How to Publish a Textbook: A Complete Guide for College Instructors

By Linus Learning Editorial · September 8, 2026 · Updated September 14, 2026 · 8 min read

Most college textbooks are not written by professional authors. They are written by instructors who taught a course for years, grew tired of apologising for the assigned book, and eventually realised that their own notes, slides and problem sets were most of a better one. If that describes you, this guide walks through the whole path — from that realisation to a book students can buy — in the order it actually happens.

1. Decide what kind of book you are writing

"Textbook" covers several different projects, and publishers evaluate them differently. Be clear with yourself first.

A course textbook — the primary text for a named course (Introductory Statistics, Organic Chemistry Lab, Research Methods in Psychology). This is the most common project and the easiest to evaluate, because the course itself defines the audience and the market.
A supplementary text or lab manual — used alongside a main text. Smaller, faster to write, and often adopted in large numbers because it is inexpensive.
A scholarly monograph — research written for other researchers. Valuable, but a different genre with a different (and much smaller) market; if this is your project, look for a press that publishes monographs in your field.
A professional or reference book — for practitioners rather than students.

Everything that follows assumes the first two, because that is where instructors have the biggest advantage: you already know the students, the syllabus, and the places where existing books fail.

2. Check that the book is needed

An acquisitions editor's first question is not "is this good?" but "who will assign it?" Before you write a proposal, answer three questions honestly:

Which course, at which level, would adopt this book? Name it. "Second-semester organic chemistry laboratory at four-year colleges" is a market; "chemistry students" is not.
What do students in that course use today? List the two or three books instructors actually assign, and be fair about their strengths. A publisher will look them up.
What would make an instructor switch? Switching textbooks costs an instructor weeks of work — new syllabus, new problem sets, new slides. Your book has to save them more than it costs them: a better sequence, a level that finally fits, a price students can afford, exercises that work, or interactivity that a static book cannot offer.

If you can answer all three in a paragraph, you have the core of a proposal. If you cannot answer the first one, the book may be a monograph in disguise, and that is worth knowing now.

3. Understand what a publisher does — and does not — do

A publisher is a partner that takes on the parts of the project that are not writing. Exactly which parts varies by press, so ask; the typical division looks like this.

The publisher usually handles

Editorial development: shaping the outline, reviewing chapters, keeping the level consistent.
Peer or instructor review of the manuscript.
Copy-editing, design, typesetting, figure preparation and proofreading.
Production in the formats the book will sell in — print, eBook and, at publishers such as Linus Learning, an interactive edition.
ISBNs, cataloguing, distribution to bookstores and online retailers, and desk copies for instructors considering adoption.
Marketing to the instructors and departments who teach the course.

The author usually handles

The manuscript itself — text, exercises, worked examples — and revisions after review.
Figures in draft form, and a list of any third-party material (images, long quotations, data) so permissions can be cleared.
Ancillaries the course needs: solutions, slides, test items. Some publishers produce these; many ask the author.
Being available to the marketing team: a short author biography, a description of the book, and sometimes a webinar or conference appearance.

Commercial terms — royalties, who pays for what, copyright and rights — are set out in the author agreement, and vary by publisher and by book. Ask about them early, before you invest months of writing, and read the agreement carefully when it arrives. (Our own answer on this: talk to an editor and we will explain how it works for your book.)

4. Choose publishers to approach

You do not need an agent for a textbook; publishers accept proposals directly from instructors. To build a shortlist:

Look at the copyright pages of the books your course currently uses, and of books in adjacent courses. Those publishers already sell into your market.
Ask colleagues who have published textbooks about their experience — especially how responsive the editor was after the contract was signed.
Consider what you want the book to be. If you want print only, most academic publishers qualify. If you want students to learn by doing — simulations, self-checks, immediate feedback — look for a publisher that builds interactive editions as part of publishing, not as an add-on you assemble yourself.
Check each publisher's author page for their proposal guidelines. Most ask for the same things (see the next section) in slightly different forms.

It is normal to approach several publishers at once with an initial enquiry. Tell them you are doing so.

