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September
21, 2004
Students Pay
More for Beer, Food Than for Books
According to an
article in the International Herald Tribune, students need to stop griping
about the cost of textbooks until they've given up the booze and junk
food. The newspaper reports that British students spend almost one billion
pounds on drink every year — nearly three times as much as they
cough up for books.
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CCC to Hold Free
Online Seminar on Weblogs
The Copyright Clearance
Center will hold a free online seminar on Weblogs, or "blogs," on Thursday,
September 23 at 2 p.m. Eastern time. "Blogs in Your Future: The Writing
Is On the Web" will feature Mitch Wagner, a blogger and long-time journalist
and editor. Wagner will review the basics of blogging; visit a range
of popular blogs; and share his reasons for believing that blogs are
increasingly important to all writers -- even if they never bother to
create one of their own. Participants will need access to the Web and
a telephone. To register, e-mail CCC's Author & Creator Relations group
at BeyondTheBook@copyright.com
with your full name and e-mail address, or call toll-free 1-800-982-3887
ext. 2420.
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McGraw-Hill Medical
Launches Online Service
McGraw-Hill Medical
Publishing, a unit of McGraw-Hill Education, and publisher of professional
health references and databases for physicians and medical students,
released CMDT Online, a continually updated online service featuring
CURRENT Medical Diagnosis & Treatment (CMDT), a bestselling annual textbook
of medicine. This new digital application provides definitive answers
to every common question in clinical practice through the user's desktop
or handheld device. The publisher is offering a free preview of CMDT
Online until October 31: http://www.CMDTonline.com
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PR Firm to Provide
PR Services to Colleges, Professors
Academic Image,
a full-service public relations and custom publishing firm, plans to
offer colleges and professors both press release writing and distribution
services and publication of college view books, alumni magazines, textbooks
and other books. The company is seeking to serve liberal arts, law schools
and other smaller institutions of higher education that lack the staffing
resources of large universities.
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Iowa University
Press Hires New Director
Iowa University
Press hired Janet Rabinowitch, the press' interim director, as its new
permanent director. Rabinowitch has been with the press in various job
positions for 29 years.
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Updated List
of TAA Officers, Council Members, Staff
The following
are the names, titles and terms of TAA Council officers:
President: Michael
Sullivan, Term: July 2002-June 2005; Vice President/President Elect:
John Wakefield, Term: July 2004-June 2005; Treasurer: Robert Christopherson,
Term: July 2004-June 2007; Secretary: Mary Kay Switzer, Term: July 2002-June
2005.
The following
are the names, titles and terms of TAA Council (voting) members:
Peggy Stanfield,
Immediate Past President, July 2002-June 2005; Don Collins, Elected
Member, July 2003-June 2006; Steve Gillen, Elected Member, July 2004-June
2007; Tara Gray, Elected Member, July 2002-June 2005; Jay Black, Appointed
Member, July 2004-June 2005; Chris Harris, Elected Member, July 2003-June
2006; Jim Prekeges, Elected Member, July 2004-June 2007.
The following
are the names, titles and terms of Ex-Officio, Non-voting Members:
Ron Pynn, Executive
Director; Michael Lennie , National Adviser
The following
are current TAA staff members:
Ron Pynn, Executive
Director; Janet Tucker, Office Manager; Margaret Matson, Program Assistant;
Jodi Matson, Program Assistant
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TAA Now Accepts
Business Card-Sized Ads
If you would like
to place a business card-sized ad, or any size ad, in the December issue
of The Academic Author, or on the TAA website please contact TAA's new
advertising manager, Aaron Gregerson, at AMGreger5431@webmail.winona.edu.
For ad rates and submission form, click
here.
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2005 TAA Convention
To Be Held In Las Vegas
TAA's 2005 annual
convention will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada June 22 to 25. Jay Black
and John Wakefield will serve as co-chairs.
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TAA Welcomes
Advertising on Web Site, in Print Newsletter
If you would like
to place an ad in the June issue of The Academic Author, or on the TAA
website, please contact TAA's new advertising manager, Aaron Gregerson,
at (507) 452-2029 or AMGreger5431@webmail.winona.edu.
