Friday, July 01, 2011

Big News

So as those of you who read my blog know, I was on leave for the 2010-2011 academic year from PCCC. I am officially back as of today, since today starts the 2011-2012 academic year.

That is not the big news, however.

I told my classes in person last year that one of the things I wanted to do with my year was to work on a manuscript for a textbook. I submitted a sample chapter to a publisher in November, and I hadn't heard anything from them, so I just sort of assumed it wasn't going anywhere. However, I did do some side work for the same publisher, doing some test banks, PowerPoint presentations, and other supplements for some of their textbooks.

I received an email last week from the publisher, wanting to speak with me. They said in effect that I've proven to be an asset with the smaller projects I've worked on, and that they'd like to move me up to a bigger project. The woman who emailed had read my sample chapter, and we've come to terms on a book. Yes, I will be an author!

I'm going to be writing a smaller textbook that they will bundle in upon request from a college. There is a new Office textbook series they are coming out with called "Your Office". I know for their other textbooks, the main Office topics (Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint) are usually sold together as one big textbook (as you see with the 1000 page Go! with Office 2010 text). To allow faculty freedom to teach other topics, they have a series of smaller books they can bundle with it. For example, instead of having a chapter on Windows 7 there, faculty can choose a smaller 96 page Windows 7 book, or get the Windows Vista one instead. If you'd like to additionally teach topics like Internet Explorer, OneNote, Outlook, or one of any number of topics, you can get one of the smaller books bundled in with the main book. My book will be the equivalent for the Your Office series, and the topic is Web 2.0 applications like social networking, blogging, podcasting, and cloud computing. I am still working on finalizing a projected table of contents.

The publisher gave me a link to the marketing materials, and I have to admit, the main series editor and I have a very similar approach to education, and I think this is a great fit for me.

1 comment:

J said...

Hey Prof. C,

Congrats on that new project!!!!

Hope Im one of the first ones reading that book, and also hope there is your signature in it!!!

Go ahead, we all know you can achieve whatever you want. Good luck.

Javier