How to Write Textbooks

Most textbooks are written by experts in their field. Accounting professionals and professors write accounting textbooks, archivists and professors write history textbooks, and math professors and high school teachers write math textbooks. Breaking into textbook publishing can be very challenging, but there are ways to crack into the business and be a textbook author. Learn how to write textbooks and boost your career.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer
• Access to a university library
• Contacts in the publishing industry

How to Write Textbooks

1. Contact a textbook publisher's sales representative and ask him/her if they can help you to do some contract work with their publishing company. Most sales representatives are willing to pass on your resume to editors and contract firms that work on publishing projects.

2. Get a small publishing contract. Test writing or companion website text writing are the two most common entry-level projects to work on.

3. Publish an article in a professional journal or a reference book. This sounds harder than it is; many large publishers, such as Thomson Gale or Pearson, hire subcontractors to help with reference books. Once you have a few writing credits, go on to Step 4.

4. Draw up your textbook proposal. Include a 3-level deep outline of the entire textbook. Write the introduction and the first three chapters. Describe who will collaborate, which sources you will use, and which graphics or images you will need. Compare your textbook to existing textbooks on the market, and explain why yours stands out.

5. Submit your proposal to at least three textbook publishers that publish textbooks in your field. Wait six to eight weeks, and follow up if you have not heard back.

Tips & Warnings

• The more published clips you have, the better. Work on writing for a variety of journals and reference books before you send out proposals. Publishers are more likely to invest in your project if you have a track record.