The Higher Ed Podcast
The place for authors, professors, and curious listeners to get practical writing advice, behind-the-scenes publishing content, and firsthand experiences shared by textbook authors.
The Higher Ed Podcast
Publishing, It's Not So Scary with Paul Carty
In this episode, Director of Publishing Partnerships, Paul Carty, joins us to demystify academic publishing. While it may be nerve-wracking to put your life’s work on display, the publishing process itself doesn’t have to be frightening. Peek behind the publishing curtain as we discuss easy ways to get started writing a textbook, first-time-author tips, ways to overcome writing challenges, and more. We also discuss ways that you can maximize the impact of your publication and create powerful learning materials for your students.
Paul Carty
Director of Publishing Partnerships
pcarty@kendallhunt.com
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Welcome to the higher education podcast with Kendall Hunt publishing. Whether you're an author, a professor, or simply a curious listener, we're here to provide you with valuable insights into academic publishing and higher education. Join us for practical writing advice, behind the scenes content, and firsthand experiences shared by textbook authors. Now let's dive in. All right, welcome on in to the higher education podcast with Kendall hunt Publishing. I am your host today, Jen Lewis, director of marketing, and so pumped for this episode today. We've got a icon with us, a true true icon at Kendall Hunt Publishing. We're gonna be talking about why publishing is not so scary today. But first, I have someone from my marketing team with me today. Megan, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?
Meghan Peterman:Hi, everyone. I'm Megan Peterman, I am the Marketing Communication Specialist here at Kendall Hunt. I've been with the company about five years, and I'm excited to talk today about why publishing isn't as scary as we think it might be.
Jen Lewis:And to kick it off with our icon, the man the myth,
the legend:Paul Carty! Paul, why don't you introduce yourself?
Paul Carty:I've never been called an icon before. So this is this is cool. I'm sort of a guru, however. So my name is Paul Carty. My official title is Director of Publishing Partnerships, and I've been here at Kendall Hunt for 32 years. When I started, we were still publishing on stone tablets.
Jen Lewis:Funny. So we wanted to have you in here because nobody knows publishing like you. Right? So let's just kick this off. And, you know, I think one of the questions that we always ask potential authors or people are always thinking is, why are people hesitant or intimidated with the publishing process?
Paul Carty:Which is, you know, I think, sort of the title of the podcast is sort of a misnomer, because it is scary a little bit, right? I mean, you're putting your life's work out onto something, whether it's paper, or whether it's an interactive website, or just an ebook. It's your life's work, right? And, you know, everyone would be hesitant to have, you know, other people look at it or their students. But on the other hand, it is an opportunity to do that, right? Not everybody gets that opportunity to be able to put their life's work out there to educate their students in the way: the way that they think is the best way to teach their students. You know, you can you can get a general textbook that is meant for the masses. But that's never best for your students.
Jen Lewis:I mean, if you had to narrow it down maybe to a few common misconceptions, or fears, that you could maybe debunk? I think maybe that could be helpful, because the point of this episode, in my mind, is kind of to debunk these misconceptions. So what do you think are some popular ones that you don't think are actually true?
Paul Carty:So, you know, I think one of the things is that,"I just don't have the time...I don't think I can do it. I don't have the expertise to do it." But then if you think about it, your book is really in your everyday lectures. One of the tips that I always give my authors is tape your lectures, right?
Jen Lewis:That's smart.
Paul Carty:There's your book. One of the other really good things that happens there is, as you're taping your lecture, you're getting student questions in there. So you know, the places where they don't understand the content as well, because they're going to ask you questions, those are probably places where you might spend some extra time and content development, or some interactive questions, or polling, or things that will help you know that they're understanding, right?
Jen Lewis:Well, you talk about time, right? Because I would say we hear this all the time. Even in some other episodes that we've recorded, it's like time is always the biggest hurdle for people to get over. So, let's say I'm a potential author, ol' Carty rings me up on the old telephone or, you know, snail mail or email, however you want to contact someone. What are the steps that you're going to talk with them about and guide them through to get them from that first conversation to being a published author?
Paul Carty:So, you know, time is an issue for everybody, right? So one of the things, tips, if you will, that that I give authors is consistently set time, whether it's a Friday afternoon, or Sunday, you know, after you've done what you would normally do, and the phone's not ringing, and you're not getting pounded by emails and students knocking on your door, right? But set that hour or two aside, where you can fully immerse yourself in content development.
