Why Textbook Publishers Don't Give Answer Keys to Students

If you've ever looked through the comment section on Amazon for health care textbooks, you've probably run across comments such as this one, from "Marty," about a medical coding book she had purchased.

"This book does not contain answers to any of the in-text exercises nor to any of the end-of-chapter exercises. If your goal is to study medical coding in a self-reliant manner, forget about this text. Unless you are formally enrolled in a course in which this is a required text, I would NOT recommend this book. You would have to depend on the teacher for more than just solutions to the exercises in this book."

Let me try to explain why publishers might decide not to provide an answer key in a textbook.

Limited options

For answer keys, publishers and authors basically have three options:

1. We can make all answers available to everyone
2. We can make all answers available to only to instructors.
3. We can make some answers available to everyone and the rest available only to instructors.

Before we decide on an option we need to decide whether we want the exercises in the book to be used primarily as a teaching tool or a learning tool. If we want the exercises to be used as a teaching tool, we'll leave the answer key in the hands of the instructor only, so they can used for quizzes and tests. Students won't see the answers unless the instructor decides to show them.

If we want the exercises to be used primarily as a learning tool, we'll include some or all of the answers in the textbook. That way students can evaluate their own work.

Analyzing the options

Publishers and authors struggle with those options all the time. If we make all answers freely available, most instructors don't like it because it eliminates their influence on the student's learning and also because students can go right to the answer key and not think about the exercises.

If we make answers available only to instructors who have adopted the book for their course, students don't like it because they can't readily check their work, they have to go back to the instructors.

It's a Catch-22 situation, really, and we just make the best decision we can for each particular book in each particular market.

One more note...

Now, for those readers like Marty, who wanted to learn medical coding but who aren't enrolled in that program, quityerbitchin'. You're purchasing a textbook, not a novel. Textbooks are designed to be used in educational institutions. They're not designed to be used by the lay public. So don't slam the publisher or author for those instances in which answer keys aren't included in the book.

And if you call the publisher to get a copy of the answer key and the publisher says no, that answer keys are for instructors who adopt the book, then maybe you should consider enrolling in an actual health care program. Maybe you shouldn't be trying to learn, say, medical coding on your own, eh?

10 Qualities of a Successful Textbook Author-Publisher Relationship

I've written before about what makes for a successful textbook author, and wanted now to talk about what makes for a successful textbook author-publisher relationship.

In my view, successful author-publisher relationships are those in which both sides:

1. Are deeply devoted to producing the best possible product for the market, not necessarily the highest moneymaker possible.
2. Stay focused on the people they're invested in —  the student.
3. Work together to develop a clear vision of how they can make a better book.
4. Communicate with each other openly, honestly, and professionally.
5. And regularly. Not haphazardly, but according to a mutually agreeable schedule.
6. Are always thinking of ways to improve and promote the book.
7. Bring their most reasoned and compromising self to the table.
8. Help keep each other on task.
9. Make each other a priority in their daily schedule.
10. Share a laugh and a good, stiff drink once in a while.

But that's just me.

3 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the High Cost of Textbooks

Man, are textbook publishers getting a bad rap nowadays, or what?

There's even something now called the Textbook Rebellion Cross-Country Tour, and no, I'm not giving you the link to the tour, you'll have to find it yourself. The "tour" features two so-called mascots: "Mr. $200 Textbook and Textbook Rebel," according to a Flat World Knowledge press release, "in spectacular larger-than-life costumes, who will help local volunteers distribute cost-saving tips and collect petition signatures."

Seriously? I mean, look at this:



A SpongeBob wannabe being chased around campus by a snarky smoker in a bad suit? And the snark is supposed to be a publisher? Grrrr.

Yes, I'm a little peeved at the moment.

The main issue, of course, is the rising cost of college textbooks. I understand that, I really do, and yes, some publishers are jacking up their prices unnecessarily. I wish they wouldn't, but they do.

The rest of us, though, are getting a bum rap, and here are three reasons why.