For ad rates and submission form, click
here.
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From
The Academic Author September '04 Issue:
An author's thoughts on the price of college textbooks
by Robert W. Christopherson
 |
| Robert W.
Christopherson, Professor Emeritus of Geography at American River
College in Sacramento, and author of three best-selling physical
geography texts, shares his insight into the cause of rising textbook
costs. He is also the treasurer of TAA. |
An author's thoughts
on the price of college textbooks by Robert W. Christopherson Recent
newspaper coverage of the cost of college textbooks, specifically criticism
in a report from the CALPIRG group, drew my interest and concern. I
was sorry to see that no one interviewed an author. I have 30 years
of college classroom teaching experience and I am a college textbook
author. From this perspective I offer the following thought from "inside"
academic publishing.
I agree that textbooks
are expensive. Although, text costs are rising at a rate less than other
educational costs are increasing. Most modern textbooks have high production
values, with limited markets in many academic fields, and require large
capital investments. But there is more to the story. I see the root
cause for textbook costs differently than those shouted by critics.
When students arrive
in class they are multimedia trained by the quick-paced, frantically
edited, computer-generated world of today. For this reason, my textbooks
are visually multimedia -- photos, images, maps, illustrations, and
design elements -- all expensive for me to create and for my publisher
to produce. Many other authors use a similar presentation style. In
addition there is significant demand in higher education for remediation
of basics.
My textbooks do
not stand alone. Included with the text is an instructional CD-ROM to
assist students. This was not done, as industry critics charge, to "....solely
drive up prices." These animations teach the multimedia student sitting
before us.
My publisher funds
an interactive, supporting website specific to my books for students
to use free. Other not-for-sale optional learning materials also are
available. Professors receive an Instructional Resources CD containing
PowerPoint presentations, test banks, animations, and figures from the
text. Also, the teacher may obtain full-color overhead transparencies
of my book's figures. All these instructional materials are provided
FREE?
One optional ancillary
that is not free is the Student Study Guide, a personal tutorial for
the student. Thus, the publisher has a significant financial investment
that my books must shoulder. Give the limited size of the overall market,
this represents capital outlay on "spec" with some risk to all involved.
When a professor
adopts a text, the order goes to the campus bookstore. On many campuses
the bookstore is operated as a franchise by the used-book industry under
contract to the college. Common practice is for bookstores to mark up
the publisher's net price 30 percent. On most campuses, the bookstores,
cafeterias and parking lots represent an unencumbered source of revenues
not tied to the classroom. Bookstore managers are in a tough spot balancing
all these factors while trying to serve student needs.
When the textbook
sells, the net price is the only income received by the publisher. All
costs, including author's royalties, must be paid from this first sale.
All subsequent transactions involving the textbook net the publisher
nothing -- no income. This is one of the main drivers of new book costs,
strangely, unmentioned by critics.
Another item of
concern, unmentioned by cost critics, is the fate of the sample copies,
"desk copies," sent to professors. Some professors resell their free
sample copies to bookstores/used book buyers. This includes placing
annotated Instructors editions in the used-book stream. One Internet
bookseller emphasized the availability of such annotated editions to
students! TAA President Mike Sullivan said recently in a President'
Message in The Academic Author: "This selling of the Instructor's Editions
of textbooks not only loses revenue for the publisher and royalties
for the author, but compromises the integrity of the book." Publishers
must factor such losses into the initial net price. A simple solution
is for faculty to either keep sample copies for reference or return
the unused sample books at the publisher's expense.
Critics mention
"cosmetic changes" in revisions and that publishers print new editions
every three to four years "...only to drive up the price and make obsolete
the older, cheaper edition." In my field of physical geography, an essential
Earth systems science, scientific breakthroughs demand at least a three-year
revision cycle. This is not true of just my books, for I know other
authors who evolve each of their editions, to better reach and teach
students.
My publisher is
at the forefront of developing more choice for students and teachers.