Jen Lewis:Well, I think Meghan, and I talk about this all the time, because, you know, I'm a huge fan of schedule blocking, like, it's something that I do, I block certain times on my calendar throughout the week. And I think the biggest thing about that is it takes away that mental stress and that mental load all week, when you know that you've got time set aside, right? So you're not just, like, stressed every day. So, you know, outside of that, what are what are some next steps involved after you after you check on them?
Paul Carty:So one of the things that we we always do is, after a contract is signed, we set up a meeting with whoever the developmental person is, our sales team, and our marketing team. And the goal of that, first of all, is to develop that relationship. So if that author has an issue, a content question, they can go to development. If they have sales questions, the sales team, marketing, you know, whatever that is. And then, of course, and then what we do is we just walk through the process, from first word, to getting it sent to manufacturing. And then we schedule a follow up meeting every month. And so we're constantly in contact. You know, we tell them, and this is something they say to their
students, every day:there's not a stupid question. Don't let a molehill become a mountain. If you're having some writer's block, or if all of a sudden you decide you want to include an article, or you're struggling with finding good photos, tell us. We have people here who have expertise in every one of those things. So they can walk them through that. And it makes it makes the process much simpler.
Meghan Peterman:I think one of the one of the neat things, too, about our team here and and just your career is how many first time authors you've worked with. If you had a ballpark, what percentage would you say of people you work with are first time authors?
Paul Carty:Wow. I've not thought about that. But I bet I bet it's over 80%.
Meghan Peterman:Wow. Is there any kind of special guidance that you give to them, or ways that we support first time authors?
Jen Lewis:That's different maybe than veteran authors?
Paul Carty:You know, I really try not to treat them differently. I would do the same thing with Joe Cuseo or Aaron Thompson that I would do with a first time author: we want to start at the beginning of the process, because each project is different, whether you've done it one time, or, like Aaron and Joe, 10 times.
Jen Lewis:Yeah, which kind of leads me into the next one is, you know, I was going to ask if you have any favorite success stories of maybe an author that you've met and worked with, and I know Thompson and Cuseo, you've worked with them for many, many years, not going to age you here. But do you have any success stories or, you know, authors who you've worked with that would be a valuable story to share?
Paul Carty:Let's just talk about some of our fine arts books, because they're really interesting. It was an area that we really had not done much in, right. And right now we have the top selling Dance book. And we have the top two or three selling Jazz and Rock 'n Roll history books. Both were first time authors.
Jen Lewis:And how did you find those authors?
Paul Carty:Cold calling. There's no secret sauce, Jen. So once we decide what we want to do, we start to go to the schools where we know that there are good programs. And then we find out who's who's teaching the Dance course, and who's teaching the Jazz course and the Rock course, and then we have a conversation with them and offer them the ability to create that textbook. In my case, that not only meets the needs of their students, but will be market driven as well.
Jen Lewis:And I think sometimes people are, like you said, cold calling, you know, there are people out there maybe listening to this who were thinking maybe they could write a book. You know, are there other ways that you guys get in touch with authors other than just cold calling?
Paul Carty:Yeah, I mean, there are. We have people out there calling on college campuses every day. And our method is significantly different than what the big three or four do, right? They walk into a professor's office, or they Zoom call in and have a conversation about the way that the course is taught. They don't go in there trying to sell them something. I think that's the thing that really makes Kendall hunt different. Because we really care about the classroom experience, right? And we want to help that Professor develop something that is going to make that classroom experience better, both from a teaching perspective, and from a learning perspective.
Jen Lewis:Do you think there are certain characteristics or qualities that make somebody a really great author? Or do you think it's discipline or content driven?
Paul Carty:Um, you know, it's interesting, because what I found is that the dynamic classroom educator is also going to be the best writer, because they care about the classroom experience for their students. And they're constantly searching for better ways and ways to improve it. My wife taught eighth grade social studies for 20 years. And you know, people don't think the teachers work very hard. And then when they walk out of the building, at three o'clock, they're done right? Well, I can tell you from living it, that's not true. I mean, she was home every single night, pounding the internet, looking for better ways to engage your students. And those are the kinds of people that I look for, in terms of who I think are going to be good writers.
Meghan Peterman:Now, speaking of author passion, I think I think there are a lot of cases where maybe a professor is really, really passionate about their content, but maybe they're lacking some confidence when it comes to creating a comprehensive textbook for their course? Is there any way that we walk that sort of Professor through the process? Or any special advice you have there?
