• Home • Media Home • Press Release • Author Bio • Sell Sheet • Catalog Sheet • Author's Q&A • Mock Book Reviews • Preview & Buy •
• Entire Kit PDF •
Media/Press Kit Author Q&A
The STEM Student Survival Guide
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Author’s Q&A
(Answers after the last question.)
Questions Related to the Book Content
1) Give a brief description of your book, The STEM Student Survival Guide.
2) What important lesson do you want the reader to take away from the reading this book?
3) How did you come up with the title?
4) What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?
5) What is your goal for this book?
Questions Related to Book Marketing
6) Who is your intended audiences?
7) What is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?
8) How long did it take you to write this book?
Questions Related to Writing the Book
9) Why did you write The STEM Student Survival Guide?
10) Please describe the greatest challenge you faced in writing this book, why it was difficult and how you resolved it.
11) What was the hardest part of writing this book?
12) How much and/or what kind of research went into writing this book?
Questions About the Author
13) Tell us about yourself.
14) What books have most influenced your life?
15) If someone wanted a peek into your writer’s room what would they see?
16) What is your work schedule when writing a new book?
17) What are your favorite TV and Radio shows?
19) Any words of wisdom and advice to aspiring writers?
20) What are your future project(s)?
21) If you couldn’t be an author, what would your ideal career be?
22) What do you do when you’re not writing?
23) Do you ever experience writer's block?
24) Do you work with an outline, or just write?
25) As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
26) When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
27) What project are you working on now?
28) What other interests do you have?
_______________________________________________________________________________
Questions Related to the Book Content
1) Give a brief description of your book, The STEM Student Survival Guide.
a) During more than two dozen father-son college tours, I discovered the ways even colleges with stellar reputations mislead prospective STEM students. The colleges award eight to ten times the amount of scholarships and aid available, then enable teachers to “curve down” STEM grades. As a result, about half of all STEM students “fail out” of their major. Then about half of the remainder lose all their financial aid and as a result, pay full tuition not for four years, but for five or six years when “make-up” courses extend their college adventure. The book helps students succeed despite the corrupt system. It guides school and program selection. From course selection and scheduling; from peers, study groups, and tutor selection, this book provides gives you strategies to be part of the fifteen to twenty percent who graduate in the expected number of years, and graduate without forfeiting your college aid, sanity, or self-esteem.
2) What important lesson do you want the reader to take away from the reading this book?
a) There are three target audiences and a slightly different message for each.
1. For high school students and their parents, the book helps them make choices to avoid experiencing the worst abuses of a corrupt system.
2. For college STEM students and their parents, the book shows that they are not lazy or stupid or ill prepared. The book shows how to alter course instead of surrendering when faced with unfair obstacles.
3. For students who have already failed out of their major, this book is the roadmap back to the success in the program and career of their choosing.
3) How did you come up with the title?
a) By selecting the phrase “survival guide,” I wanted to communicate both that there are real threats to the reader’s college success, but that there are tactics to mitigate those threats.
4) What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?
a) Early in the book, there is the chapter where presentations from multiple college deans are combined into one fictional speech where the presenter bluntly and honestly explains the unfair challenges that their STEM students will experience.
5) What are your goals for this book?
a) First, to enable STEM families to understand the options they have available to enable their student to graduate with sanity and finances intact.
Questions Related to Book Marketing
6) Who are your intended audiences?
a) First, high school and college STEM students and their parents. Then, guidance counselors and high school math and science teachers. Lastly, public and school librarians who encounter students in the process of choosing colleges and careers.
7) What is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?
a) WWW.STEMStudentSurvival.com contains the best information on following and contacting me.
8) How long did it take you to write this book?
a) Six years of research and writing drafts. Then, an entire year to learn about self-publishing and book marketing in the digital age.
Questions Related to Writing the Book
9) Why did you write The STEM Student Survival Guide?
a) When I discovered that my own college recruiter failed to be completely honest about my graduate degree program, I thought it must be a rare situation and attributed the experience to my own limitations. Twenty years later, I perceived even worse abuses when listening to the various presentations by college deans during father-son college tours. I became so angry at what should be exposed as an abusive and fraudulent system, that I become determined to write this book. I had to share this story to help other STEM students deal with these unfair challenges.
10) Please describe the greatest challenge you faced in writing this book, why it was difficult and how you resolved it.
a) As I called various colleges to speak with their recruiters, it was quickly evident that they were hesitant to admit their college’s own wrong-doing. However, as soon as I revealed that I was considering attending or sending my son to a competitor, I found they are quite willing to criticize their neighbors if they think they can recruit another prospective student.
