How to Negotiate a Book Contract

The ins and outs of getting your book published.

Part of my learning portfolio of books that I wrote or edited.

If you are a grad student, assistant professor, or young researcher, you may be thinking of writing a book. There are many good reasons to do so and there are many rewards if you do a good job, but there is also a lot of hard work.

There’s an old belief that the best way to learn something is to teach it, with the related belief that writing it is even better. I agree and have found that putting my thoughts down on paper forces me to think much more deeply about the contents, especially if I can imagine the mind of the newcomer who is interested in the topic.

So that’s my encouragement to write a book, but this essay is about how to negotiate a book contract, which is an art in itself. I’ve done it at least 20 times so I have some experience, but things are changing fast, so you may have to invent your own methods. A textbook could be a big success, but there is probably a lot of competition for the large introductory course textbooks. A research book is likely to be designed to make a point that is longer than what you can do in a typical academic paper. Edited collections are a common category, in which you get others to write chapters, then work to improve quality and consistency in style. Chapter authors for edited books rarely get paid, but the book editor who coordinates the chapter…