How to Write a Preface for a Health Care Textbook

For a health care textbook author the preface serves a critical function, to introduce the reader to all the wonderful features of the book.

Most first-time authors struggle with this, as do some experienced authors. So here's a rundown on how to put a preface together for a health care textbook.

What is a preface?

A preface is a clear, compelling, almost promotional description of the book and its features, including and especially its ancillaries, such as an instructor's resource, PowerPoints, test banks, and so forth. It's your time to talk directly to the reader about what your book is and why it's the best thing since Cinnabon came up with those sticks. Are you kidding me? OMG, soooo good.

But I digress.

Who Is the Reader?

For a textbook, one that gets adopted (meaning required for students to purchase), the reader might be the student or, in many cases, the instructor.

That's a rather odd thing for a textbook author to get hold of. On the one hand, you have to write the preface for the student, because that's who's going to read your book. On the other hand, you have to address the instructor who's considering adopting the book, because if you can't sell her (yes, her this time) on the book, the students will never see the preface in the first place.

So write to the student but for the instructor.

What Should Be Included?

Start by looking at the preface in textbooks similar to yours. What do they include? How are they structured? What is the tone like?

Then write your version of what you've seen.

An author-friend of mine, Marilyn "Winkie" Fordney, who writes for another publishing company — a fact which I don't against her (ain't I nice?) — wrote a great preface for the 12th edition of her book, Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office. It's clear, well-structured, and covers all the main features.of her book.

She starts with a Welcome, which shows a bit of her wonderful personality. Then she describes the purpose of the book with these subheads:

• Why Is This Book Important to the Profession?
• Who Will Benefit From This Book?

Then she gets into the content, outlining the general features, special icons and sidebars, how the book is organized, and what ancillaries are available — what they are, where they are, and who they're for. Then she summarizes everything that can help a student succeed with her book.

That's a nice approach.

Why the Preface Is a Marketing Tool

The preface to a health care textbook is more than a description of the book, it's one of the key tools a sales representative will use to sell the book. They'll open the book with a potential adopter and go through the feature set.

Visuals are important, here, so make sure you indicate in the manuscript for your preface which illustrations or photos make sense to include. Icons especially are important.

If your book follows an association's standards or guidelines, or if the content conforms to an accrediting body's standards, make sure you describe how in detail. Potential adopters will want to know.

Overall, take your time with the preface and enjoy it. I think you'll find it one of the more enjoyable items you'll ever have to write.

Why Textbook Authors Should Also Be Textbook Marketers

An author of mine, the wonderful Arlene Muller, is fast becoming a marketer extraordinaire, and I couldn't be happier.

Arlene's book

Arlene writes How to Survive and Maybe Even Love Health Professions School: Retention And Career Placement Guide, a guide to success in health professions school. She also operates a service called Retention Specialist Today, which provides consulting services to schools that want to increase the rate of retention among their students.

Arlene is always thinking about ways to market her book. She promotes it whenever she speaks to school faculty and administrators. She calls me to suggest ways to help our marketing department better promote her book. She sends potential leads to us so our reps and customer service staff can follow-up and close the sale.

She wants her book to succeed and believes 100 percent that it will, but not just that. It's the drive she has to make sure her book succeeds and the time she spends working every marketing angle available to her.

I wish more authors did that. I wish more authors spoke at their professional conventions, created and maintained an author page on Amazon, blogged on topics related to their book, and overall pushed their book in every avenue available to them.

Marketing a textbook is a full-time, team-based job, and the more everyone works together, the more books we'll sell and the more students we'll help.

And that's the name of that tune, June.

Er, Arlene.

A Look at an Editorial Board Meeting

I talk with authors a lot about what we at F.A. Davis call the Editorial Board, or Ed Board for short. All healthcare textbook publishers have a similar group of individuals responsible for approving, tabling for further adjustments, or rejecting product proposals.

I thought I'd take this opportunity, snowbound at home as I am, to provide a bit of insight into what goes on at a typical Ed Board meeting. Because that's where your project will first gain its wings.

Let's take a look.

About the Board

Our Ed Board, like others, generally meets once a month. We acquisitions editors (or sponsoring editors, publishers, or whatever) present new projects for discussion. We also present updates of projects passing through the editorial/development/production pipeline. Other business takes place there too, but let's focus on the presentation of new projects, whether they're new or being revised.

We present projects to a selected group of people, including members of the Sales, Marketing, Finance, Production, and Administrative departments, as well as assorted other individuals. At F.A. Davis our president, Rob Craven, attends. That's important because it allows us to have the final decision-maker present, giving us flexibility to move quickly on "hot" projects.

Everyone sits around a large table, and when everyone is seated, the meeting begins. Let's say I'm the first one on the agenda and I'm presenting a new book called, oh, I don't know, Essentials of Snow Shoveling for Health Professionals. Quite a good title, don't you think?

What happens

In presenting this sure-to-be bestselling book, I may discuss these or other topics:

• Overall vision of the book


• Overview of author or author team


• Reviewer comments about proposal


• Specific markets book will target


• Approximate size of intended markets


• Specific courses or curricular content book will fit


• Estimate of sales for each year of product's life of title (number of years until new edition is published, often 4 or 5 years)


• Other pertinent financials

People around the table may ask questions, add market information, comment about the book's sales potential or feature set, explore the plan for electronic assets, or anything else about the project to help the decision-makers, and ultimately Rob, better understand the product and whether we should publish it.

I may field questions about specific slices of a particular market, such as, "What percentage, do you think, of snow shovelers are health professionals?" or "Are there regional differences in how health professionals shovel snow?" or "Will all snow shovelers be interested or only those with bad backs?"

I then answer each question in turn: "About 15 percent," "There are many more snow shovelers in the Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest than other areas," and "Of course everyone will be interested, but bad backers probably represent about ¾ of the market."

Pretty good answers, huh?

Possible outcomes

After all the preparations, discussions, comments, and questions there are basically three possible outcomes. The project may be:

1. Approved (or approved to go to a higher decision-maker, depending on the company).


2. Tabled until more information is gathered or the proposal is otherwise adjusted and then brought back before the Board.


3. Rejected.

Best-case scenario, and what we all work hard for, is outcome #1, an approval. We certainly accept tabling a proposal because at least the project isn't dead. We just have to rework this or that, and then eventually — probably — we'll get an approval.

We generally hate rejections, but we know that hey, it's a business, sometimes that's just the way it goes.

After the meeting I'll call the author and explain what happened and what the next steps are. If it's an approval, it's away we go!

So when your acquisitions person is preparing for Ed Board, or whatever the decision-making body at that publisher is called, be kind. He (or, you know, she) is working hard on your behalf. We put ourselves and our reputation on the line for every book we bring before the Board. We want to succeed, just as we want your book to succeed.

So let us go forth from this day forward, within an Ed Board and without, to shovel the bejeebers out of this snow!