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Mary Ellen Lepionka
Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, Second Edition
Reviewed by Keith H. Whitworth, Ph.D.

Writing and Developing Your College Textbook is a must read for anyone considering or in the process of writing a textbook. The book is chocked full of practical advice and even seasoned writers will glean insight and nuggets of wisdom from her 25 years of experience as a college instructor, curriculum developer, and professional development editor in educational publishing. The book focuses less on the theoretical and more on the practical aspects of developing and writing a college textbook.

Lepionka’s chapters address the fundamentals of the college textbook industry as well as specific nuances such as creating useful chapter apparatus and developing successful feature strands. She describes how to interest a publisher in your manuscript and how to sign a mutually lucrative contract. The chapter pertaining to contracts provides helpful and detailed information on the language of contracts. New authors will find this chapter to be enlightening as she demystifies the contract process and provides additional resources for legal and expert advise. All chapters provide additional resources, checklists, recommendations, or samples of documents.

The majority of the chapters pertain to the mechanics of writing and developing a textbook. For example, controlling the length and managing one’s schedule is stressed as being a key to successfully completing a textbook within budget and on time. Industry specific terminology is introduced, such as the term length creep, endmatter, and metavoice. Although not specifically stated by the author, understanding the industry jargon is important to new authors as it may relieve some anxiety during the contractual and development phases. Furthermore, understanding the publishing process from beginning to end provides novice authors needed and relevant information to successfully complete a textbook.

Lepionka’s book may empower some writers while discouraging others, or possibly a combination of the two. Having only contributed to a textbook, and not having written my owntextbook, I experienced both a sense of empowerment but also some discouragement. First, I now consider the book as my bible and reference tool for developing and writing a textbook. I expect to refer to her book at every stage of the process and utilize the resources, checklists, recommendations, and sample documents provided within the chapters. I consider it serendipitous that I cameacross this book at the beginning of the process of writing an introductorysociology textbook.

The book provides a tremendous amount of detail as to the process of writing and developing a textbook. The process looked more daunting as I progressed through the book, and a few times I even felt slightly discouraged. Fortunately, Lepionka offers encouragement for the arduous task, and a plethora of practical tools to succeed in writing a successful textbook. She closes her book with, “I wish you the best of luck. Yes, you can do it, and yes, it’s worth it.” The majority of readers will find this book to be encouraging, practical, and indispensible in the process of developing and writing a successful college textbook.

About the Reviewer

Keith Whitworth is an Instructor of Sociology at Texas Christian Universitywithin the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He has taught within the department for 12 years and has been a guest on CNN, NPR and local television, and has been quoted within national media such as U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, and BusinessWeek.com. His expertise on how technology impacts society resulted in providing content for an existing Introductory Sociology textbook. He is currently negotiating with a major publishing company to co-author his first textbook.