11) What was the hardest part of writing this book?
a) I already have a full-time job and until recently contributed several hundred hours a year to volunteering to a community organization. As a result, most of the book was written very late at night or during weekends.
12) How much and/or what kind of research went into writing this book?
a) I started by using traditional academic publications for background. I then realized that I needed to re-write the book using publicly available news, governmental, and foundation web sites to give the reader evidence that my positions are convincing,
Questions Related to the Author
13) Tell us about yourself.
a) I was a fragile yet hyperactive kid who became a fragile yet hyperactive adult. I have four decades of technical experience and served in many techie roles from developer through CIO. Concurrently with tech work, I had a decade where evenings and weekends were spent counseling in a non-profit organization. I’ve started small businesses and helped others do the same. I’ve been married to Susan, the love of my life for thirty-six years. Susan is a CPA, an MBA, and equally successful as a director in a corporate environment. I have four grown kids, three wonderful grand kids, and am grateful for a pretty rewarding life.
14) What books have most influenced your life?
a) Many! As a teenager, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were truly inspirational as they placed the ability to succeed not on fate, but on one’s own initiative. To Kill a Mockingbird almost inspired me to become a lawyer to fight for the oppressed. Multiple biographies of Theodore Roosevelt enabled me to see that a sickly child can become a successful adult. Leon Uris’ Exodus cemented my emotional connection with Israel. Martin Luther King’s “Why We Can’t Wait” showed that the oppressed can take steps to improve their lives and the lives of others. Benjamin Hoff and Simon Vance's The Tao of Pooh is the one book I have reread about every second year for the last twenty. It initiated me to Taoism and greatly influenced my world outlook.
15) If someone wanted a peek into your writer’s room what would they see?
a) A clean desk with three monitors. The desk is a table from Ikea that electrically raises and lowers. Because I have a bad back, I stand for most of the day. Classical music drowns out most of the barking from my neighbor’s very friendly dogs. Depending on when you peeked, you might see one of my two Bedlington terriers curled up at my feet.
16) What is your work schedule when writing a new book?
a) As I have a full-time job, writing is typically from nine PM to whenever I go to bed. Sometimes, I’ll spend all day Saturday and Sunday writing and researching.
17) What are your favorite TV and Radio shows?
a) The Daily Show, Fresh Air, Marketplace, Howard Stern, Radio Times, Charlie Rose, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Mad Money, Shark tank, and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.
18) What are you reading now?
a) For pleasure, I am currently reading Jasper Fforde’s Something Rotten. I love his Thursday Next series. I’m always in the midst of multiple books on project management, various technologies, and the use of social media in marketing.
19) Any words of wisdom and advice to aspiring writers?
a) Don’t take advice until your first draft is done. Then submit your draft to others for comment and don’t be offended when you wind up rewriting something in almost every paragraph in your book.
20) What are your future project(s)?
a) Right now, I’m focused on promoting the proposals in my book to students, teachers, administrators, and lawmakers.
21) If you couldn’t be an author, what would your ideal career be?
a) One of the Sharks on Shark Tank.
22) What do you do when you’re not writing?
a) Work, spend time with family, food shop, do laundry and cook.
23) Do you ever experience writer's block?
a) Sure. Meditate, walk away for a while. Return and work on a different chapter or research a different subject until the area of blockage resolved itself.
24) Do you work with an outline, or just write?
a) Both. I have an outline that is constantly being revised. I write small document fragments in Evernote, then copy the text into Microsoft Word when I’m ready to do serious editing.
25) As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
a) Well, if I couldn’t grow up to be Batman, then my second choice was to be a lawyer like Perry Mason or to Kill a Mockingbird’s Atticus Finch who would fight to vindicate the unfairly persecuted.
26) When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
a) Over the years, I started but did not complete a half dozen works of fiction. The subject of the STEM Student Survival Guide got me so aggravated that nothing was going to stand in my way of completing and advocating for the book and STEM students.
27) What project are you working on now?
a) Right now, I’m focused on spreading the messages within the book to high school and college students. I’m also contacting legislators whose policies are protecting the fraudulent practices common to most colleges.
28) What other interests do you have?
a) Solar and other renewable energy sources. Finding more authors like Jasper Fforde. Keeping up with the lives of other family members. Explaining economics to people without an economic background. History.
Contact Info
For Media Queries, Event/Book Information, Review Copy Requests:
Noel Yaj
nj.office.services@gmail.com