Authoring College
Textbooks
Denny Burzynski
CSN Mathematics
Ext 7566
Process Overview
The Idea
Choosing a Publisher
Making a Proposal
The Contract
Working with an Editor
Writing the Book
The Idea
Some reasons for writing a
textbook
• Share our ideas with our
colleagues and students
• Participate in our
community
• We are creative
• Money
• Promotion
The Idea
I think I could write a textbook
that is better than the current
collection of textbooks.
The Idea
Why do I think that?
What ideas do I have that
current authors have
neglected or have not done
much with?
List and annotate them
You will need them for
your proposal
Choosing a Publisher
Do I know who publishes in my field?
Choosing a Publisher
 F. A. Davis
 Prentice Hall
 Wiley
 Addison/Wesley
 Brooks/Cole
 Houghton-Mifflin
 McGraw-Hill
 Worth
 Wadsworth
 Guiford
Most of these
are now
Pearson
Cengage
Choosing a Publisher
Which publisher is right for you?
 Do you know the sales rep?
 Sales reps can provide you with insight as to
how your text will be sold.
 Does your rep follow through with his or her
commitments to you?
 Do you see the sales rep very often?
 If not, why not? There may be a good reason.
 Is CSN out-of-the-way, or is the rep a slacker?
Choosing a Publisher
Ask your sales rep if the publisher is
looking for a new textbook.
What are they looking for in a text?
Choosing a Publisher
Does the publisher have a good
reputation?
What does the bookstore think about
each publisher?
Will the publisher consider new
paradigms? Apple Academic iBooks
Making a Proposal
Do your homework
Look at all the other books each
publisher has available for the course in
which you are interested in publishing
How many do they have?
Wadsworth --> West Brooks/Cole
Then so many B/C did not even know they had my applied
calculus book and didn’t put it on their marketing list
Making a Proposal
How will your book be different from
the books they already have?
Be brutally honest with yourself: is
your difference a good difference or
just a quirky difference?
Would your colleagues in your
department want to use your
approach?
Would other faculty want to?
Making a Proposal
Keep in mind that, like yourself,
faculty are busy and changing
textbooks is not at the top of their list
of fun things to do. Usually they will
not change if they are fairly happy
with their current text.
Does your book give them a good
reason to change?
Making a Proposal
Your proposal should clearly state
how your book is different from the
current texts on the market.
Different (but really the same)
New, but recognizable
Identify all the ways your book will
address unmet needs
Making a Proposal
Example
Calculus textbooks typically
present example problems as
Solve this
Do this
Here is the solution
The End
Making a Proposal
My Idea for improvement
Include: Here is what a
mathematician thinks when he or
she sees this type of problem
End the example by offering my
interpretation of the result
Making a Proposal
Making a Proposal
Interpretations by your colleagues and
from faculty at colleges that might use
your text – big adopters
Interviews with people well-known in
the field
QuickTime videos of your colleagues
or well-known people in your field
offering their view of some topic.
Making a Proposal
Videos of you and your students
solving problems
Making a Proposal
Write one sample chapter with a
letter of introduction and a one-page
document that describes how your
book fits into the market
Include how your book is different and
the same than those they already
have
The Contract
Get someone to read it with you.
Alternate reading paragraphs, making
notes as you go
The Contract
Ask for some advance money. It makes the
publisher more committed to your project.
Publishers are not real fond of grants.
They may be more open to them if the
money is going toward something they
would have paid for anyway. (Student
proofreading, faculty interpretations,
videos, accuracy checking.)
The Contract
Royalties
You many see a sliding scale
Example (sort of made up)
up to 5000 units in first year: 10%
5000-7500: 12%
7500-10,000: 15%
10,000 and above: 18%
The Contract
Consider joining the Textbook Authors
Association (TAA)
http://taaonline.net/
Contract Help
Networking with established authors
Legal referrals
The Contract
Ask about typesetting and how they
want you to submit your work
Can you use typesetting software?
This has advantages during the
proofreading stage
Editors
When you start talking with publishers,
you will have a lot of contact with
acquisitions editors. You will likely
gravitate towards the editor you bond
with personally, someone who seems
to get what you are trying to do and
seems smart.
Editors
Keep in mind the editors, especially the
young ones, tend to move around and
get promoted.
Get to know the editor’s immediate
manager, and if possible, the manager’s
manager.
If you feel they have a good sense of
what you are trying to do, you have a
good safety net if your editor moves
on.
Editors
 Try to get a sense of how your editor works with
his or her assistant or project editor, since these
people might end up doing most the work on your
book.
 If your editor is slow getting back to you during the
pre-signing stage, be very suspicious. The presigning stage is the time they are investigating
whether or not they want to sign a book with you.
This should be like a courtship stage. If you are
not getting timely responses at this stage, you
probably never will and things will likely get worse.
Editors
Your book will go out for review
Potential adopters
Your editor will ask you to make some or
all the changes the reviewers suggest
Make potential adopters happy
Add this section
Rearrange these chapters.
ARG!
Editors
Proofreading
They will have this done
You should do it too
Pay one or two students to do it
Pay a faculty friend to do it
ARG! There are errors in the book!
How is it possible?
Editors
Try to have some influence on page
layout
They do pretty well, but you may have
ideas that can help students read and
understand your writing
Editors
Try to have some influence on Cover
Design
Think about a cover that grabs the
attention of potential adopters and that
conveys a sense of calm to students
Marketing
Get known
Consider giving talks at your discipline’s
annual conferences
Your publisher will likely have a booth at the
annual conference and your book will be
displayed. Hang out at the booth.
Read the marketing material. Make sure it
points out the outstanding features of your
book.
Writing
Write using only your computer
Keep your work separate from school
equipment
You probably do not want the
college to claim ownership of some
or all of your work
Writing
Can you use sophisticated writing
instruments?
LaTex
http://www.latex-project.org/
High-quality typesetting, document
preparation system
Free
Writing
Your publisher likely knows of it
Your publisher will pay someone to
create a book design (page layout)
May pay for a TexPert to create the
LaTex macros that put your writing
directly into the final form
Writing
My friend Doug Campbell, Mathematics
Department
West Valley College, Silicon Valley, CA
On his student evaluation form, a student
wrote
Strength
“He really knows what he is talking about!”
Weakness
“We don’t know what he is talking
about!”
Writing
Anguish over every word and
sentence
Concise, but accurate and readable
Think about every word
Your writing will become more logical ,
clear, and effective
Two Examples:
The words only and temperature
Only + “She kissed him on the lips.”
Only she kissed him on the lips.
No one else did that, just her.
She only kissed him on the lips.
Kissing him on the lips is all she did with
him, nothing else.
She kissed him only on the lips.
She kissed him on the lips and nowhere
else.
Place the word only directly in front of
the word it modifies.
Temperatures will be getting
hotter.
Temperatures are numbers and
numbers don’t get hot or cold.
Temperatures will be rising.
The weather will be getting hotter.
Anguish over every word.
Anguish over every sentence.
Anguish over every piece of
art.
Time Commitment?
All
 Thanks to
 Pat McKeague
 Author of 16+ mathematics textbooks
 He says call him if you are thinking of writing a
textbook
 805.541.4593
 Anne Scanlon-Rohrer
 Editor for a long time
 She says call her if you are thinking of writing a
textbook
 650-342-2432