The question I am asking concerns publishing and not mathematics in a strict sense, the argument might be off-topic for this site… but I will try anyway.
Suppose that you are writing a textbook in advanced mathematics, say a book for mature undergraduates or graduate students. Suppose that:
-
You write everything using Creative commons, possibly in its most liberal version, which allows people to copy and rewrite your text, and maybe even to use it for commercial purposes!
-
As a consequence of the CC license, your text will certainly be freely available on the web. Nevertheless, you want to publish the book at some reasonable price, say 20$. You presume that a student is willing to pay a reasonable price for a hard copy even if it is freely available on the net.
What would you do? Is there any standard publisher in the mathematical community who would publish your book?
Further on, you might also realise that you are doing all the job (writing and formatting), and that you actually don't really need a publisher at all … would you consider self-publishing?
Best Answer
There seem good advantages in POD (Print On Demand) publishing. I discuss some issues in POD at http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~mas010/orderbook.html
I have found createspace a good publisher for my book "Topology and Groupoids"; they are an amazon.com company, and this has the implication that the royalty rates are good (black and white, 6" x 9", 200 pages, price 20.00 dollars, gives $8.75 royalty). Non exclusive contract.
You should consult the book "The Fine Print", written by a copyright lawyer, Mark Levine.
All the publicity, and sending out review and complimentary copies, has to be done by you - this is a typical downside to any self publishing.
Later: Another disadvantage is that many libraries and institutes buy anything issued by a major publisher, but have to be persuaded to buy a book which does not have the cachet of having satisfied the refereeing process of a major publisher. The advantage of this amazon.com company is that the royalty is direct on the published price for amazon sales.
Later: I have found another problem, as a UK resident, namely that the USA Inland Revenue insists that 30% tax be deducted, as against the lowest UK rate of 20%, unless you can get a USA Income Tax Number allocated: in view of the difficulties I have had in doing this, I think you would need to employ a professional who knows all the ropes. However, this is a marginal problem in my case.