The entire conceit of the book from my perspective is now counter-ballast for the teaching model of the post-bureaucratic University. My timetable is planned by every weighted hour, and I seek research purely as a function of attempting to escape the yoke of high contact hours and responsibilities. So, in my model, a successful academic book publication would allow me to, in the next year, have a 40% research load. That only happens if the press is considered academic by the University in the first place.

I co-wrote a book chapter in a book by Prestel Press only to have it considered non-academic and non-peer-reviewed, because Prestel is considered a vanity coffee-table book.

My second comment is that e-publishing is, as far as I’m concerned, not viable at any point in the chain unless the entire chain is reimagined. Students, unable to possess and then sell on their textbooks, would access them different and relate to them differently, requiring them to be written differently.

The Kindle is not the answer. The Kindle is the problem. Closed file formats and closed hardware promoted by non-education consultants are always going to raise my ire, but e-books are insufficient, I feel, to bridge the gap. The collated subject reader, with higher production values, makes more sense to me.