- Flat World Knowledge publishes first textbooks
- Accessibility update: Amazon's Kindle kindles controversy
- Blogs help textbook authors connect with users, potential adopters
- Online textbook company goes live, publishing texts, securing authors
- Busy TAA People: Nick Sciullo
- Listen to recording of April 23 TAA Teleconference on book publicity
- Listen to recording of April 13 TAA Teleconference on textbook authoring
- Listen to recording of April 9 TAA Teleconference on contracts
- TAA thanks Contributing, Sustaining Members
- TAA gift membership
- Self-publishing with reputable, peer-reviewed online publishers
Flat World Knowledge publishes first textbooks
By Kim Seidel
Online textbook company Flat World Knowledge (FWK) has published its first eight textbooks and three more will be published in the next few weeks. All of their books are available in full versions online for free. Paperbacks, audio, and self-printable versions cost under $30.
The first eight textbooks are: Exploring Business by Karen Collins; Principles of Management by Mason Carpenter, Talya Bauer and Berrin Erdogan; Organizational Behavior by Talya Bauer and Berrin Erdogan; Launch! Advertising and Promotion by Mike Solomon, Lisa Duke and Amit Nizan; Fundamentals of Income Tax Theory and Practice by Dieter Kiefer; Microeconomics by Libby Rittenberg and Tim Tregarthen; Intermediate Economics by R. Preston McAfee and Tracy R. Lewis; and Money and Banking by Robert E. Wright and Vincenzo Quadrini.
All of FWK's books are currently in the fields of business and economics, and range from intro to MBA level, said Eric Frank, who co-created the company with Jeff Shelstad in February 2007.
Within weeks of going live in March 2009, FWK had visitors from 189 countries and territories. This spring, they've had adoptions of the textbooks in university classes in England, Lithuania and Guam. They recently hired a chief financial officer, editorial director, director of business development, project manager and software developer.
FWK uses a Creative Commons license on its content, meaning that instructors who adopt the company's textbooks have the ability to edit the content as long as they meet three criteria: attribute the author/publisher; share the resulting derivative work under the same license; and do not engage in commercial activity around their derivative.
"This week we are releasing an online interface to easily enable customers to move chapters and sections up/down, and delete them if they desire," Frank said. "This summer we expect to release the ability for customers to add 'annotations' into the book - think of sticky notes with notes to their students.
"Then, late this year, we aim to release an online editor, which would actually enable them to modify an example, change a definition, etcetera. Our system will capture those changes and display them as modifications, so that the reader can distinguish between what was original versus what was modified/added by a user."
The advantages to FWK's authors and the publisher in enabling the Creative Commons license include the following, said Frank:
Gain market share: A potential customer who believes he/she is able to modify content to better suit his/her class is much more likely to adopt a FWK book versus a book which they will have to teach around by saying things to their students like "skip that section; ignore that definition and use the one I wrote on the board, etcetera."
Build loyal customers: A customer who is able to change something they are not satisfied with in a book is much more likely to be a loyal, long-term customer because they continuously make the book better fit what they do. Further, the barrier to exit for that customer to leave the book to go to another is much higher - they have made an investment in this particular book and they are more likely to stay with it.
Gain behavioral intelligence about users: One of an author's greatest frustrations is not knowing how customers actually use the book. By enabling customers to make changes to the book and then capturing all of the changes in a reportable format, FWK is able to provide authors with real intelligence, based on user behavior, about how people use their book. The author will be far better equipped to make changes to the next edition of the book based on this type of behavioral data than they are today, thus producing an increasingly effective book with each modification.
Fight used books: FWK will have far fewer used books in their model versus the traditional publishers. One reason for this is giving the customer the ability to customize. The more one customizes, and the more frequently, the less used books are available in the market.
"As with a traditional publisher, we will work with our authors to publish new editions," he said. "Unlike publishers, though, we are less driven to do so by market forces - used books, global gray market versions, pirated copies, etcetera - and more driven to do so based on when changes have occurred in the discipline area that necessitate a new edition. So, we will produce new editions when we and our authors believe a new edition is merited. We will then give the choice to the customer as to whether he/she uses the new edition, or continues to remain with the previous edition. Because our model of print sales is based on printing-on-demand, this works for us and our customers."
