What if I wrote a book?

Posted bydavean 1,117 Comments on What if I wrote a book?

For the last couple years, I’ve been answering your science questions on What If.

Today, I’m excited to announce that the What If? book is coming!

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions will be published September 2nd by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Starting today you can pre-order it from your favorite bookseller (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Indie Bound).  There are also foreign editions, including a UK and Commonwealth edition and a German edition.

As I’ve sifted through the letters submitted to What If every week, I’ve occasionally set aside particularly neat questions that I wanted to spend a little more time on. This book features my answers to those questions, along with revised and updated versions of some of my favorite articles from the site. (I’m also including my personal list of the weirdest questions people have submitted.)

Preorder today to get a copy as soon as it comes out!

1,117 replies on “What if I wrote a book?”

  2. Please support your local independent bookseller – they’d love to reserve a copy for you.

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  3. What is the mathematical formula that represents the % chance of getting Signed Copies of the book?

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  4. Any chance of us devout followers getting a list of the questions answered in the book?

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  6. Pre-ordered, and from a local bookstore (Black Oak Books). I feel quite virtuous :)!

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  8. Please, please, please put a note saying “Bobcat” in with 5% of the books you ship.

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  9. So if I hover my finger over the book page, will I be able to see the alt text? That’s the best part!

    Very excited for you, congrats!

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  10. 320 pages? You’re not even messing around. I’m gonna assume that means all of them to date? Whats the (projected) cutoff? Are you including your citation notes? Or subtext in some way?

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  11. (First Panel): “Why should we order your What-If book since we can get it all for free by carefully synthesizing your thought memes? This is simply ANOTHER capitalist running-dog money-sucking scheme!” (Second Panel): Blank. (Third Panel): Blank. (Fourth Panel): “I, uh, ordered mine this morning.”

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  12. Is there any chance you’d be able to get it on Book depository or something? I would love a copy but the shipping fees to get a book from amazon to New Zealand would be about two times the cost of the book, at least

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  13. Erm – will it be possible to acquire your book from Amazon Kindle-formatted? I’d love to pre-order it for Kindle, then one morning I could be wonderfully surprised to learn that it’s downloaded itself and I can read it like a 21st century person!

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  14. Congratulations on being the 2nd best selling book on Amazon in America at the moment. Lets try for the best selling.

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  16. Ordered from Amazon.
    #2 in Books?! No offense but as much as it is for me #1 I just can’t believe xkcd fans were able to trigger this. Unless people really aren’t reading (or at least buying books) anymore.

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  18. Come on XKCDers, step it up. This book has dropped down to #2 in the US behind Rush Limbaugh of all people!

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  19. Out of interest, how is the listing price at Amazon arrived at?

    UK site – £17.42
    Shipping to the UK – free (if I wait a bit)

    US site – $17.04
    Shipping to the UK – $7.98 (if I wait a bit longer)
    Using XE’s current stated exchange rate of $0.60 GBP to the dollar, that’s £15.05.

    Randall, is the UK and Commonwealth edition that much more expensive for your publisher to print? Does it cost Amazon more to stock and distribute? Do they make a bigger margin? Or do you get more?

    I really hope it’s the latter, as I’ll be damned if I’m waiting the extra two weeks for a US edition to arrive just to save a couple of quid, and you might as well get something out of it too! 🙂

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  20. If the first “What-If” article was published on July 12, 2012, has it technically been “a couple years,” given that it has really only been a year and 8 months? You’re in kind of a grey area here. Of course, https://xkcd.com/1070/ comes to mind…

    Anyway, congrats! I will most likely pick this up.

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  24. Congratulations, Randall!!! I’m so happy for you!!
    I can’t wait to get my copy.
    I echo the question above. I’d love to know if you are planning a book tour to sign copies of the book.

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  26. Could you elaborate how the UK/Commonwealth version differs from the Original version? Seeing that it is listed as being 16 pages heavier (320 vs 336) i can hardly imagine that this is just different spelling?

    Thank you.
    C.

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  27. Instead of book full of ridiculous questions, box contained bobcat. Would not order from this seller again

    *2 stars*

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  28. Is there any version of this book written completely in ms comic sans? I find things terribly difficult to read in any other font!

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  31. At german Amazon, the english version is currently #1 in category english books. #2 is A Game of Thrones.

    Let’s see, how long it will stay in the top100. Half of the top20 have been there for over a year.

    (German version is #303 in books)

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  32. Pretty sure the product review/comments on the Amazon page will all just be “Instead of bobcat, package contained this book. Would definitely buy again.”

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  33. If I preorder, do I get a bonus DLC package, or is it the regular package?

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  34. awesome! but now, i’m not quite sure if I should pick the original or the german version… why did you have to publish it in both Languages? Now i have to decide between googeling some words and a minimal loss of content through translation.

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  35. If, at time of printing, you come up short on questions, will you make answers up in order to pad? Will we then have to ask the questions before the book is published to preserve temporal continuity?

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  36. I’m afraid of how long I’m gonna have to hold my finger over the pictures to get the alt text to pop…

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  37. Your graph is wrong.

    As the term “Today” is a relative term, it was indeed “Tomorrow” in east Asia time zones.

    As such,

    val(“Today”) = val(“Tomorrow”) = 1

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  38. As a German, I really appreciate that we will get a german edtion of your book, but I still want the english version. Force of habit, I suppose.

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  40. For those hoping for signed copies (myself included) perhaps Mr. Munroe could offer a personalized “book plate” we can order on his store? An author did that once when I was younger and it made a huge impression. Email your name and address, and a few days/weeks later a nice sticker arrived in the mail with a personal note and signature that I placed on the inside cover.

    Either way, pre-ordered a hardcover for the coffee table. Figure it will be a nice compliment for the Zombie Survival Guide that’s held the attention of many a stranger over the years 🙂

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  41. Yay! There’s eBook versions now! Okay I’ma buy it then… it’d be even awesomer if there was a DRM free version but I guess I’ll take what I can get. 🙂

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  42. By all means support your independent bookseller because thee is no irony to be found in refusing to use the internet to purchase a book from a man whose primary mode of publishing his works is via the internet.

    And we should all support the independent bookseller because it is imperative to encourage people to pursue failing business models so that they can struggle to make ends meet and be continually on the edge of financial collapse. Rather than encouraging these people to pursue other, more profitable businesses, we should endeavor to keep them in this dying market so we can feel noble for helping keep them stay one step ahead of the bankruptcy court. Independent booksellers, helping smug counter-culturalists feel good about themselves (if only by comparison).

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  44. “Frequently bought together
    This item: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe Hardcover $16.69
    Frozen (Two-Disc Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy) ~ Kristen Bell Blu-ray $19.99”
    -Amazon

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  45. I Have pre-ordered your book. I think this was the right move. I hope it has a positive impact in my life. At the very least, I will be happy for the rest of the day.

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  47. Come September 2, be prepared for the best comments ever in reviews on Amazon. I’ll probably waste a day just reading those.

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  49. Finaly, I preordered (and paid) via Barnes & Nobles, cost me ~ 28$ CAD. (taxes & shipping included)

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  50. What if Marvel comics fans from the 1990s get confused and wonder why you’re not telling them what would happen if Wolverine had been the one bitten by a radioactive spider?

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