The economics behind the college text book must be interesting. I've not written any textbooks, so my comments here are based more on assumption than knowledge, but what I but what always intrigued me - whilst a college student, at least - was how authors would release different versions of books and how teachers would require students to buy the most recent version (or whatever version the class was using). I can understand updated versions for cutting edge fields, like biosciences and computer-related topics, but has the knowledge or instruction of introductory level Calculus changed any since Newton and Leibniz's time? And if not, then why does a book like Calculus and Analytic Geometry - a highschool level Calculus book - have nine editions? What has changed so significantly since the eighth edition to warrant a ninth?
As a student, I was always envious of those authors who wrote a new edition. I figured it must be easy money.
- Correct a few typos from the previous edition,
- Replace some of the sample problems,
- Have professors (or school board administrators) require that all students use the most recent version, and
- PROFIT!
Sure, writing the first version might take an inordinate amount of time and energy and effort, thereby rendering the profit per unit time to be less than ideal, but once you got past writing the initial version, each subsequent version had an incredible ROI. Not only that, but with textbooks selling in the $50-$150 range (compared to the $9.95 you pay for the mass market Stephen King novel), those professors must be raking in the dough.
(As an aside, I'd be interested in any insight from authors or publishers or agents who have experience in this niche market. What are the royalties like for professors? Are they in the 10-15% range, like for computer trade authors, or are they higher (or lower)? How many copies does a successful textbook sell? I imagine that writing textbooks is like any other profession - you have a very small handful of extremely successful people - e.g., the authors whose book becomes the de facto standard for teaching a common subject across many universities or high schools and who can profit handsomely from future editions - but the vast majority of textbook authors could have earned more had they worked at a restaurant for those hours they spent their time writing, editing, and reviewing their book. In other words, I assume it's very similar to the field for writing computer trade books, except in computer trade book land, an 'extremely successful' author likely could make more money working a regular 9-5 job in industry than she could writing books full time.)
Despite having authored seven books on ASP and ASP.NET, I haven't really had much opportunity to work on 'second editions.' The challenge with computer technologies is that they change so radically so quickly that the 'second edition' is really about a brand new technology with many new and exciting features that require virtually rewriting the previous edition in its entirety. For example, my first two books were on ASP, my third on ASP.NET. ASP and ASP.NET are two very different technologies, and are different in very fundamental and important ways. I don't think I've seen a single book with a consistent title gracefully move from ASP to ASP.NET.
But what about ASP.NET? We've had five versions of the .NET Framework - 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 - but only three of them had enough difference between them and previous versions to warrant a new edition (namely, version 1.0/1.1 to 2.0 and 2.0 to 3.5). And the changes from 1.x to 2.0 were profound enough that new editions between these versions required many new chapters. Granted, the move from 2.0 to 3.5 was less radical and offered an excellent opportunity for established ASP.NET authors to release a new edition with much less energy and effort than is needed to start a book anew or was required when transitioning from 1.x to 2.0. (I'll have more thoughts on this in a future blog post, when I write about my latest book, Teach Yourself ASP.NET 3.5 in 24 Hours.)
The point of it all is that, at least in the ASP.NET world, writing subsequent editions is not something that is as easy to do as you might imagine. Yes, it's easier than writing a book from scratch, as you already have an outline down and can reuse certain content, but it's not as easy as (I imagine) authors in other fields have it when producing a new edition. This is something to keep in mind if you're deciding whether to start writing computer trade books. If your plan is to write an initial book at an economic loss, but to make up that loss with future editions, chances are you'll need to reevaluate your plan. As I said in my first blog entry on the economics of writing computer trade books, “If your dream is to become a rich man, don't write computer trade books.” :-)