We produced a Learning Systems version of one of my books, which combined
a briefer text, lecture materials, and online support, at a reduced
cost to students. Further innovations that benefit students are ongoing,
as instructional delivery continues to evolve.
On April 22 of this
year, my publisher announced another innovation in teacher-student choice:
SafariX Textbooks Online. Two of my titles are available through SafariX,
that offers texts online, with many enhanced features, at a 50 percent
discount from list price. This continues a long-held approach of innovation
and choice in instructional media. My goal, and I believe my publisher's
goal, is to provide the best quality and value for the student and a
continuing partnership with teachers.
The issues in this
debate are more complex than the critics seem to comprehend. I hope
informed dialogue is ahead, for we need a strong alliance among students,
faculty, authors, and publishers -- too much is at stake for anything
less.
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From
The Academic Author September '04 Issue:
Tips for working with a compositor
William Stallings,
author of 10 books including Computer Organization and Architecture,
a three time winner of a Texty Award, and Local and Metropolitan
Networks, winner of a 2001 McGuffey award, shares the following
tips for working with a compositor (the person who sets the book's type):
- Include a supplemental
Style Sheet (in addition to the one provided by the publisher) to
the compositor that includes things that you think improve the appearance
of the book (e.g., capitalize the first and only the first letter
of ALL words in figure captions and table captions except conjunctions,
prepositions, articles, etc.; for bulleted items that begin with a
word or phrase, use bold rather than italic; etc.)
- Request a hard
copy of the first set of page proofs. The compositor may provide these
in hard copy or PDF files, but it's far easier to work with the hard
copy, he says: "You can sit down and read them more easily in
a comfortable chair and comfortable position than on a screen."
- Don't be tempted
to skim the page proofs. It doesn't matter that the compositor is
working from an electronic file that you supplied; typos and other
errors have a way of creeping in. "Also, you might have missed
some errors in the manuscript that you submitted to the compositor,"
he says. "Force yourself to take the time to actually read, word
for word, the entire set of pages. "I find this the most painful
and tedious part of writing the book -- you are anxious to finish
the job and you have read this stuff before. Also, don't try to read
too many pages at one sitting. After a few dozen pages, I can no longer
concentrate well enough to spot errors."
- Make sure the
page proofs are complete before beginning to read them. "I have
a final printout of each chapter from my word processing program and
I do a paragraph-by-paragraph comparison of the page proofs to the
Word Processing document to make sure that no paragraphs have been
dropped," he says. "It seems very unlikely that this will
happen but it has happened to me a few times that the compositor has
dropped an entire paragraph. On one occasion, the compositor interchanged
two pages!"
- Read through
the page proofs to make sure that no figures or tables are missing
and that all captions are present. "I have on a number of occasions
spotted a missing caption," he says.
- Make sure mathematical
symbols, such as Greek letters or the multiply sign, are correctly
reproduced.
- To track the
compositor's second set of proofs, which incorporate your corrections,
request two hard copies of the first set of page proofs, sending one
marked up copy back and retaining the other copy, with the same markups.
"I also make a list of page numbers that have corrections,"
he says. "That makes it easier for me to verify that the corrections
were made. For this second set, PDF files are okay."
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From
The Academic Author September '04 Issue:
Workshops a priority with TAA
The most popular
service offered by TAA is its workshops. Seven to 10 workshops are given
each year that reach approximately 300 faculty throughout the country.
As we begin the 2004-05 academic year, this is a good time to schedule
a workshop on your campus. What a wonderful faculty development experience
for faculty to have one or more TAA workshops on your campus.
TAA has eight workshops
led by individuals with national reputations and great experience in
presenting workshops to faculty. All of the workshops are suitable for
junior faculty as well as experienced writers. Here is a brief overview
of the eight TAA workshops.
1) Scholarship,
Tenure, and Promotion. This workshop looks at common problems with
the faculty rewards system and how faculty can better document their
work, including teaching effectiveness. The workshop is led by Robert
Diamond, former Research Professor and Director of the Institute for
Change in Higher Education at Syracuse University.
