Q&A: Tips on receiving feedback from students when you’re not teaching

Q: “How do you get feedback from students about your book when you are not teaching?”

A: Karen Timberlake, author of Basic Chemistry, winner of a 2006 Texty Award:

“Use a focus group. Bring in students (from a local school using your book) for an afternoon and ask them questions about it.”

A: Marilyn “Winkie” Fordney, author of textbooks on insurance billing and medical transcription:

“I created a questionnaire and gave it to faculty using my book, asking them to have their students fill it out.”

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Q&A: Can you switch textbook publishers once you are under contract?

Q: “What can you do if you feel that your publisher is not doing a good job handling your book? Is it possible to switch publishers? What legal issues are involved?”

A: Stephen E. Gillen, Attorney, Wood Herron & Evans:

“The publisher’s obligations to market your book are set out in your publishing contract. Generally speaking, most standard publishing contracts reserve very broad discretion to the publisher when it comes to these obligations. And editors and publishers take a good deal of faith and comfort in these carefully crafted provisions.. But the truth is that many courts have declined to read these provisions literally, relying in a number of cases on an implied obligation to deal in good faith as a means of reining in a publisher which may have abused its discretionary powers.

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