A: Mary
Ellen Lepionka, Publisher, Atlantic Path Publishing:
"You don't mention
the type of job you are referring to. Textbooks that prepare people
for jobs may be called professional books, adult education or vocational-technical
textbooks, or career training manuals, depending on the type of job
and the audience. Professional books are for practitioners in the
professions or in jobs that require licensure or certification (such
as teaching, dentistry, CPA, social work, law enforcement). In some
professions, preparation for entry into the field is accomplished
through methods courses and field work (e.g., archaeology, oceanography,
etc.). Adult, vocational, and technical education texts are for people
in specific skilled occupations and trades (e.g. computer programmer,
aircraft mechanic, electrician). Career training materials are for
people seeking to enter a profession, occupation, or trade. Vocational-technical
colleges and community colleges are prime markets for these materials.
To find out what
textbooks are in use, you have to know the names of the courses in
which the 'job' is taught. You can then use a resource such as MIR's
Faculty Online to find out the top books in use for that course. You
can also survey the online catalogs of college publishers in the relevant
field to find out what is being offered in your subject area (Suggest
starting with Pearson; Cengage; McGraw-Hill; Wiley; and Bedford, Freeman,
and Worth.) There are far fewer publishers than there are colleges
and universities, so it makes more sense to survey publishers' offerings
and go from there. The only way to determine if textbooks
'address the current job market issues' is to acquire review copies
of the books and evaluate them--yourself and/or though peer review.
If you have a
textbook idea, you should express it in a book proposal and send it
to the publisher you have identified as the one with whom you want
to publish. You need to research this. Only a few publishers will
be publishing in your area, and multiple submissions are not a good
way to start. Follow guidelines on how to write an effective textbook
proposal or prospectus. (I believe TAA has articles on this topic,
and I have chapters on this in my book, Writing and Developing
Your College Textbook, 2nd edition.) It is customary to find a
publisher on the basis of a prospectus before drafting the manuscript."