Paul Carty:Yeah, you know, I think we've developed lots of content in lots of disciplines. One of the services that we can provide, Meg, is the ability not to have to recreate the wheel. If we use First Year Experience as an example, you know, there's only so many ways that you could talk about study skills or time management, or how to use a textbook or how to talk to a professor. So why should a potential author have to recreate that stuff? When you work with us, you don't. We can give you that quality, time tested, classroom tested content. But we also give you the ability to create something that's more meaningful to your students. What's the history of your school? How do you use the facilities in your library? What's Your Honor Code? Letters from Deans and presidents and pictures that are of your campus? Yeah. Speaking directly to your students in a way that no generic textbook can do.
Jen Lewis:Yeah, and I think that's really important. And I want to back up a little bit, you know, you talked about your wife really trying to increase engagement in your classroom. Do you see a trend in any of the materials that we're currently making that maybe professors or authors are leaning on for engagement? Maybe some supplementary materials or, you know, what kind of advice do you have there? What kind of things can we offer?
Paul Carty:What we're really trying to do is appeal to the learning styles, though they may be controversial, of what today's student really wants, right? What we know is they don't want to read. They do not want to read 400-, 500-, 600-page tomes. What they want is small chunks of content with interactive exercises, simulations, and case studies that help bring that piece of content home in an interactive way. Because we know from good educational pedagogy that students retain much more when they react to what they've read than if it's just passive learning, right?
Meghan Peterman:So often, these professors that are not using their own book are often pulling all those things in already. And so I think, in a lot of ways, writing your own book ends up saving you a lot of time, because then all your resources are in one place, and you're not semester after semester having
Paul Carty:Plus, Meg, you're not you're not beholden to some to go and hunt for things. Because it's all right there. publisher who changes editions at whim and doesn't let you know
Jen Lewis:Upfront time, yeah, for sure. But it balances out. until, you know, 30 days before class starts. And then, all of a sudden, you're trying to scramble to change your But you mentioned something about, you know, students today, classroom notes, and update your PowerPoints, and redo your testbank and all those other things. So you make a really good point that, although there's that initial time crunch in developing your own product, over the long haul, it's gonna save you time. different learning styles...I think the landscape of education is shifting significantly. Obviously, we're all talking about AI. How do you how do you and your team ensure that the content remains up-to-date? So let's say you have an author who wrote a book with with you five years ago? What does that look like when they need to update a book, or, you know, maybe make sure the content is still relevant?
Paul Carty:We have a pretty strict, if you will, editorial posture that says, "If you're going to revise, you need to revise 25 to 30% your content." We're not going to change the cover of a book and call it a new edition just to try to get the old edition out of the way. In my opinion, that screws students and faculty over. I mean, I just believe morally that that's just wrong. In some disciplines, three years is fine. And other disciplines--Business, Hospitality, Criminal Justice, Communication--those disciplines are ever-changing, if you will. So one of the things we want to do is we want to keep up with those changes. The beauty of some of the things that we're doing now is because so much of what that is electronic, we can make subtle changes that don't necessarily amount to a revision, but still enable the author to have the most current content out there.
Jen Lewis:Speaking of landscape changing, I think we can't possibly get through this conversation without talking about what it looked like when you tried to get people to author with you in the beginning of your career. Like, how has it changed? I mean, personally, I'm just curious. I know this doesn't help people author right now, but I'm curious about what it looked like 30+ years ago versus now.
Paul Carty:Wow. The landscape is definitely changed.
Jen Lewis:Were you just, like, going to college campuses knocking on doors? We still do that?
Paul Carty:You know what? Yeah, we were. And back then, nobody really knew who Kendall Hunt was. Probably back then, people call this a vanity press. When there was not a really a wide acceptance of what custom publishing was, you know, back then, we did lots of lab manuals and study guides, and while those are still an important piece of our business, you know, we always we always look to do the primary text with someone. And we also do a lot of supplements, you know, a book of math for problems because there aren't enough problems within the text that they're using or good things in practice. We do a lot of electronic supplements, where the student is asked questions and answers right on their laptop or their desktop and shoot them directly into their instructor's email box and get graded. Yeah. You know, I think custom publishing has come a long way. One, because I think we're better at it. And as we've grown our national products, we've developed a better relationship. But even the big guys really jumped into the custom venue.
Jen Lewis:Well, I think people are learning that a one size fits all doesn't actually fit all. I think that's kind of a terrible term.
