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COLLEGE ROYALTY CLAIMS
May 16, 2002
| SUMMARYColleges that are laying claim to a share of the royalties earned by their faculty-authors are making a mistake. Taking authoring royalties discourages the writing that fuels better teaching. A college should be pleased enough to be associated with authors whose work passes double-blind peer reviewing and wins acceptance in the marketplace. |
By John Vivian
Every so often, the idea is hatched anew that a college deserves a share of the royalty income earned by professors who write textbooks. It's a bad idea, based on the dubious premise that writing a textbook somehow can be separated from teaching.
I look back at my own experience. For almost 20 years, before writing a textbook, I taught a freshman survey course. Student feedback was positive, and I felt I was doing a good job. In time I decided to draw on my lecture notes to write a textbook.
What an eye-opener!
My notes, although expanded and freshened up all the time over the years, were insufficient when put to the test of writing a comprehensive, coherent textbook. It had been possible in lectures, I later realized, to gloss over areas in which my background was modest, as is almost always the case in anybody's survey course. I had to bone up significantly to write some chapters.
Today, when I dip into my files for concepts and examples for lectures, I draw more and more on my research from writing the book and updating new editions. The result is teaching that is better informed because of my on-going work on the textbook.
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The Society of Academic Authors invites members to comment on authoring issues:
editor@sa2.info. |
Vivian's textbooks include The Media of Mass Communication, which entered in sixth edition in 2002. He teaches at Winona State University in Minnesota. He is the founder of the Society of Academic Authors.
This article has appeared earlier elsewhere. |
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Had I not written the book, I would still be teaching -- albeit not as well, but without any sense at all that I might by short-changing the students. The students would be as satisfied with my teaching as before I started expanding my lecture notes into a textbook.
College administrators need to ask themselves this question when considering a policy to demand a royalty cut:Shouldn't a college encourage faculty activities that strengthen teaching?
Confiscating royalties discourages faculty members from writing textbooks by reducing the financial incentive. That works against better teaching.
As I see it, a line is impossible to draw between preparing lectures and writing a textbook. They're inexorably intertwined. If a college supports one, it must, to be consistent, support the other. How can anyone separate the part of my expenses that contribute to my lectures and the part that contributes to my textbook? To which should be assigned journal subscriptions? Telephone calls? Postage? Convention registrations?
In fact, many colleges are parsimonious with expenses. My checkbook shows I spend many multiples more than my college toward conventions, subscriptions and other necessities of my teaching -- and my writing. In effect, I'm subsidizing the college to keep my teaching current and better.
My textbook contributes to my teaching in other ways. The publisher submits my manuscript to double-blind reviewing, which adds an important new dimension to the quality not only of the book but also of my teaching. No less important are contributions from the supervising editor, the copy editor and even the sales reps, who pass on information from adopters nationwide on what works and what doesn't. In effect, the publisher is subsidizing my college to improve my teaching.
The argument that textbook authors should surrender some, even all, of their royalty income is an appeal to the "filthy lucre" ethic that clutters a lot of dialogue. The fact is that generally there isn't that much lucre. A typical textbook earns the author less than $3,000 over a five-year or longer period. True, I know some millionaire authors, but, for most of us, authoring is no route to a fortune. For a college to go after a cut is pecking at already bare bones -- and, in the process, discouraging authoring.
Does a college deserve some benefit from the work of its faculty? Yes. Just as quality teaching contributes to a college's reputation, so do quality textbooks written by the faculty. The publisher's review process creates external documentation of a book's and an author's pedagogical excellence. For the title page to note that you are with your college should be enough.
So is there a case for a college to cash in on author royalties?
Some people see a conflict of interest when authors use college time, infrastructure and equipment for work that earns them outside income. It's the filthy lucre bane again, which focuses on discouraging activities that carry perceptions, no matter how flawed, of wrong-doing. These would-be ethicists, infatuated with addressing perceptions rather than realities, have an easy answer: "Don't." Don't write on campus time. Don't talk to your publisher on a university phone. Don't use the college library for research. Don't use the lessons from your teaching to make a better book. It's a simplistic refrain: Don't. Don't. Don't.
The consequence of easy "don't" answers can be tragic -- a diminished incentive for faculty members to improve their teaching through the textbook-writing process. That's the real ethics issue.
Yes, yes, there also can be legal issues. In its myopic obsession for black-and-white, one-size-fits-all answers, the Internal Revenue Service prefers a clear division between what you do at home and what you do elsewhere, especially if you're seeking a home office deduction. You need to make your own decision on what's prudent in dealing with the tax implications of your writing, but that's hardly an ethics issue.
As an ethics issue, the rightness or wrongness of a college claim an author's royalties goes to the nature of the academy. If colleges are, indeed, institutions to encourage learning, then, by their nature, they must strive to fulfill their purpose. This includes nurturing and promoting good teaching. Textbook authoring, by its nature, is a contribution to good teaching. For a college to confiscate an author's royalties is to deny its nature as a teaching institution and make it something quite different.
None of this is to say that some textbook authors might abuse the privilege of the professoriate. Excessive time on writing that cuts into lecture prep or committee work, for example, is a legitimate ethics issue that must be dealt with. But the answer is not a cookie-cutter formula that discourages authoring in general and denies students the edge that comes from classes taught by professor-authors.
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