogether helpful resource!

As I told him, that’s just about the best email an author can get! The piece is pictured above, and below in detail. Yes, those are googly eyes. Thanks to reader and artist Sean Boggs for the pictures and permission to post his review! Click on this link to see his website with a video of the piece in motion.

A friend and former student of mine just pointed out to me that my book is listed on the website HackerThings: Products for the Discerning Hacker. I’m so proud! Thanks Adi.

So come on by the McGraw-Hill booth and say hi! I’ll be floating around Maker Faire the rest of the time too, so feel free to stop me and say hello any time.

In a belated marketing Monday effort (hey, it was a holiday) I managed to send the email below out to the 12 professors on my list so far.

Do you have anyone to add to the list? Are you a professor that would like an evaluation copy? Do you have ideas for making this email better? Let me know in the comments!
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Prof. XXX,

I see that you are teaching XYZ this semester, and I’d like to suggest a book I wrote as a companion text: Making Things Move: DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists, and Artists. If you can send me your address I would be happy to have my publisher mail you an evaluation copy. Have a great semester!

Thanks,

It turns out the simple task I assigned myself last week was not so simple. I looked up the top 10 undergraduate engineering schools according to US News & World Report and recorded those. Then I started with #1 (MIT) and dug around online until finding the course catalog to see who was teaching design this fall. It turned out that there were about 8 classes taught by 13 different professors that sounded like they might be able to use my book! Now that I’ve identified the professors and their contact info, my next step is emailing all of them an offer of a complimentary evaluation copy of the book. I realize classes in most universities start this week or next, so I plan to get on this ASAP! If you’d like to see the list, click on this link, and feel free to add to it! Thanks

(the first result when typing in “marketing” to Google image search)

For a while now I’ve been brainstorming ways to reach out to more potential readers and audiences for Making Things Move.

However, like any highly evolved human, I tend to procrastinate when I don’t have a plan. So, here’s the first step: I’ve decided to implement something I’ll call Marketing Mondays, where I devote an hour or two each week to a combination of brainstorming new ideas and implementing them (both activities required) – catchy, huh?! And I’ll hold myself accountable for this by blogging about it, along with any interesting developments.

So for this first iteration, here are some ideas:

• Idea 1) Get the book in the hands of professors teaching senior design classes to mechanical engineering students (possibly biomedical engineering and electrical engineering too).
• Action 1) Get a list of the top engineering schools, find info for and contact professors teaching design at the top 10 schools.

I know there are hundreds, if not thousands of engineering schools out there, but those are the kinds of numbers that lead to procrastination. I’ll start with 10 and go from there. I’ve also been trying to think of ways to reach high school shop and physics teachers, and mentors of robotics clubs. If you know anyone that fits these descriptions, or a resource of how to find names, please do let me know. Thanks!

In the midst of my procrastination, I did manage to create a Facebook page for the book a couple weeks ago. It would be SUPER if you could A) Like it, and B) list it as one of your favorite books in your profile!

And of course I would love to hear your ideas on how to reach out to more potential readers. The school year is just starting so my head is revolving around academia, but I’m of course open to any suggestions you can think of. If you’re REALLY interested in helping out, I’m attempting to hire a book marketing assistant for academic credit. As the post mentions, the role can be filled remotely, so proximity to me in NYC is not required. Spread the word! Thanks.

I just found out the good news yesterday – SADbot has been accepted into Artbots! The show this year is in Ghent, Belgium. So either me or Ben (hopefully both!) will be heading to Europe to install and hang out with the other robot art.