Paul Carty:So Burger King,"Have it your way," right? I mean, that's, that's just kind of the way it's become in education. You buy a car, you know, people don't buy cars off the lot anymore. They want a particular color, or they want a particular feature. It's no different in publishing.
Meghan Peterman:I think that's a really cool thing about us, too, is like, we kind of are the OG, and you know, yeah, the publisher version of "Have it your way." I know you work with nationally marketed authors and creating those textbooks, but if someone wants to author with us, but they're like, you know, Im really just kind of looking for something that works for my course, and that's all I want. We are able to help with that too.
Paul Carty:Yeah, for sure. I mean, we do lots and lots of niche books. We give the professor an opportunity to say what they want to say.
Jen Lewis:What's the craziest niche topic that you think you've seen in the last year? What's a niche-niche? Meghan and I have horticulture. We talked about horticulture on like, three podcasts. People are gonna be like, "Why are they talking about horticulture so much?" Because there's plants in this room right now.
Paul Carty:You know, I think one of the niche-iest of niche books that I've done is I did a Humor Com book...a Humor Communication book. That never did really did great, but it was a cool book. Yeah, I mean, and imagine how much fun that would be, to teach a Humor Com course. So you know, we did find some usage in like, senior seminars and sciences like that. And the reports we got back that, you know, the book was great. And it was fun to teach it, you know, there just wasn't a lot out there. Well, you know, we gave that author the ability to create something that she was really proud of, and it ended up being really useful in her classroom.
Jen Lewis:So we've talked about the niche. Let's talk about the most popular of the popular, right. So if you had, let's say, 100 professors listening today, what do you think are some of the best titles? Or what do you think are some of the best disciplines that someone could offer for that we see that market?
Paul Carty:Well, Jen, in general, I don't know that I could pin an exact discipline down. What I can tell you is that as far as we're concerned, we're looking for somebody who's got different voice. You know, there are 100 Calculus books out there. Sure. There are 100 Intro to Business books out there. But what do you have to say that makes it a little different? That is not just a "me too" of what's out there. We're gonna give you that opportunity. And we're going to help you find a market for it.
Jen Lewis:Yeah, that's awesome. I love that about this conversation. I think, if anybody takes anything away from this, who maybe isn't an author or professor, is I think, customizing is not so scary. And publishing is not so scary. But you know, we've we've talked about a lot of stuff, but if you could talk to anyone listening, if they're still on the fence, what would your final message, or you know, maybe some encouragement to convince them to author textbook, what kind of advice would you give them?
Paul Carty:You know, I would give them the same advice that I give my kid who's an athlete. Try it. I think that you'll surprise yourself. As we said earlier, there's a book in everybody. And we want to give people the opportunity to be that author. I've stood in classrooms on the first day of school, and the kids come in, and the instructor introduces themselves, and they look down at their book. And they see that that's the dude who wrote the book. And what a cool feeling it is for that instructor. To have that instantaneous feeling of expertise, that they've created something for their students that is so meaningful and designed especially for those kids who are sitting in front of them in that classroom. In dealing with hundreds and hundreds of authors over the years, that is the one feeling that is overwhelming to an author. And I gotta tell you, today, even after 30 years of doing that, when that book walks into my office, after you know, being done for the first time, I still get a chill.
Meghan Peterman:That's cool. And they didn't have to do it alone.
Paul Carty:No.
Jen Lewis:I think we've debunked that throughout the whole episode. As you know, before I worked in publishing, I thought that you write every word of your own book. And you know what I mean? You do it on your own. I'm like, "How do people have time for this?" But the thing, you know, telling us how they can go through the process with your team and explaining the resources that they have available. It's not so scary. And, you know, I just thank you so much for coming on today. And you know how people out there can put Published Author on their LinkedIn? Now you can say Podcast Guest. You saw, you conquered. And we appreciate your time so much. And, you know, we're excited to see if anybody wants to reach out to you after this. And we will put all of your contact information in the show notes. And if anybody has questions, please feel free to leave us a comment. So thank you so much for being here.
Paul Carty:I'm happy to talk to anybody. That's what we do.
Jen Lewis:Well, thank you so much, Paul. And we really, really appreciate it.
Meghan Peterman:Thank you guys.
Jen Lewis:Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you're interested in publishing with us, we would love to hear from you. You can find our contact info in the show notes as well as our social links and guest info. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.