There are several advantages to working with the authors on new editions, said Frank, including, again, that market share is gained: "Customers are furious about being forced by publishers to go to new editions increasingly frequently. We know that publishers - and authors - must do this to battle the used book market, but it is not good customer practice, and a customer choosing between a book where they will be 'forced' to new editions on the publishers schedule versus a book where they can opt for the new edition on their own schedule will choose the latter."
In addition, this practice fights used books. "We will have far less used books in our model than a traditional publisher has, but we will still have some," he said. "Having customers spread out over multiple editions and versions over time is a good thing - it keeps the national used book market fragmented versus the current model where there is a single, huge used book market for the current edition and the one just prior."
Learn more about FWK by reading an earlier TAA article, "Online textbook company goes live, publishing texts, securing authors:" Click here
Kim Seidel is a freelance writer based in Onalaska, Wis.
Accessibility Update: Amazon's Kindle kindles controversy
By Robert Martinengo
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In February, when Amazon announced that the new version of their Kindle ebook reader would include the ability to verbalize text through synthetic speech, there was a ripple of interest in the disability community. Although the device did not include design elements that would have made it fully usable by people who are blind or have visual impairments, it was still seen as a step towards greater accessibility for the print-disabled.
Soon after the product was released, the Authors Guild made public their objections to this feature being included without the express permission of the rights holders. The Guild expressed concern that the Kindle was now capable of audio output, which could infringe on audio rights that may have been sold to another party. Even though the speech output is relatively crude, the Guild noted that the technology has improved considerably and is expected to do so. In response, Amazon announced that they would update the Kindle firmware to allow the text-to-speech feature to be enabled or disabled on a title-by-title basis.
This caused great consternation among groups that advocate for the rights of the disabled. They saw the Authors Guild actions, and Amazon’s subsequent reaction, as undercutting what had become to be seen as a breakthrough for equal access. These groups, seizing the moment, formed the Reading Rights Coalition and staged an actual protest outside the offices of the Authors Guild. The Guild responded with a statement indicating they were sympathetic to the plight of the disabled but would not change their basic stance on the Kindle.
The potential for the Kindle, and other ebook readers already on the market and in development, to serve as textbook delivery platforms has not been lost on bloggers and other commentators. It may only be a few years before devices with larger, full color screens capable of faithfully rendering educational content are commonplace. It remains to be seen if accessibility for disabled students, which continues to grow in importance as an issue for publishers to consider, will be a priority for these new devices. It may be that the current tussle over text-to-speech sets the tone for the next generation of digital devices.
Robert Martinengo is Publisher Services Manager for the Alternative Media Access Center (AMAC).
top of page for all newsBlogs help textbook authors connect with users, potential adopters
By Mark McGroarty
Blogs (web pages that can be regularly updated with journal-style entries) have become an essential marketing tool for non-fiction authors, and now many textbook authors are also finding them to be a great way to build relationships with their readers and to market their work.
Kevin Patton, author of five textbooks on anatomy and physiology, manages several blogs, including The A&P Student (http://theapstudent.blogspot.com), in which he posts study tips for students and advice on how to make the best use of his books. Another of his blogs, The A&P Professor (http://theapprofessor.blogspot.com), provides teaching tips and resources, including insight into his books’ construction and how to use them effectively, as well as announcements of new revisions and ancillaries.
“I use my blogs to establish a presence with users of my textbooks and potential users, to let them get to know me and connect with me,” said Patton. “It also helps explain the concepts behind how my textbooks are put together.”
Author Sheila Curran Bernard maintains separate blogs to promote and market her book Documentary Storytelling (http://docustory.blogspot.com) and the co-authored Archival Storytelling (http://archivalstorytelling.blogspot.com), both of which deal with current issues and sell on both the trade and text markets. “The blogs and linked sites help maintain a fresh presence with current readers and, hopefully, attract new readers. It’s targeted marketing that costs next to nothing.”
Both authors created their blogs on Google’s free hosted service, Blogger, which, along with WordPress and TypePad, is one of the “big three” blogging services. How difficult was the process? According to Patton, “It takes about five minutes – if you type slowly.”
