Textbook promotion: How to earn local, national media attention

“Houghton Mifflin Harcourt putting a halt on buying any new manuscripts”

“Publishing companies will no longer expense (extravagant) lunches with literary agents”

“Plunging sales and stocks reported from booksellers”

With headlines like these, the publishing community is wondering how the book industry will survive in a rocky economy, especially those in publicity. Anyone in public relations, media and even writers know promotion is needed to sell books but convincing upper brass can sometimes be an uphill battle. The good news is anyone can promote his or her work. A fancy Manhattan PR firm doesn’t have to be hired for big dollars.

Textbook promotion: How to earn local, national media attention Read More

How to advocate for your textbook before, during, and after a national sales meeting

Reid Hester, a 15-year veteran in textbook sales and marketing, and Robert Christopherson, a best-selling geography textbook author, share their advice for making the most of your participation in national sales meetings:

• Provide specific, actionable information. “If it can be used to sell your book, it’s worth its weight in gold,” said Hester. For example, build sales-ready bullet points about your book’s features. Or track the updates and changes you make to a new edition as you make them. “Your editor and the sales reps will want to know,” said Christopherson.

How to advocate for your textbook before, during, and after a national sales meeting Read More

6 Textbook proposal writing tips

Six textbook authors share their textbook proposal writing tips:

“Make sure there is a demand for your book that currently is not being met by exisiting texts.”

David J. Ellenbogen, author of Elementary Algebra: Concepts and Applications

“Beware of putting anything in writing too early, since some editors will take your preliminary ideas to be definite proposals. When you do write the proposal, assume it will be your last chance to convince an editor to take an interest in the project. Also keep in mind that no matter how convinced you are that your book will be the best in the field, you have to make that clear to the editor, and you also have to explain to the editor how that is going to be clear to potential adopters.”

6 Textbook proposal writing tips Read More

10 Tips for preparing your next textbook edition

Steven Barkan, a professor of sociology at the University of Maine, and the author of five textbooks and one tradebook, shares the following ten tips for preparing your next edition:

1. The worst is over, but much yet is to be done. The first edition of a textbook takes much more time than any later editions, so the worst is over as you begin to prepare the next edition. However, the next edition can take much more time that one might expect. Research, data, and references must all be updated. Regardless of how long you expect the preparation of the next edition to take, it will probably take longer. The good news is that it will still take much less time than the first edition.

10 Tips for preparing your next textbook edition Read More

How to get started in textbook publishing

Most books come out of experience. Authors find a need in the field. They discover the existing texts have weaknesses, miss important topics, or simply do not excite their students. It may very well be there is no book on the particular topic they are teaching, or that the author is on the developing edge of an emerging area in a discipline.

Betty Azar, author of Understanding and Using English Grammar, said: “Experience tells me that first an author should see a need in the field. If the book you want to write fills a need you have in your own teaching, you can be fairly sure it will do the same for other teachers. Some of the best books have come from teachers like myself who develop their own materials for their classes because there was nothing available in the marketplace to meet their teaching needs, and then turned these materials into texts.”

Here are some ways to get started in textbook publishing:

How to get started in textbook publishing Read More