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Just in case you think you could make big $$$ if you prostituted yourself and wrote textbooks:
A few years ago some friends and I wrote a textbook for the pre-Freshman Comp course that we all taught often. It was published by Longman, and now it's in its second edition. We usually get our royalty checks in spring (for fall sales) and fall (spring and summer sales). Last spring we got around $100, since we'd paid royalties out of those sales. So now we get the news that we get nothing in the fall check.* Yet in our school's bookstore alone, the sales of this book so far this year are over $100,000. All of it must go to the bookstore and Longman, and none to us. Presumably we'll get a better deal in the spring check, but still. Are authors completely dispensable? Maybe we could tell them just to publish a third edition without us.
*Actually, there must be some error--we're following up on this. Nothing for summer is believable, but not for spring.
A few years ago some friends and I wrote a textbook for the pre-Freshman Comp course that we all taught often. It was published by Longman, and now it's in its second edition. We usually get our royalty checks in spring (for fall sales) and fall (spring and summer sales). Last spring we got around $100, since we'd paid royalties out of those sales. So now we get the news that we get nothing in the fall check.* Yet in our school's bookstore alone, the sales of this book so far this year are over $100,000. All of it must go to the bookstore and Longman, and none to us. Presumably we'll get a better deal in the spring check, but still. Are authors completely dispensable? Maybe we could tell them just to publish a third edition without us.
*Actually, there must be some error--we're following up on this. Nothing for summer is believable, but not for spring.
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