Monday, November 30, 2009

The paper of record

My discussion of unemployment and midterm elections made the New York Times print edition.

It's worth taking a second to note that I spent something like 40 minutes working on this blog post, and it's now been viewed by thousands of people and circulated on Yahoo News and the NYT. Meanwhile, I spent about eight years writing a book that has now sold little more than 200 copies. Sigh.

5 comments:

Lidzville said...

If it makes you feel any better, you couldn't have written the blog post in 40 minutes without the eight years of research for the book.

Seth Masket said...

Well, that's a good point. The eight years are in there, you just can't see them.

Kim Dionne said...

another note to make you feel better - i convinced an economist who studies violence and elections in africa that he should read your book!

Seth Masket said...

Thanks, Kim! I know Dan Smith was plugging my theory chapter to a group in Ghana recently. I wonder what my African sales look like. Since the book probably costs more than the average Ghanaian makes in a month, I'm guessing not great.

Lidzville said...

Don't dismiss the Ghana thing. Get your publisher to market a few copies to university and public libraries in a few English-speaking SubSaharan African countries -- Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Malawi, SA, Namibia, the southern half of Cameroon, Liberia. Tell them you're a guy the NYtimes quotes. Libraries are a big deal there. You won't break sales records but lots of people will use the book.