This is an interesting post coming shortly after information indicating that California is seriously considering moving away from hard copy textbooks for K12. As a textbook author, I have posted frequently on this topic on my other blog. As a writer, some of the claims made by Godin seem strange. It may be true that there is some textbook author somewhere who has made enough to build a $20 million dollar house. There are also a couple of high school kids who have started Internet companies or made it to the NBA. If you earn 12-14% of the price before markup by the reseller on the first sale of your book, how many calculus books would you have to sell to pay for a $20 million dollar house? Has this individual cornered the entire market? I have found the book business to be extremely competitive – you find yourself in competition with other authors competing to write whatever number of books the company you work with decides to sell and then if your book is selected you compete with all of the other books published by the other companies. If you can make millions, you have somehow done a remarkable job. I am willing to say if you make more than you would make teaching summer school you have done far better than most.
As far as the content of textbooks goes, we write because we think we have unique ideas. It is something like a contractor building a spec house – you invest many months of your life in a project you believe in with no guarantee. I have written three books and I received an advance (can’t remember now if it was $3000 or $5000) for the first one only. Anyone who thinks this is an easy or glamorous business is certainly free to put in a proposal. I am thinking it is pretty easy to complain as an outsider. As far as quality goes – if you have a great idea and can remedy the faults of existing products, it should be an easy matter to convince a publisher to let you spend a year giving it a shot.
Any professor of intro marketing who is assigning a basic old-school textbook is guilty of theft or laziness.
Now there is an interesting statement – inflammatory, naive – hard to know. The web is a great place to publish, but a web post now and then is not the same as having the vision and commitment to develop and implement a plan to create the resources necessary for a final course. I have a great deal of admiration for those who generate such works without compensation or support from their institutions (see mine at Meaningful Learning and the Participatory Web). I don’t have much respect for complainers who offer their insights but no educational products.
