Self-Publishing vs an Academic Publisher for Your Textbook
It has never been easier to publish a textbook yourself. Print-on-demand, eBook platforms and course-pack services mean an instructor can turn a manuscript into a purchasable book in a weekend. So why work with a publisher at all? The honest answer is: it depends on what you want the book to do. This guide compares the two routes on the things that actually decide the outcome — and we say so plainly where self-publishing is the better choice, even though we are a publisher.
Control
Self-publishing wins, clearly. You decide the content, the price, the format, the cover, the timing and every revision. Nobody sends your chapters to reviewers; nobody asks you to cut the section you love. If the book is highly specific to your own course and you intend to be its only adopter, this control is worth a great deal.
With a publisher, you give up some of that control in exchange for the things below. A good publisher gives up very little of it on content — the book is yours — and takes most of it on production, pricing and distribution, which are precisely the parts most instructors do not want to manage.
Cost and money
It depends on your goals. Self-publishing has low up-front cost if you do everything yourself, and rising cost as you buy in the things a publisher normally provides — professional editing, design, figure preparation, indexing, accessibility remediation. You keep a larger share of each sale, on a smaller number of sales.
With a publisher, you are generally not asked to pay for publication; the publisher invests and recovers its investment from sales, paying you a royalty. The share per copy is smaller; the number of copies, if the book is adopted beyond your own classroom, is usually larger. The question to ask is not "which pays more per book" but "how many instructors, other than me, will assign this?"
Quality
A publisher wins, unless you buy the same services. Development editing (does the sequence teach?), copy-editing, design, typesetting, figure redrawing, proofreading and indexing each make a measurable difference to a textbook, and each is a professional skill. Instructor review — other people who teach the course reading the manuscript before publication — catches the problems you cannot see because you have taught it your way for years. A self-published book can have all of this; it rarely does, because each item is a separate purchase the author has to know to make.
Credibility and adoption
A publisher wins for adoption elsewhere. Other instructors adopt books they hear about, can get a desk copy of, and trust. A publisher's imprint signals that the book was reviewed and edited; its marketing puts the book in front of the departments that teach the course; its desk-copy programme lets instructors evaluate it; its distribution means campus bookstores can order it without special arrangements. Self-published textbooks are adopted elsewhere too, but usually through the author's own network, and the author does the marketing.
For promotion and tenure, practice varies by institution and discipline. A textbook from an established publisher is generally recognised; a self-published one may or may not be. Check your own institution's guidelines.
Accessibility
A publisher should win, and you should check that it does. Institutions increasingly require course materials to meet accessibility standards, and a book that does not can be excluded from adoption regardless of its quality. Meeting those standards — properly tagged documents, image descriptions, navigable structure, readable contrast — is specialist work. Ask any publisher what standard their editions meet. (Linus Learning's ActiveBooks are built to WCAG 2.1 AA.) If you self-publish, budget for accessibility remediation; it is not optional in higher education.
Formats, interactivity and LMS access
A publisher wins where you want more than a PDF. Self-publishing platforms produce print and standard eBooks well. What they do not produce is an interactive edition — simulations, self-checks with immediate feedback, embedded media, analytics on what students use — or the institutional plumbing that lets students open the book from inside their university's learning management system without typing access codes. Those require a platform and an instructional design team. If the point of your book is that students learn by doing, this is the deciding factor; see what changes for the author in an interactive edition.
Time and attention
A publisher wins. Self-publishing means running a small business: files, ISBNs, metadata, retailer accounts, bookstore orders, returns, customer questions, the reprint when a colleague finds a typo on page 40. Some instructors enjoy this. Most discover that it consumes the time they meant to spend on the next edition.
Ownership and reversion
Self-publishing wins on simplicity; a publisher can be fine. When you self-publish, the copyright is yours and nothing reverts because nothing was granted. With a publisher, read the agreement: whether copyright is licensed or assigned, and under what conditions rights come back to you, are the clauses to understand before signing.
A middle path: open textbooks
Some instructors release their book under an open licence, free to students, often through a university or consortium platform. This maximises reach and affordability and can be excellent for adoption. Its limits are the same as self-publishing — production quality, accessibility and interactivity depend on what the author or platform can provide — and there is normally no royalty. An open text can later become the basis of an interactive edition with a publisher; ask about the licensing.
How to decide
- Will anyone other than you assign this book? If no, self-publish; you gain control and lose nothing you need. If yes, keep reading.
- Do you want an interactive edition or LMS integration? If yes, you need a publisher with a platform.
- Do you want to run the business side? If no, you want a publisher.
- Does your institution require accessibility compliance for course materials? Almost certainly; make sure whichever route you choose meets it.
- Can you get the editing, review and design a publisher provides some other way? If yes, and the answers above point to self-publishing, you can produce a very good book on your own.
Our view
We publish textbooks, so we are not neutral — but we would rather an instructor self-publish a book that only their own students will use than sign an agreement that does not serve them. If your book is meant to reach other classrooms, or to be something students can do as well as read, tell an editor about it and we will say honestly whether it is a fit.