Wednesday, June 13, 2001
To Write, or Not to Write?
Of late I've been contemplating the book contract I recently received from Scarecrow Press. I pitched the idea of writing a college-level textbook on creating Web sites. I certainly know the material, and feel confident about writing the information down in textbook format (i.e. lots of examples and good review questions at the end). The initial contract I got from them came without an advance. I questioned this, and they said that they would in fact throw in an advance in the next contract. Several weeks later I get the contract. I read the bit about the advance, and it turns out I get half upon completion of writing the book, and the other half when published. This arrangement is not what I would call an advance, and it certainly isn't the arrangement I've had with other publishers, which provide seed money up front. I guess Scarecrow is protecting itself, but it left something of a bad taste in my mouth, as it wasn't what I had asked for (and the fee for writing the book as a whole is significantly less than I have received from other publishers). So, I've been dragging my heels, and have yet to sign the new contract.
So yesterday, I get an email from my editorial contact at Prentice Hall, who published my last book, Core CSS. They want me to do a technical review of some chapters for a new book they are planning that containing significant CSS content. Turns out that they also are thinking of doing more with it. From the email:
Of late I've been contemplating the book contract I recently received from Scarecrow Press. I pitched the idea of writing a college-level textbook on creating Web sites. I certainly know the material, and feel confident about writing the information down in textbook format (i.e. lots of examples and good review questions at the end). The initial contract I got from them came without an advance. I questioned this, and they said that they would in fact throw in an advance in the next contract. Several weeks later I get the contract. I read the bit about the advance, and it turns out I get half upon completion of writing the book, and the other half when published. This arrangement is not what I would call an advance, and it certainly isn't the arrangement I've had with other publishers, which provide seed money up front. I guess Scarecrow is protecting itself, but it left something of a bad taste in my mouth, as it wasn't what I had asked for (and the fee for writing the book as a whole is significantly less than I have received from other publishers). So, I've been dragging my heels, and have yet to sign the new contract.
So yesterday, I get an email from my editorial contact at Prentice Hall, who published my last book, Core CSS. They want me to do a technical review of some chapters for a new book they are planning that containing significant CSS content. Turns out that they also are thinking of doing more with it. From the email:
Meanwhile, we should talk about Core CSS. Among other things, the editor here who handles multimedia products is thinking about a video/cbt product based on the book. Let me know if you're interested.Yes, definitely interested! as I wrote back to him. Talk about synchronicity. Am afraid I have to admit to not knowing what "cbt" stands for, though my guess would be that it is a video CD-ROM package, perhaps interactive. I also found out that the book has pretty much sold out its print run of 8,000 copies, so it may also be timely to do an update. (This is useful to me for another reason -- print runs which do not get sold are charged against my royalties, so a large backlog of unsold books = less royalties for me). So, am waiting to see what happens. Plan on telling my contact at Scarecrow either way by week's end, though I am leaning against doing the book for them -- at least for now.
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