2) Software
Tools for Authors. This workshop helps authors save time with software
tools that define the rhetorical context of a document. This workshop
is lead by Joe Moxley, Professor of English at the University of South
Florida and author of 11 books and more than 50 articles.
3) Publish and
Flourish: Write Well and Revise Rapidly. This workshop shows participants
simple, specific steps to take to write well and revise rapidly, writing
as little as 15 to 30 minutes daily. This is TAA's most sought after
workshop. It is provided by Tara Gray who heads the Teaching Academy
at New Mexico State University. She has given this workshop to more
than 1,000 faculty.
4) Successful
Academic Journal Writing. An editor of an academic journal shares
insights on academic publishing, what kind of articles get published
and how the peer review process works. Either Gerald Stone or Jay Black
lead this workshop. Both were faculty members, journal editors, and
prolific academic authors.
5) Authoring
a Text or Professional Book. Taking an idea through the entire publishing
process, this workshop provides information on all aspects of authoring
so people can make informed choices about undertaking a writing project.
As the author of four texts, I lead this workshop.
6) Self Publishing.
Advances in technology and software make self publishing easier than
ever before. Learn what it takes to publish your own book and to make
it respectable. This workshop is provided by John Wakefield, Assistant
Vice President at University of North Alabama and a self publisher of
source books on the American Civil War.
7) Writing a
Book Proposal. This workshop helps authors match their book idea
with the right publisher. The workshop includes a survey of what acquisition
editors look for in book proposals. I also present this workshop.
8) Negotiating
a Contract. A workshop outlining book contract clauses and what
can and cannot be negotiated in the contract. Also provided is strategy
and favorable language for authors in helping them negotiate a more
favorable contract. This workshop is led by authoring attorneys Michael
Lennie or Stephen Gillen, both of whom have considerable experienced
in publishing law and in representing authors.
Click
here for more detailed information on these workshops, including
workshop outlines and presenter biographies. Why not ask your provost
or faculty development officer to look over this website? Then you or
a college representative can contact TAA to schedule a workshop.
The cost of these
workshops to any school is kept low to make them attractive as faculty
development experiences. All speaker fees and travel costs are paid
for by TAA, so the only cost for a school is the registration fee for
the workshop.
What a great way
to support TAA as well as to assist faculty on your campus with their
publishing endeavors. If you make the initial contact, TAA will do all
the work thereafter. To host one or more TAA workshops, contact TAA
by calling (727) 563-0020 or e-mail TAA at text@tampaby.rr.com.
I look forward to
hearing from you,
Ron Pynn
TAA Executive Director
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From
The Academic Author September '04 Issue:
Message from the Director:
Member
input sought on publishing venture
TAA Executive Director
Ron Pynn is seeking input from members on a proposed TAA publishing
program that would produce works of interest to authors of all disciplines.
Pynn made his proposal
for the publishing venture to the TAA Council at its July meeting in
St. Petersburg, Florida. The Council gave Pynn permission to pursue
the possibility.
"TAA would
begin with topics from past conventions where authors had produced papers
and topics of interest," says Pynn. Some of those topics could
include, he says: a guide to contracts, negotiating with publishers,
self-publishing, permission guidelines, and a tax guide for authors.
"This would
become a major service to members and nonmembers, and it would serve
as a recruiting and publicity tool for the organization," he says.
In the spirit of
TAA, authors would receive 100 percent of their royalties less expenses.
"It seems to me as an author's group that we should honor authors
and give them all the profits," says Pynn. "TAA undertakes
this publishing venture to increase services to members, to expand the
knowledge base to authors. The association feels there is a real need
for this kind of information and that it can fill that niche."
TAA would cover expenses from sales in this publishing program, then
turn over all profit to the authors, the creators of the intellectual
property. Says Pynn: "This is the fair thing to do for an author
organization!"
Other ideas Pynn
proposed regarding the publishing venture:
- Published works
would be relatively brief, approximately 100 pages, soft cover bound,
printed using the TAA logo for the imprint, and use a print on demand
format from camera ready copy on electronic disc.
