Anyway, my colleague and friend Jeff Schnick has recently published an introductory physics textbook under the Creative Commons License and has come up with his own simple but ingenious marketing system - he’s arranged it so that the book’s website is among the top two or three hits (usually number one) when someone googles “calculus-based physics.”

I find the cost of books, particularly academic and research books, to be outrageous. A nice used copy of JJ Sakurai’s text on modern QM, for example, might cost you $90. The problem stems from a) too many glossy, full-color pages in some texts (though not in Sakurai which is black-and-white), b) few paperback editions, and c) corporate greed (don’t even get me started on journals).

Personally, I like Cambridge University Press and have noticed more people choosing to publish through them. Most of their books are available in paperback and their paperback editions hold up better than some hardbacks from other publishers. My only complaint is the low quality of photos in some reprints (e.g. Moore’s bio of Schrödinger).

No responses so far, but I agree that they might not have definite policies, so they might not want to make a statement at this level of generality. Also, I suspect they might either ignore me or pass me off to their PR people, since I said I might quote their responses on this blog. I can always follow up on this at the March meeting if I get no responses.

As for book projects, it’s a bit early to say anything definite, but it will be a topic of a future blog post.

I’m looking forward to hearing from them, but I suspect that many of them might not have definite policies on some of these issues, working on a case-by-case basis. I was curious about the same things, as I have just published a short book on quantum computing (in Portuguese).
What book projects have you been thinking about?
Cheers,
Ernesto.