Royalties from scholarly textbooks

mdin · Mar 10, 2009

I have a character who is a retired college professor, and I need to know how the royalties work for someone who has a collegiate textbook out there that's still being used regularly.

This isn't a major plot point by any means, but I want to make sure I know how this works.

It's a calculus textbook, and she's currently working on a new edition even though she feels it doesn't really need a new edition.

So my question is, do textbooks from commercial textbook publishers have similar royalty structures as mainstream non-fiction? Would she get an advance, write the book, have it published, and then start collecting royalties after she earns out?

Thanks in advance.

Deleted member 42 · Mar 10, 2009

Pretty much, but if the textbook is adapted at even a handful of schools, you earn out pretty quickly. If it's a standard text--intro texts are best, actually--and widely adopted you can make very very nice money on the royalties.

Palmfrond · Mar 10, 2009

Medievalist said:
Pretty much, but if the textbook is adapted at even a handful of schools, you earn out pretty quickly. If it's a standard text--intro texts are best, actually--and widely adopted you can make very very nice money on the royalties.

True, but most textbooks languish in the hands of a few graduate students and the authors get only glory (and tenure, if all goes well).

veinglory · Mar 10, 2009

As already mentioned, you want to write an undergrad text and get it adopted widely. Then you can really make out. Otherwise, not so much.

Deleted member 42 · Mar 10, 2009

Palmfrond said:
True, but most textbooks languish in the hands of a few graduate students and the authors get only glory (and tenure, if all goes well).

Well, no, actually. Most textbooks are published for the undergrad market; there are far far fewer for grad students. Ideally, you want a text book that's used for G.E. requirements, and that will be adopted large lecture classes, or a class like English Comp that everyone, pretty much, has to take at some level. There's a reason the market is flooded with textbooks for English comp and intro to lit classes, while the sophomore survey courses are dominated by three publishers in North America and the U.K.

The exceptions are M.D. and J.D. degrees--where a text book can be killer in terms of royalties.

mdin · Mar 11, 2009

Thank you very much everybody for your replies.

I remember in college we all used to bitch and moan about having to spend $50 on the professor's own textbook. I had a sociology class once where we had to buy seven or eight books, and three of them were the professor's. I don't think I cracked two of them.

Deleted member 42 · Mar 11, 2009

XThe NavigatorX said:
Thank you very much everybody for your replies.

I remember in college we all used to bitch and moan about having to spend $50 on the professor's own textbook. I had a sociology class once where we had to buy seven or eight books, and three of them were the professor's. I don't think I cracked two of them.

Yeah, that's really frowned upon unless the text really is appropriate. A number of schools have formal written guidelines regarding text book selection.

mdin · Mar 11, 2009

Heh. Tell that to the Sociology department at the University of Arizona. This was Soc 101, too, so the class was in an arena.

veinglory · Mar 11, 2009

And at the same time I have heard similar complaints when the professor was a world expert, the course was on his specialist topic, and his book was the most recent and thorough text on that subject and it was the only text used for that course. It seems logical that a person would use their own book under those circumstances.

Royalties from scholarly textbooks

mdin

The late, the great XThe NavigatorX

Deleted member 42

Palmfrond

cereal killer

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Deleted member 42

mdin

The late, the great XThe NavigatorX

Deleted member 42

mdin

The late, the great XThe NavigatorX

veinglory

volitare nequeo