- Marketing of
published works would begin with the TAA membership as well as using
the TAA website and News Alerts. From there, TAA could branch out
in conjunction with membership expansion. Mass mailings could be made
to college faculty using the national faculty directory. Ads could
also be placed in journals and other publications.
- A five- to nine-person
editorial board made up of TAA members would be created to select
titles and oversee the quality of the publishing program. Manuscripts
would be sent out for review as in any publishing process.
"We would do
everything to assure quality just like any other publisher," he
says.
Anyone interested
in offering their input on the process or topics, or to learn more about
the program, should contact Pynn at rpynn@tampabay.rr.com
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From
The Academic Author September '04 Issue:
In Memorium: Ida
Flynn
Educator, Author Researcher
 |
| Ida Moretti
Flynn 1942-2004 |
Ida Moretti Flynn,
an award-winning University of Pittsburgh educator, researcher and computer
science author died on Monday, April 12, 2004 at age 62 of metastasized
breast cancer.
Dr. Flynn's doctoral
research combined her interest in The University of Pittsburgh's video
archive of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood television programs and the
need for effective teaching and learning tools to reach the classmates
of childhood cancer victims. Her research noted the impact of medical
advances, which have increased the chance of long-term survival in children
with cancer. This, in turn, increases the number of children with life-threatening
illnesses to be mainstreamed back into their classrooms. Her research
cited the shortage of qualified personnel able to talk to classmates
and answer their urgent concerns about cancer, treatments and the viability
of their sick friend.
To answer the need
of classmates of childhood cancer victims, Flynn designed and prototyped
an interactive multimedia system that enabled students to address their
concerns themselves. Students could choose questions on a classroom
computer, and the system would then retrieve the response, a segment
from a Mr. Rogers television show that answered the concern, from a
specially manufactured videodisc (a precursor to today's DVD) that the
student could then view. The questions covered a wide range: What is
cancer? How does it start? Is it contagious? What are the side effects
of treatment? Flynn wrote the entire programming code required to operate
the device, and tested her prototype in local classrooms and at Children's
Hospital of Pittsburgh.
During her more
than twenty years at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Information
Science, Flynn was presented with numerous "Apple for the Teacher"
awards by the College of General Studies, on the recommendation of students.
Flynn taught both undergraduate and graduate students, and serves as
the director of SIS' undergraduate program from 1991 until her retirement
in 2000. Outside of Pitt, she taught concentrated courses for universities
abroad, especially the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and industries
at home, including U.S. Steel. Prior to joining her husband, Roger Flynn,
on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, she taught computer
science at Point Park College from 1975, shortly before the birth of
her first son, through the early 1980s.
While teaching at
Pitt, she shared with a book salesman her frustration with the lack
of good textbooks on computer operating systems. With his encouragement,
and the help of her former student and friend, Ann McIver McHoes, she
wrote the first edition of Understanding Operating Systems (1991).
This college textbook grew to three editions, and has been translated
into Spanish and Portuguese. The book won the Textbook Excellence Award
from TAA in 2001 for its readability and usability. The text is now
adopted at colleges and universities around the world. Flynn was making
plans for a fourth edition of the text when she died.
Flynn also served
as associate editor, along with her friend Ann, for Macmillan's encyclopedia,
Computer Sciences (2002), a four-volume set written for high
school students. In addition to serving as editor, she was also instrumental
in assembling the editorial team headed by her husband, identifying
academic contributors, and authoring numerous segments.
Many of her students
tried to guess the origin of her slight accent, which was a combination
of Italian and Spanish. Born in Turin, Italy, she, an infant, and her
mother survived a gunshot wound during a failed attempt to leave Italy
during World War II. After the war, the family moved to Argentina where
they lived until Ida was 16. Fleeing the Peronist dictatorship there,
they resettled in Long Island, New York, with only the possessions they
could carry. Ida attended Adelphi University there, earning her Bachelor's
of the Arts degree in mathematics. She went on to earn a Master's degree
in computer science at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago
where she met her husband. She earned her Master's degree in business
administration and Ph.D. in library science at the University of Pittsburgh
while teaching full time and raising her two young sons, Anthony and
Christopher.
