Tag: book

I am now retired, but I still enjoy the beginning of a new semester. Every few days or so I check Amazon to see if anyone has purchased our textbook. Sales are nothing like earlier times when we were selling an expensive paper version through a publishing company, but the present circumstances are more about feeling relevant.

Our transition from big publishing company to self publishing was originally motivated by our interest in a different model for the college textbook. The motive was partially to offer a less expensive textbook (I called it the $29 textbook project), but also to offer a different approach more suited to the content – technology in education. We thought it ironic that our orignal project sought to develop classroom technology integration skills in educators using a book. We wanted both to differentiate the content sources by creating a primer rather than a book for more static information and web content to improve the recency of information and to offer actual demonstrations and examples. We also thought it made more sense for authors to write continuously rather than intensely once every three years. We went back and forth with our publishers for several years and could never get to the point of implementing our project. Book companies see efficiencies in using standardized tools and approaches. For example, they wanted to offer professionally shot and edited videos of a topic such as problem based learning they could use in several of their education books. These videos would not necessarily involve technology. We wanted to offer videos of the problem based activities featuring the teachers who implemented them we used as examples in our book. We wanted to create the opportunity for the educators who adopted our book to share among themselves. For example, we were promoting the idea of an “interactive syllabus” – just a web page serving as a course syllabus and linking to tasks and resources used to augment assigned readings. There is no reason to treat the book authors as the experts when profs and students have their own experiences and tasks that could be shared to our Primer.

Eventually, we agreed our priorities were not compatible and after 5 successful editions we were given full control of the copyright on our book to do with what we wanted.  

So, we became self publishers and have tried to offer a scaled down version of some of our ideas. We went from selling a $140 book receiving royalties (12% on the wholesale value) to a $9 book receiving 70% minus a fee for the download size of the ebook. The one frustration we have is that while we get instructors adopting our book  is limited and while we don’t know for sure the activity associated with our online content seems unrelated to use of the book. For example, one would expect to see content associated with early chapters to be used early in a semester and indicators of this nature. We can only guess at why this is the case because we really don’t have a way to ask the adopting profs as would be the case with the book reps who make contact with profs for the commercial textbook companies. I still think the diversity of resources and a closer link between book and supplemental content are good ideas, but we have found over the years that it can take time for new ideas to be implemented.

This post was precipitated in several ways by the Chronicle of Higher Ed coverage of a South by Southwest session on the “textbook crisis”. The Chronicle piece describes a debate been advocates of commercial textbooks (produced by what used to be called textbook companies) and OER resources. One of the pro-textbook company presents was Cheryl Costantini a Cengage VP (more on why the Cengage presence was of interest to me later).

The Chronicle does a nice job of framing the competing arguments and if you think you support one side or the other I think it worth your while to review the entire set of comments.

I can say that I can see value in both sides of this debate and I have been involved on both sides of the debate. My wife and I authored a textbook on the classroom use of technology (Integrating technology for meaningful learning) for more than 15 years through Houghton-Mifflin and Cengage (Cengage purchased the Houghton-Mifflin higher ed catalog). I now offer a book (Layering for Learning) explaining how K-12 teachers can modify online resources to improve instructional value. I think both commercial and educator designed content can be effective given an understanding of the benefits each approach offers and what each approach demands. The Chronicle piece offers insights into these strengths and weaknesses.

Back to Cengage. Years ago my wife and I were trying to get Cengage to consider a different approach to the commercial textbook – at least our textbook. We had issues with the model of preparing future teachers to use technology in their classrooms with only a textbook and we had issues with the three-year revision cycle that isolated us from our readers for extended periods of time while the information we wanted to convey became stale. We proposed the modification of our book into a Primer at a significantly lower price and a collection of online resources that could be continually updated and used as appropriate to the needs of a given instructor and student interests. We negotiated and explored for a couple of years without agreeing on a final project. We eventually withdrew from our association with Cengage (Cengage did return our copyright) to pursue our model as a Kindle book.

Through the final decade of my academic career I worked on a model of textbook study I called studying for mastery (some might call it adaptive study). I created technology-facilitated study environments intended to support the study of textbooks in large introductory classes and address the metacognitive deficiencies of new students unable to identify specific areas of need. I could make this investment because this was my area of research and I was able to secure some external funding to support the work. I knew what I was working on could not be duplicated by individual college instructors, but the techniques would have been perfect for commercial content providers who could take advantage of the efficiency of scale they could apply (the number of students using a given book across institutions and the value added for individual students given the capacity to spread costs across this large number). This seems to be what commercial content providers have now also figured out.

Being too early to the party is not always an advantage, but there is some satisfaction in seeing the commercial providers begin to catch up.