5. Write the proposal

A textbook proposal is short — usually five to fifteen pages plus a sample chapter — and it is a sales document as much as an academic one. Every publisher's guidelines boil down to the same nine sections:

Overview — working title and the book in one paragraph.
Audience and course level — the course(s), the level, typical enrolment.
Table of contents — chapter by chapter, one sentence each.
Comparable titles — what students use now, and what yours does differently.
Your background — the teaching and research behind the book.
Manuscript status and timeline — idea, partial draft or complete, and a realistic completion date.
Interactive or supplementary ambitions — anything beyond the printed page.
A sample chapter — the most representative one, not necessarily the first.
How to reach you.

We have a separate guide on writing each of these sections, and a free fill-in template and checklist that mirrors them. The single most persuasive thing you can do is be specific about the course and candid about the competition.

You do not need a finished manuscript to propose a book. Many good projects are proposed from a syllabus, a detailed outline and one sample chapter.

6. What happens after you submit

Practice varies, but the usual sequence is:

Editorial read. An acquisitions editor reads the proposal and decides whether it fits the list. Expect either a decline, questions, or a request for more material.
Review. Many publishers send the proposal and sample chapter to instructors who teach the course, asking whether they would adopt the book and what they would change. Their comments come back to you, usually anonymised.
Revision and decision. You respond to the reviews — often by adjusting the outline — and the publisher decides whether to offer a contract.
Agreement. The author agreement sets out the delivery date, the length, the formats, the royalty arrangement, copyright and rights. Read it; ask about anything unclear; it is normal to negotiate.

Timelines at this stage depend on the publisher's review process and on how quickly you respond, so ask your editor what to expect rather than relying on generic estimates.

7. Write the manuscript

With a contract in hand, the work becomes a writing project with a deadline. Three pieces of advice from editors who have seen hundreds of them:

Write to the outline you sold. The reviewers approved a specific book. If the outline needs to change as you write, tell your editor early rather than delivering a different book.
Keep the level fixed. The most common problem in first drafts is drift: chapter 1 is written for a first-year student and chapter 9 for a graduate seminar. Decide on your reader and keep a mental picture of them.
Write the exercises with the text, not after. Exercises are where students learn; treating them as an afterthought shows. If the book will have an interactive edition, this is also where simulations, self-checks and immediate feedback live — so note, as you write, where a student would benefit from doing rather than reading.

Our guide on manuscript preparation covers the practical side: files, headings, figures, permissions and the index.

8. Production

Once the manuscript is accepted, the publisher's team takes over: copy-editing, design, figure preparation, typesetting, and — for interactive editions — instructional design and media production. You will see proofs and answer queries; you may be asked to check figures and the index. This is also when the marketing team begins its work, so expect requests for a biography, a description, and the names of instructors and departments who might adopt.

9. Adoption: how a textbook actually sells

Textbooks sell when instructors assign them. The sequence is: an instructor hears about the book, requests a desk copy, reads it, and — if it fits the course — puts it on the syllabus. Campus bookstores and online retailers then supply students. For digital and interactive editions, access increasingly happens inside the university's learning management system rather than through printed access codes.

Authors can help enormously here, and the help is not salesmanship: present the book at the conferences you already attend, tell colleagues who teach the same course, and make sure your own department knows it exists. Check your institution's policy before assigning your own book in your own course — many require disclosure or approval, and some have rules about royalties on your own students' purchases.

10. After publication: a living book

A printed textbook is finished when it ships; an interactive one need not be. Engagement data can show which sections students use and where they struggle, and content can be corrected or updated between editions. Ask a prospective publisher what happens after launch — whether errors can be fixed, whether the book can be updated, and what data you will see. It is one of the clearest differences between publishers today.

Start with what you have

If you have taught a course more than a few times, you are closer to a textbook than you think: the syllabus is an outline, the lecture notes are chapters in draft, and the problem sets are the exercises. The first step is not to write the book; it is to describe it — a page on who it is for, a chapter list, and an honest look at the competition. The proposal template below walks you through exactly that, and if you would rather talk it through first, an editor will read a two-sentence description and reply personally.