Saturday, January 30, 2010
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This is a revised and expanded edition of a popular professional guide for academic authors and editors on textbook writing and higher education publishing. The new edition contains two new chapters on recent industry developments in the Information Age and the uses of learning objectives in textbook package development. New topics include pricing solutions, market segmentation in scholarly publishing, academic self-publishing, digitization, open access, wiki-textbooks, and author-editor/ author-publisher relations. The second edition features many new examples, practical tools, and links to resources for academic authors.
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By Hal Jordan (USA)
This is by far the best book out there for anyone thinking of writing a textbook. Lepionka is an experienced development editor, and it shows. As a textbook author, I can say that nearly everything she says rings true. She provides a detailed step-by-step account of how to attract the attention of a publisher, how to prepare a prospectus, what to expect during contract negotiations, how to interact with a development editor, and so on. This is information that is difficult to find elsewhere.
There are two points that I would like to add to her discussion. First, in signing a contract give very careful consideration to royalties on electronic versions of your text. The publishers are making a strong push to convert instructors and student to using electronic texts. Boilerplate contracts typically specify very low royalties on these sales. Even a couple of years ago, this didn't much matter because electronic texts had a very limited market. These days, though, you could lose a good chunk of your royalties if you don't negotiate a decent rate on electronic copies. Second, there is no longer much money to be made in writing texts for upper division or graduate courses. The used book market is so well organized, that a good part of your sales will be taken by resold comp copies. It is not at all unusual these days for even moderately successful upper division books to earn just a few thousand dollars in royalties -- less than you could probably earn teaching a summer course or two.
There a couple of essays on textbook writing available on the web. Be cautious in accepting their discussions of royalties. The one written by an accounting author (whose own text only lasted one edition) gives a very inflated idea of how much you are likely to earn in royalties.
Finally, even though I already owned the first edition, I couldn't resist buying this second edition. I was not disappointed. She did an excellent job or revising and updating the discussion.
By Heinrich (Midwest)
Buy this book! This author has a fantastic reputation in this realm of writing. She is the best!
By H. Rubenstein (West Simsbury, CT)
As an experienced textbook development editor, I think this text is an extremely valuable resource for any author who wishes to enter the college market, as well as for experienced authors who want to keep on top of
trends in the rapidly changing textbook industry. Lepionka has filled previously unserved niche of the publishing marketplace in expert fashion.
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
Textbook publishing for technical schools, colleges, and universities, is a very specialized and potentially lucrative section of the publishing industry and one that has both state and institutional compliance requirements and standards that must be adhered to by authors who aspire to have their books adopted for curriculums, library collections, and student reading list. Now in a fully updated and significantly expanded second edition, "Writing And Developing Your college Textbook: A Comprehensive Guide To Textbook Authorship And Higher Education Publishing" by Mary Ellen Lepionka continues to be the premier introduction and instruction reference guide manual for college instructors, academic authors, textbook editors, and publishers of education materials. Beginning with informed and informative chapters on the college textbook publishing industry, "Writing and Developing Your College Textbook" continues with superbly organized and presented chapters on what authors must do to interest a publisher in their manuscript, publishing contracts, textbook development, identifying the intended readership and their needs with regarding the textbook's subject matter, writing with authority, the role of 'Learning Objectives', 'Heading Structure', pedagogy, chapter organization, 'Feature Strands', drafts and revisions, issues of length and management schedules, permissions, and visual elements for text enhancement. Of special note is the up-to-date advice with respect to pricing issues, academic self-publishing, open access, digitization, 'wiki-textbooks'. Simply stated, any author aspiring to write and have published a textbook, regardless of its subject matter, should begin by giving a careful reading to what Mary Ellen Lepionka has laid out in the pages of "Writing and Developing Your College Textbook".
By Anthony Haynes (Newmarket, UK)
There aren't many books about textbooks and the ones that do exist tend to be rather theoretical. This one is very practical. You can tell it isn't written by a hack: the book is full of concrete details based on experience. As a textbook publisher myself, I feel confident in saying that no prospective textbook authors could read this without profit - and I doubt any experienced authors could either.
Buy Writing and Developing Your College Textbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Textbook Authorship and Higher Education Publishing, Second Edition Now
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