Ida Flynn enjoyed
reading, quilting and traveling, when not giving of herself to help
others. She is survived by her parents, Gino and Anita Moretti; four
sisters and brothers-in-law, Carla and Howie Amann, Paula and Perry
Paolantonio, Laura and Barry McVey, Pat and Dean King; numerous nephews
and nieces; husband, Roger Flynn; two sons, Christopher and Anthony
Flynn; daughter-in-law and wife to Anthony, Gina Godfrey; and her unborn
granddaughter.
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From
The Academic Author September '04 Issue:
Authors share advice for writing first textbook
By Linda Creighton
|
"We
are typical faculty members with typical work and family commitments.
If we can write a book, you can too."
- Daniel Pack
and Steven Barrett, authors of The 68HC12 Microcontroller:
Theory and Applications
|
Writing that first
textbook can be a really time-consuming and exhausting experience, but
knowing the ropes beforehand can make it less daunting.
Easy money. A screenplay.
Fame and glory. If you're thinking about writing a textbook, put these
out of your mind. But if you've got a lot of knowledge to share in return
for the satisfaction of just doing it, there's some advice out there
for writing your first textbook.
First of all, really
want to do it. Transferring information from your brain to a college
textbook is a demanding process of organization, attention to detail,
hard work, and time. Underestimating this process may be the biggest
mistake a first-time author can make.
Daniel Pack and
Steven Barrett can tell you how easy that mistake is. Two years ago,
Barrett, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University
of Wyoming in Laramie, and his good friend Pack, electrical engineering
professor at the United State Air Force in Colorado, decided to write
a book about an area of digital design. "We didn't have a clue
how to do it," says Barrett. But years of teaching, research, and
consulting had made them eager to try. "Writing a textbook was
presenting the whole picture," says Pack. "And we wanted to
tell why we thought it was a good way to teach the subject."
After chatting at
an ASEE conference with an editor from Prentice Hall -- the world's
largest engineering text publisher -- Barrett and Pack were encouraged
to submit an outline. A year later, their 600-page book with a 100-page
solutions manual hit the presses. Their journey from would-be authors
to published veterans prompted them to write a guide for anyone who
wants to write a textbook. "We are typical faculty members with
typical work and family commitments," they say. "If we can
write a book, you can too."
The very first thing
you need to know about book writing is the commitment of time. "It's
like having a second job," says Pack. For the first six months
of the project, each day, weekends included, Pack finished his normal
work load, spent what time he could with his young children, and then
worked three to four hours more in his office with the door closed.
"It was costly in terms of lost time with my wife and kids,"
says Pack, citing his daughter's flute performances as a particularly
missed opportunity. Barrett rose at 4:30 a.m. each day to get in his
writing before his normal work schedule, returning to it again at night.
Tom Robbins, an
acquisitions publisher at Prentice Hall, guided and advised Pack and
Barrett, and his 28 years of experience has produced real-world advice
for would-be authors. He says diligence is key. "When a prospective
author tells me 'the bulk of writing will be done during the summer
and over the winter holiday,' I'm thinking that guy's really going to
discover something. The successful authors know the secret is that you
put a little on paper every day." Robbins says about a third of
authors who start a book bail before completion, almost always because
they have underestimated the required devotion of time.
The road to becoming
an author starts with a decision about who will write the book. Co-authoring
has the advantage of bouncing ideas off one another, critiquing each
other's work, and adding the strength of another engineer's knowledge.
The downside may be different work habits. Pack's "a best friend,
but that's not what makes it work," says Barrett. "It's important
to pick someone with a similar work ethic." Both Barrett and Pack
were dedicated, self-disciplined writers. Full-time professors with
families, they religiously set aside time every day to work on the book
and faced deadlines with the same sense of urgency. If you can't find
someone with the same commitment, better to go it alone.