Reason #1: The "Just Gotta Have It" syndrome

Years ago, before e-mail, the internet, and iMacs, before Amazon, e-books, and even Angry Birds Halloween, there was a time when textbooks came with nothing for faculty but an instructor's guide. In it you got some lecture notes, quizzes, tests, and maybe even a few classroom activities.

Today, if a publisher even thinks about offering just a measly instructor's guide with a textbook, nothing else, we would get run out of Dodge on a hardcover rail. Today faculty just gotta have at least:

• Full set of lecture notes in PowerPoint format, one or more PowerPoints for each chapter


• Instructor's guide, yes, but with dozens of classroom activities; various syllabi for an 8-week, 10-week, 12-week, 15-week, 18-week, heck, even a 23.7-week course; even more test items, and don't you dare repeat the test items in the electronic test bank, they all have to be different; images for coloring, step-by-step guidance for teaching every piece of information in every chapter; indexes that coordinate every piece of information with every other piece of information in all the various ancillaries


• Electronic test bank with a lot of test items, a real lot, hundreds—no, make that thousands of 'em, more than any instructor could ever dream of using, because, after all, it's about the numbers


• Interactive software—not that students ever actually use the software, it just needs to be available, is all


• More, more, and more, stuff we don't even know about yet—yes, we want that too.

Some publishers have started to charge for some of those ancillaries, but most of us still give them away as an incentive for faculty to adopt our books. And because we've always given them away (I'm smacking my head with my hand, now, can you see?), faculty expect they'll always be free. And know what? They probably always will be.

Reason #2: Increasing costs

With faculty demanding more and more content, publishers have to find ways to get that content in a cost-efficient manner. Authors at one time had to write all of their own ancillaries—test banks, PowerPoints, and so forth.

More and more, though, publishers are finding that they can't burden their authors that way, that they need more content than can reasonably be expected from the authors (who have already written an entire textbook, by the way) in the time frame they need it in. So we turn to outside vendors.

Fees for writing, say, 750 test items can run in the $15,000–$25,000 range. Do you know how many books we would have to sell to make that money back? A boatload.

A big boatload.

A big, honking, lumbering barge of a boatload.

And software? We're talking $50,000 and up to develop some fairly straightforward activities.

Video? Everybody wants video, how cool. We're at, what, somewhere in the $1,000–$1,500 range for finished video per minute, sometimes even more.

Whether we charge for these items doesn't matter, the costs have to be borne somewhere, and in the end, that somewhere is the student.

Reason #3: It's health care, after all

Don't get me wrong, I get as steamed as the next guy about, say, college history books costing exponentially more each new edition when history hasn't changed all that much since, well, since it was made.

So for publishers who play that game, just slapping a new cover on an old book and then charging $30 more per unit for the "revised" version, I say let 'em have it. SpongeBob yourself senseless.

But in health care the content changes all the time. New procedures, new drugs, new philosophies, even. All of that new stuff needs to find its way into our books.

So when we revise a book, our authors have to make sure all their content is fully up-to-date. That takes time and effort, and I think authors and publishers ought to be compensated accordingly. We do that in part through price increases. Not big ones, but increases nonetheless.

So if you happen to see a publisher-type with a ginormous head and a cigarette hanging out of his sneering mouth, chasing around a lumpy sponge with a bullhorn and an ugly belt, tell them I said to go home. Some of us publishers don't need no stinkin' rebellion.

5 Tips for Writing a Great Lead for a Textbook Proposal

The lead for a proposal should whack the editor upside the head with how great the book will be.

That's right, I said, "whack."

Too often I see proposal leads that sit there like a plain burger on a bun, when really, I should be seeing a burger congested with condiments.

Follow these five tips for making your proposal look yummy. (Hmm, I must be hungry.)

1. Make the first sentence shine

That first sentence is important. It tells the editor right away whether you know what you're doing. Be clear. Be focused. Get to the point.

Here are a few examples of solid lead sentences:

• This book is meant to build on the quality and reputation of the current series of Notes books, as it applies to the medical student and junior resident interested in Dermatology. [Tells me immediately what the book is and where it fits.]


