So you’re a university professor (or two) and you’ve just published a book. How do you turn it into a hot seller? Simple. Just get the New York Times to do a splashy news story.

That’s what happened this week to Rare Earth, a book by UW paleontologist Peter Ward and UW astronomer Donald Brownlee. Their book, published last month by Copernicus/Springer-Verlag of New York, on Monday ranked anywhere from 1,000 to 6,000 among the fastest-selling books at Amazon.com.

But after it was featured as the centerpiece of the Times’ Science section on Tuesday morning, sales rocketed. It had climbed to 224^th place before most folks arrived for work, was up to 136^th by 9 a.m. and broke into the Top 100 list, at 48^th place, before lunch. By 1 p.m., the book had cracked the Top 25. As University Week went to press, it was No. 9. ¶