You may have a lot
of stuff to put in a textbook, but you're going to have to convince
a publisher that the purpose and focus of the book is good enough to
warrant placement in a college curriculum -- and that another book like
it doesn't exist. "When it comes to evaluating a textbook,"
says publisher Robbins, "there are certain criteria that any acquisitions
editor is going to ask the author: Who's the audience? Why will this
book succeed in a market that has lots of competition? Can you articulate
what makes your text better than other books?"
For Barrett and
Pack, writing a book was an evolution of their growth as teachers. "We
didn't find textbooks to meet our needs, so we thought, why not write
one?" Pack says now. They checked out what was available, and found
that their topic -- "The 68HC12 Microcontroller: Theory and Applications"
-- wasn't already on the market.
Robbins says his
role is to select judiciously what might add some value to the literature
that already exists. "There have been about 550 books written on
linear circuit theory in the last 50 years. Frankly, there's no need
for that many books on one subject." What gets you in the door
with a publisher is first a topic, then the prospectus -- two or three
paragraphs giving an overview -- and finally a detailed outline. To
prepare their prospectus, Pack and Barrett examined some of their favorite
textbooks and tried to include many of the features -- readable text,
plenty of illustrations, a solutions manual for text problems and lab
assignments, and related software -- in their own prospectus. The critical
review of colleagues was helpful in crafting a final version.
Publishers who come
to technical conferences are plugged into university educator networks,
and a number of publishers can be contacted through this channel. Pack
and Barrett approached Prentice Hall because of its strength in the
engineering textbook market. On the Prentice Hall Web site, "author
guides" give prospective writers a soup-to-nuts view of the publication
process.
The prospectus is
sent, weeks of feedback and additional requests follow, and then if
it all works, the contract comes through. Included are terms outlining
exactly what will be provided to the publisher, editing and revision
details, copyright provisions and royalty terms, and the all-important
delivery date for the book.
Nailing down a schedule
for writing and submitting each chapter and then sticking with it proved
an effective work plan for Pack and Barrett, with one writing the first
draft of a chapter and the co-author reviewing, incorporating comments
and changes, and producing and reviewing a second draft. Each writer
established a daily and weekly goal timetable to keep from being overwhelmed.
Correspondence with their editor kept him informed of the progress.
Three sample chapters
were due two months into the project. They met the deadline, but the
review of their work by seasoned textbook writers and faculty members
almost proved their undoing. "The first reviews were pretty vicious,"
says Pack, still able to recite specific criticisms about the material
being written at too high a level for students' understanding. Barrett
agrees, saying, "We took it personally and thought we had failed."
But after digesting the criticism, both writers felt that the caustic
reviews were meant only to improve the book.
The authors began
their first draft in June 2000 and mailed it to the publisher on December
15, 2000. In retrospect, the extremely tight schedule was a mistake.
"We pushed ourselves too hard,² says Barrett now. Robbins, too,
says taking your time is important. "How a book is put together
and how the parts work together is really important," he says.
"The winner is the first person to market with a successful teaching
textbook that has the right depth, that is accurate and precise."
Even so, publisher
Robbins says the numbers of books sold just isn't in the stratosphere.
"Typically, in a 20,000-copy market, if you get 20 percent of that
market, that's a bestseller. We used to have a clause in our contract
that we would get 5 percent if it were made into a television show.
Who's going to write a movie based on electric circuits?"
Royalty is a bit
of a misnomer for the checks sent out for engineering textbooks. "Our
first checks were for $400 each," Barrett points out. And Pack
adds, "I didn't ever ask how much money we could expect."
Eventually, he figures, he may make enough money for one family vacation,
maybe to Hawaii or the Bahamas. "Maybe then my family will forgive
me," he jokes -- only a bit.
Their first foray
being stressful but successful, the two writers/friends have signed
on to write another book, this time stretching the timetable out to
two years rather than one. Pack says his wife resisted at first, but
Barrett says, "It's going to be much more comfortable this time."
(Editor's Note:
This article was originally published in the December 2002 (Vol 12,
number 4) issue of ASEE Prism Online, a magazine of The American
Society for Engineering Education, as "Author! Author!")
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