grad skool rulz – the book!
For the last five years, I have written an advice column for graduate students called “grad skool rulz.” Readers have often asked: “When will the book come out?”
Grad Skool Rulz: Everything You Need to Know about Academia from Admissions to Tenure is now here. I collected all the columns, edited them, and added 50% more material. There are now 59 chapters. The book includes new topics like applying to graduate school, why graduate school isn’t the right choice for everyone, and the dissertation proposal hearing. There is a whole new second half on the tenure track and post-docs. You can see the table of contents here.
The book is available from Smashwords.com, an e-book distributor. You can sample the first 10% at the book’s website. The book has a very modest price ($2) and you can read it on just about any device, such as personal computers, iPads, smart phones, Kindles, and Nooks. You can choose between a text document for your computer (.PDF or .rtf) or a file readable by your Kindle or Nook. If the 30+ Rulz posts helped your graduate school career, you can now have a single easy to read document.
orgtheory.net 
Congrats! Nice work.
LikeLike
teppo
October 4, 2011 at 12:49 am
Awesome! I would like to ask why you chose $2 (as compared to $3) dollars as the price?
LikeLike
something
October 4, 2011 at 1:17 am
something,
I should think it’s rather obvious that informed advice on how to make a fundamental career decision is only worth $2.
LikeLike
gabrielrossman
October 4, 2011 at 1:33 am
@something:
When I started, the price was zero – I didn’t even think of the Rulz as a book. Then, when I researched e-books, I discovered that most are priced from $.99 to $4.99. Makes sense – when it comes to e-content, you don’t want to scare people away. So I settled on the low end and wanted an easy to remember price ($2). If this proves to be popular, I’ll pull a Netflix and hike it up to $3 or $4. I shudder to think of $5 … As Gabriel implies, even if only 1% of the book helps you out, it will easily be worth way, way more than $2.
LikeLike
fabiorojas
October 4, 2011 at 2:33 am
I was under the impression that Fabio was a price-taker not a price-maker. I’ll have to check my model.
LikeLike
joshmccabe
October 4, 2011 at 2:44 am
There are no perfect subsitutes for this product, Josh.
LikeLike
fabiorojas
October 4, 2011 at 2:53 am
Just got it! Thank you so much for keeping it super affordable!
LikeLike
undergrad
October 4, 2011 at 3:23 am
Thanks for reading, undergrad. And don’t forget to pass the link around.
LikeLike
fabiorojas
October 4, 2011 at 3:34 am
Awesome! Thanks for the wonderful work. Do you plan to publish it as in a hard copy?
LikeLike
John Chung-En Liu
October 4, 2011 at 5:42 am
I’m wondering if IU frowns on putting “Indiana University” on the cover of books that it does not publish. While this sort of identification is common for articles and for reports issued by affiliated research institutes, I don’t think I’ve seen an author’s employer on a book cover. If universities were fine with it, I imagine that we would see it more often. My guess would be that university attorneys are worried that it creates confusion about who has endorsed the book.
LikeLike
Neal
October 4, 2011 at 12:36 pm
@John: No hard copy. Though if someone wanted to do it, I’d consider it.
@Neal: There’s no rule against it since it is factually true. If the IU folks sent me a notice, I’d be happy to remove it. But the reasoning is that people should know a little about who I am.
LikeLike
fabiorojas
October 4, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Just ordered a copy. I’m at the “applying” stage, so I’m sure it will be useful for a while. I’m glad that it lets you download multiple formats. I downloaded a .mobi for my Kindle, and PDF to keep in Evernote, for when I’m lost and confused a year or two from now, and need to find some timely advice using the search function.
LikeLike
Andrew Boysen (@boysenandrew)
October 4, 2011 at 5:58 pm
So, according to the license notes, if I want to buy a copy as a gift to a friend I must either (1) buy two copies, one for myself and one for a friend, or (2) give my friend two dollars and tell him to buy it for himself. I find this odd, but not unreasonable given (1) the low price and (2) the near complete unenforceability of this licensing plea.
LikeLike
pretendous
October 4, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Pretendous, this is fairly typical for content providers. Enforcing copyright is nearly impossible. You can’t stop people from making PDFs or bit torrents. Instead, you punish the most egregious offenders and provide high quality cheap content, hoping that a lot of people will be willing to pay a small amount.
LikeLike
fabiorojas
October 5, 2011 at 12:56 am
Sent an e-mail across the grad listserv at my university. Had several grad students excited about the content of the Rulz.
LikeLike
hillbillysociologist
October 5, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Bought mine! Won’t have time to read it for a while, though.
LikeLike
Mikaila
October 6, 2011 at 12:40 am
Thanks for supporting the rulz! Spread the word.
LikeLike
fabiorojas
October 6, 2011 at 5:50 am
[…] grad skool rulz – the book! (orgtheory.wordpress.com) […]
LikeLike
Diary of a Grad Student: Post-Holiday Gifts and Whatnots « Portia Placino
January 22, 2012 at 10:18 am