The bigger challenge is bringing in traffic. Author and publisher Mary Ellen Lepionka, who averages around 750 visitors a month to her blog (http://www.atlanticpathpublishing.com/blog/blog.html) on the Atlantic Path Publishing website, offers the following tips: “Blog often enough for search engine bots to notice, provide useful material, use straightforward, descriptive tags/ keywords, link to your blog site from everywhere, add AV or interactive media [which make it easier for video web crawlers to find], and always respond to comments.”
She also suggests that authors syndicate their blogs for RSS feeds, something that’s easily done through most blogging services. By setting up an RSS feed with good searchable keywords, you can allow news aggregators and other people with RSS readers to learn about your blog and even publish your RSS feed on other sites.
“Many professionals use Google Search or a similar data aggregator to send them URLs automatically that match their keywords,” said Lepionka. “This means that someone who asked Google to email them anything it finds on the web about, say, ‘physics textbooks’ would automatically receive your blog entries in their inboxes.”
RSS feeds also allow you to publish your blog on a range of venues. For example, Sheila Curran Bernard uses them to stay current with AmazonConnect, a free program from Amazon through which authors can set up profiles and post messages on their book pages. “Rather than create new content for Amazon, I send the RSS feed from each of the blogger sites to its related Amazon Connect account,” she said. “The blogs also feed to the books’ Facebook product pages and my own Facebook page. This is not complicated to do, and the feed can be either manual or automatic. So I post an entry in one place – on the blog – and it shows up in a range of places.”
Despite such tech-enabled conveniences, maintaining a popular blog still involves a certain amount of persistence. Ask Kevin Patton, who passes out bookmarks with his blog URLs printed on them to student and professor groups and asks people to sign up for his blogs when they request resources on his web sites. “I learned in my previous work in the circus, then in nonprofits, that you have to blow your own horn to get folks to know who you are,” said Patton. “If you expect folks who can benefit from what you have to offer to come looking for you without them having any idea who you are, what you have to offer, and how to contact you, then you won't have much business.”
Mark McGroarty is a freelance writer based in Winona, Minnesota.
Online textbook company goes live, publishing texts, securing authors
By Kim Seidel
Flat World Knowledge (FWK) , an online textbook publishing company, is “off and running,” said Eric Frank, co-founder with Jeff Shelstad.
In late January FWK went live, exposing a catalog of forthcoming books to the world. In the past few weeks, Flat World published the first editions of five books, and another five first editions will be published over the next three weeks.
“We have 22 books in the pipeline at various stages of development,” said Frank, who co-created the company in February 2007. “Ten of those titles will publish this spring for fall 2009 (or summer) adoption. All of our books are currently in the fields of business and economics, from the earliest introductory courses like Introduction to Business or Principles of Economics to MBA courses in sustainability.”
FWK recently closed an $8.2 million round of venture capital financing, Frank said. The biggest priorities in using those funds is to escalate the pace of book signing and development, and expand the publishing program from just business and economics to the “Foundation 25,” what FWK refers to as the 25 largest enrolled courses in the college curriculum.
“We are doing this because if one wants to really make an impact on the problem of textbook affordability, and to build a better publishing model and platform for the future, then we believe one should go where the students are, plain and simple,” Frank said. “So, we are actively looking to sign great authors across the curriculum as we speak.”
FWK is still in private beta mode, so no data on what authors have been earning will be available until this fall when the first major wave of actual adoptions begins, Frank said.
“Author compensation is a critical issue for us and our authors,” he said. “It is counterintuitive at first for people to think that an open textbook model should be good for authors, but we think it is great for authors, as do our first 50 authors on those 22 books, many of whom have successful textbooks at other publishers.”
FWK authors earn 20 percent of all income generated around their open textbook, whether that income is generated by soft cover sales, audio book sales, or sales of digital study aids. “We pay one flat royalty rate of 20 percent on all sales, in all channels, anywhere in the world,” Frank said.
“Without authors, we would cease to exist. What matters a lot in ensuring great customer experiences is the quality of people we choose to work with, the standards they hold themselves to, and the strength of the relationships that we have with them.”
FWK had 20 professors testing books in the fall 2008, and 30 additional professors testing this spring. “We are now hitting the market to promote broadly,” he said. “Things are heating up out there. We picked up a lot of new adoptions in just the past few weeks, and are tracking hundreds of adoptions for fall 2009.”
