Re: New book series

[RuthWeiner@aol.com]

I can't resist this one.  The last edition of Vesilind, Peirce, and Weiner 
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING was produced in camera-ready copy by me on my 
Laserjet printer because we wanted to save the students some money, and the 
book indeed sold for less that $60.  My advance for doing this bought me the 
printer, the paper, and a new cartridge, and if I count what was left after 
that and add in the royalties (about $1 per book sold), my hourly rate for 
the PRODUCTION (not counting the writing) is about seventy-five cents.  and 
that's nothing for the agony of tearing my hair out over formatting, margins, 
indexing, typestyle, computer hangups, printer hangups, etc.  At this point I 
don't care if the next edition of the book retails for $150 -- I'm NEVER 
doing that again. (By the way, if that's the retail price, my share as 
co-author is about $6 per book sold.)

Textbook authors do it for (dare I say) love and recognition, not for the 
money.

Ruth Weiner
ruthweiner@aol.com
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