I just updated our textbook and then explained the reason I decided to update the existing content rather than just republish as a new book. I thought I was doing the right thing by updating our content, but after not seeing the new content in my own Kindle download of our book I investigated. I based my approach on assumptions and did not read the fine print (which follows).

Some examples of corrections that don’t justify sending updates to customers who previously purchased your book are:

• New Content Added: Chapter(s) or page(s) added, deleted or revised; new images added; bonus chapter added.

• Book Plot or Character Changes: Character’s name changed; book ending changed.

• Marketing Information: Links or marketing info added, deleted, or modified.

I did not update to correct errors. I updated because I wanted those who had already made a purchase to get the most current content at no additional cost. I should not have relied on my assumptions. I don’t understand this position. Current content would seem a unique benefit of digital content available via the Internet. Current content is one of the common complaints of those who oppose traditional paper textbooks updated every three years or so. I doubt those with an old edition would repurchase a book and even if they would I should have the opportunity to decide if I think I deserve additional income.

I guess the thing to do at this point is to delete the existing book and publish as a new book.

Our book, Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning, has been updated and is available for Kindle users (or users of the Kindle app). It is difficult to know what to call this edition. We had 5 editions with a commercial publisher and have updated the Kindle version twice since. Our reasons for moving from a commercial textbook publisher to Amazon were complex and we have explained this in a series of posts some years ago. Short version – we wanted to author content not suited to the once every three years textbook model.

Perhaps some thoughts on getting a book into the Amazon environment might be useful to others.

Issue 1 – update or new book

Amazon has a feature I like in books that may involve updates. Updating a book once you have prepared the appropriate files (the preparation is the issue) is trivial. You can change the content of an existing book by uploading the new files and the modified version of the book will appear in 72 hours or less. You might want to do this because you have identified errors that need correction or because it is time to update the content. What we just finished is a major rewrite.

The nice thing about the update is that those who already own the older version can move to the new version at no cost. Here is the problem with updating a book. The publication date on the Amazon site is the original publication date. As an author, you have the opportunity to write a description of your book and could include the date of the most recent update, but this information tends to get buried. The original publication date is prominent. I am concerned because what appears to be a dated book about technology is likely to be ignored.

I am not sure what to do about this. I want those who have already invested in our content to be eligible for the update. I think I will give it a month or so as an update and then I can easily delete the existing book and upload the book again as a new book. I will have to see how things go.

Issue 2 – formatting

Several previous authors of a Kindle book have discovered that formatting a book for the Kindle is quite a task. What you see in your word processing environment is not necessarily what you get in the ebook. These authors have decided their experiences were worth another book and you can purchase multiple Kindle books on preparing a book for the Kindle. My recommendation – these books can be helpful, but the information in this area seems to become dated very quickly.

I found that things kept changing on me and I had to experiment each time. The last time I found what turned out to be a fairly easy approach. I wrote in Google docs. I used Apple Pages to finalize the manuscript and save it in a format I could submit. Apple then updated Pages and removed features I needed. This time I again wrote in Docs, but I had to use both Calibre and Sigil to generate a final product. I should give credit where credit is due and point any interested Kindle author to a YouTube video that explains the process. To be fair, part of my issue has been not using MicroSoft Word, but even Word users have to do some post-production work.

I wish Amazon would invest more in tools for formatting. I am proposing something like iBooks Author. iBooks Author has a lot going for it, but it is simply not flexible in the platforms it supports. I must prepare a textbook learners can use even if they do not own Apple hardware.

I recommend you read a wide-ranging article from Salon (Will Oremus) on the changing focus of the textbook industry.

The article is about a shift from traditional textbooks to individualized content for student learning, but push on one part of the educational environment and all parts move. The article admits that proposed content delivery systems take on some of the traditional roles of the instructor. Hence the title of this post – a phrase from the article – teaching as triage. The article suggests teachers will review the data provided by the instructional system and make decisions – tutoring, small group instruction, etc.

The article uses ALEKS as the primary example of such a system and examines how this system originally developed as a grant project and then commercialized (now McGraw-Hill) works. Including in the analysis is how the publishing, now technology, company attempts to differentiate their commercial product from other services such as the Kahn Academy.

I wonder what most practicing teachers know about such systems. Most of us have little personal experience. I have used Lynda.com heavily and completed some required professional development instructionals required by my university, but this is different from being a participant or instructor for a full-length course. I wonder if this is not part of the challenge. How do you provide the personal experiences necessary to secure buy-in when the model obviously requires different behaviors than one has experienced.

The recommendation I make is that educators take the time to work their way through a Kahn Academy experience that requires they function as a learner. For many, this might be a topic such as programming. I also believe large school districts need to be open to public charter or magnet schools based on what is probably best described as a “hybrid” model. You will not see this experimentation in smaller district, but fully functioning examples open to visitation will likely be necessary to encourage broad change.