Last fall, TAA interviewed John Gallaugher, who had 40 percent of his textbook at FWK and the material was already being used by faculty worldwide. Since then, he has two more chapters of Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology, up and three more chapters will be posted before the end of the year. That will put him at three-quarters done on the book.
“Feedback has been very positive,” said Gallaugher, an associate professor of Information Systems at Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass. “It’s so nice to get a ‘shout out’ every few days from another faculty member who’s adopted the material. And several students have run across the work and shared it with their faculty members too. As an author, this is incredibly motivating.”
Another author, Karen Collins, chose to work with FWK to reach out to as many students and instructors as possible. An associate professor of accounting at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Collins wrote Exploring Business to have a positive impact on the way students are introduced to business. “All students taking a class, regardless of their ability to purchase a textbook, will have access to the book online,” Collins said. “This will give students from all economic situations a fair chance to succeed in their course. It also will give instructors the ability to teach a class in which every student has a book.”
Talya Bauer was contacted by several of the major traditional publishers about writing Organizational Behavior and Principal of Management textbooks, but it wasn’t until FWK approached her that she was ready to commit to such a major undertaking. The Flat World model solves so many persistent faculty and student problems – the price and delivery choices for students, for example, said Bauer, a Cameron professor of management and editor of Journal of Management at Portland State University, Ore. “We see how hard our students work to get a college degree and being part of the solution instead of the problem was very attractive for us,” she said.
For faculty, Bauer said, it’s frustrating to be locked into the way books are organized and to be forced to adopt new editions before they’re ready. “With Flat World, faculty get flexibility in ordering, adding, or deleting content from the book they create or they can use it as is,” Bauer said. “And faculty members never have to adopt a new edition – it’s up to them.
“Couple all of this with the opportunity to work with such seasoned published veterans in a start-up environment, a great team of faculty reviewers from around the country, managing editors, developmental editors, copy editors, graphic designers, and an openness officer, and it was too exciting of an opportunity for us to pass up. We are really proud of the final products.”
As books are just now available for sale, the authors have not earned regular sales royalties yet. “Making money is nice, but the main thing is to create something that would get used and have an impact,” Bauer said. “My co-authors and I believe that management really matters so the more people who are exposed to the ideas and core concepts, the better.”
Collins’ book was beta tested at about 10 schools this past year, which generated some money. She believes she and other authors have the opportunity to earn more through the FWK model than obtained with traditional publishers. The royalty rate of 20 percent of all revenues is higher than at other publishers. Plus, authors don’t have to worry about used books and pirated copies coming in from outside the country, Collins said.
“Although some students will opt for the free online text only, many others will decide to purchase a low-cost print text and other student aids that generate revenue,” Collins said. “Because of the appeal of the model to instructors, the number of students using the text will likely be higher than with a traditional publisher. This will generate a sizeable number of ‘revenue generating’ purchases.”
Visit the Flat World Knowledge web site: Click here
Kim Seidel is a freelance writer based in Onalaska, Wis.
Busy TAA People: Nick Sciullo
TAA member Nick Sciullo published "Atlantean Prose and the Search for Democracy" in the crit: a critical legal studies journal run by the University of Idaho School of Law. Sciullo also spoke at a conference entitled "The Evolution of Street Knowledge: Hip Hop's Influence on Law and Culture" at the West Virginia University College of Law. The keynote speakers for the two-day conference were Dr. Cornel West and hip hop artist Talib Kweli. The conference proceedings are being submitted as a book proposal.
Listen to recording of April 23 TAA Teleconference on book publicity
TAA members can now listen to a recording of the April 23 TAA Teleconference "How to Apply Mainstream Book Publicity Strategies to Academia," presented by Michelle Blackley, Literary Publicist with Don't Judge a Book by its Cover.
Listen to recording of April 13 TAA Teleconference on textbook authoring
TAA members can now listen to a recording of the April 13 TAA Teleconference "You Want to Write a Textbook? Here's How to Do It!" presented by Robert Christopherson, Professor Emeritus of Geography, American River College, and author of the leading physical geography texts in the US and Canada.
Listen to recording of April 9 TAA Teleconference on contracts
TAA members can now listen to a recording of the April 9 TAA Teleconference "Negotiation of Author-Publisher Contracts for the Experienced Author, Part Two," presented by Michael R. Lennie, an author’s attorney and literary agent at Lennie Literary & Authors Attorneys in San Diego.