• On a daily basis, medical office personnel at all levels in the health-care profession may come in contact with some form of medication. [Tells me why the content is important.]


• The purpose of the proposed book is to serve as a clinical tool for medical assisting students through their clinical courses as well as their externship and employment in the medical setting. [Gives me a sense of the breadth of the market.]

I'd rather see more active verbs used in these example, but each one gets to the point quickly and helps draw me in. Speaking of active verbs…

2. Use active verbs

I can't say this enough. Active verbs pull the reader into the content and keep him going. Use them!

Instead of "This book will be used by medical assistant students to…," write "Medical assistants need this book to…"

Instead of "The goal of this text is to…," write "This book will provide…"

Instead of "The foundations of practice will be covered in the first chapter," write "The first chapter covers the foundations of practice."

See the difference?

3. Indicate the market

Describe in that first paragraph the specific markets the book will aim for. Don't say, "All healthcare professionals—doctors, nurses, even medical assistants!—will want to buy this book."

Not even Stephen King's books sell to everyone. His book sell to people who enjoy reading scary novels. People who enjoy biographies, say, might not find his books particularly compelling.

Your book will be the same way. It won't meet everyone's needs. It can't.

Ask yourself, If I could describe the perfect reader of my book, what would he or she look like? If the person would be a physician assistant, that's your main market.

4. Point out the academic level you're planning to reach

Many textbooks aim to reach entry-level students. The titles of these books typically include such indicator words as basic, fundamental, essentials, or some such. Same with texts geared for more advanced markets.

You may not include one of those indicator words in your proposed book title, but you should point out in the lead which level your book will hit or at what point in the academic cycle it will be used in.

5. Explain how your approach differs from others'

You may be thinking about writing a textbook because you believe that what's out there already doesn't meet your needs. You have something to say, a unique or interesting approach to teaching the content.

Explain that approach in tight, concise terms.

It's harder than it seems. That's why I ask potential authors to provide a vision statement for their book.

I explain vision statements as a modified version of what you would tell someone about your book if you were on an elevator and had only 5 or 6 floors to explain. The best vision statements communicate the author's rationale and philosophy and declare a promise of benefits to the reader.

You may want to craft a vision statement first and then put into the lead the "meat" of that statement.

OMG, I said "meat."'

I must be starving! Time for lunch.

Will the iPad and Kindle Kill Traditional Textbooks?

TONS of news lately on the new Apple iPad and Kindle's response to it.Some people are wondering whether traditional textbooks will be dead soon.

A blog on the British Medical Journal Group Blog asks whether recent technologies will kill off medical textbooks on paper. The blogger, Harry Brown, takes the position that yes, they will indeed kill paper texts and probably in the not so distant future.

Me, I'm not so sure.

I absolutely believe that the iPad, Kindle DX, and lots of other technologies are changing the way people buy and use clinical content, and I LOVE it. These technologies offer many features that print-on-paper (POP) products simply can't.

Yet there's something about paper, something about holding a book, about writing in the margins and highlighting key passages that make traditional textbooks important learning tools. We've seen attempts at schools going all-electronic falter because the students found the devices (the Kindle DX at Syracuse University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison) too cumbersome, especially for bookmarking, highlighting, and taking notes.

Certainly the technologies will improve and e-books will find a place in education. Absolutely. Bet the farm on it.

But they will not universally replace books just as television didn't universally replace radio, the internet didn't universally replace TV, and so on.

These devices present another option for the user, and for some applications in education, they'll make perfect sense. For others, they'll fall far short.

Same with POP products. They just don't make sense for certain pedagogical applications anymore, which is one of the reasons why all of us textbook publishers are scrambling to provide electronic ancillaries, to supplement the books with what they can't do very well, things like interactivity, rapid searchability, that kind of thing.

That doesn't mean technology will kill textbooks, it just means that the way we develop and present textbooks, and the way we link them with technology, will change. It HAS to change, the market is demanding it.

And we'll do it, we'll change. Actually we already are, and we'll continue to adapt to the technologies and we'll continue to sell paper textbooks because they offer things e-books can't.

More on that to come…