TAA thanks Contributing, Sustaining Members
TAA thanks Contributing Members Paul Siegel and Andrew Tanenbaum, and Sustaining Member Stephen E. Gillen.
TAA gift membership
TAA thanks Paul Krieger for giving a gift membership to Jim Doyle. Welcome Jim!
Self-publishing with reputable, peer-reviewed online publishers
TAA recently asked Mary Ellen Lepionka, Founder of Atlantic Path Publishing, and the author of articles and books on higher education writing and publishing, to share her recommendations for textbook and academic authors seeking to self-publish their works with reputable, and even peer-reviewed online publishers. Her recommendations are based on her research so far on self-publishing for the next edition of her book, Writing and Developing Your College Textbook:
- Most larger institutions of higher learning now have academic portals on which their faculties can develop online courses or course materials, often managed through course management software. Ownership and any remuneration for these publishing efforts vary; i.e., many schools claim copyright and all proceeds from any instructional materials created while the professor is their employee. Entrepreneurs forming their own independent online publishing "house" can get around this by making the institution a business partner and later spinning off the enterprise when they leave. Utilium did this (www.utilium.com), but I notice that the site now is non-commercial and does not generate income. It's free to instructors and students. Instructors create course packs and integrate open source materials from other sources, such as EBSCO journal articles and papers in MIT and Harvard archives or databases. Limited peer review is offered, but it would be easy enough for the author to solicit more through online social media reviewing services, such as Content Connections (which is a TAA sponsor)(www.contentconnections.com). This publishing model is an alternative to the custom publishing operations of the commercial houses.
- There are independent online publishers who have a traditional model for textbook acquisition, except that they do not pay advances. They review textbook proposals, decide what to publish, and cover all costs of publishing. They publish and market the textbooks online and pay author royalties. Students can read the books for free online or rent them at low cost for a period of time, or they can buy the textbooks, chapters, and/or supplements as PDF downloads or as audio books at greatly reduced rates compared to the big brick and mortar houses. Thus, in this business model the publisher pays royalties out of students' micro payments for low-cost alternatives to traditional textbooks. Flat World Knowledge (another TAA sponsor) is an example of this kind of publishing (www.flatworldknowledge.com). It's not strictly self-publishing, but it is an alternative to working with the big players, who, however, increasingly compete in this market.
- There are independent online publishers who specialize in academic books or "serious nonfiction" and publish paperbacks and e-books. They pay royalties but not advances and authors must share the costs of publication. This is called co-publishing. The publisher gets revenue from book sales and pays the author comparatively high royalties of 10 to 40 percent of retail. The publishers will publish almost anything for which there could be any demand, including manuscripts on highly specialized or niche subjects--even conference papers and festschrifts. This is a publishing channel for professors with point-of-view books and non-mainstream approaches to course instruction. Universal Publishers (another TAA sponsor) is an example of this model (www.universal-publishers.com) and also publishes dissertations (www.dissertations.com).
- Some independent academic and textbook publishers of self-published works do not charge the author for production and printing, but publish in exchange for distribution rights. BrownWalker Press is an example (www.brownwalker.com). They pay royalties on retail sales and the author does not have to assign copyright. The independents all publish under their own imprints, but some will publish under the author's ISBN if the author has established himself or herself as being in the business of publishing.
- Becoming a publisher (registered as a business) is the most arduous and costly way of self-publishing, but it is a perfect fit for some authors. That's another whole topic and I will be writing more about it. There are also many online open source places to publish professionally in particular fields and as a college instructor, including even free software to develop and run a course or academic portal from your own web site, and I'll have more on this soon.
- IUniverse and Lulu (also past TAA sponsors) are vanity or subsidy presses for print distribution of self-published books. They are not textbook publishers or academic publishers per se, do not offer peer review, and will publish anything given to them. The author pays all the costs of publishing, publicizing, marketing, and distributing the book. These costs are made bearable through print-on-demand, in which the book can be printed off from an electronic file one at a time as it is ordered. The per-unit cost is nevertheless higher than even the pricing of most short-run presses. Comparatively few copies get sold. Most bookstores and libraries as a rule will not stock books self-published through vanity presses. But this alternative, too, is just right for some authors.
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