My New Book!
I have a new book!: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091F5QTDS/
So I’m going to talk about the book, and then about my publishing experience, because this is my first self-published book.
Detailed contents, preface, and chapters 1 + 5 are posted on my web site (https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/, "Research" --> "Books").
Hardcover version from Barnes & Noble (because Amazon doesn't make hardbacks): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1139170007.
Questions that Have Not Been Frequently Asked but Could Reasonably Be Asked
About the Book:
1. What’s all this, then?
It’s an introduction to philosophy -- indeed, if the cover blurb is to be believed (and it surely is, since it was written by me), the world’s best introduction to philosophy.
2. What’s in it?
Preface
Part I: Preliminaries
1. What Is Philosophy?
2. Logic
3. Critical Thinking, 1: Intellectual Virtue
4. Critical Thinking, 2: Fallacies
5. Absolute Truth
Part II: Epistemology
6. Skepticism About the External World
7. Global Skepticism vs. Foundationalism
8. Defining “Knowledge”
Part III: Metaphysics
9. Arguments for Theism
10. Arguments for Atheism
11. Free Will
12. Personal Identity
Part IV: Ethics
13. Metaethics
14. Ethical Theory, 1: Utilitarianism
15. Ethical Theory, 2: Deontology
16. Applied Ethics, 1: The Duty of Charity
17. Applied Ethics, 2: Animal Ethics
18. Concluding Thoughts
Appendix: A Guide to Writing
Glossary
3. Why have you done this?
I’m good at ’splainin stuff, and I know a fair amount about this philosophy stuff from teaching and studying it for a couple of decades. Now I can have exactly the sort of text available for my own classes that I want. It will improve the world by increasing rationality. And it will make me fabulously rich and famous.
4. Why is this vastly better than all other philosophy textbooks?
Vastly better than all others? Wow, that’s quite a claim. Well, let’s see. It’s clear, occasionally amusing, usually sensible, and somewhat less boring than other books written by professors. Unlike most readings used in philosophy classes, it was actually written for contemporary students, not for other philosophers or academics. So it doesn’t go off on boring digressions about the literature, or spend a lot of time giving weird alternative views that don’t fit any of the standard categories, or presuppose a bunch of stuff that only philosophers know.
All this for only $7.99 for the e-book! Most textbook publishers charge outrageous prices, like $40, or $80, or $140 – because they assume that professors won’t care and will just force students to pay whatever it costs. Then they randomly change the book around every year or two, just so they can make people buy the new edition instead of using used copies.
5. Is this text objective, or is it full of a bunch of partisan opinions?
It is very objective, and it is very opinionated. I.e., it explains alternative views fairly and tries to show as best I can why someone would think each of the things discussed. It also advances some arguments that I regard as actually correct, even though many people disagree with them. So, it’s objective and partisan.
6. What, no political philosophy?
Eh, it was long enough already, at close to 350 pages. If this version does well, I’ll add some new topics in a 2nd edition.
7. What are people saying about it?
“My work is all a series of footnotes to Mike Huemer.” –Plato
“This book is way better than my lecture notes.” –Aristotle
“When I have a little money, I buy [Mike Huemer’s] books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” –Erasmus
“There is a nonzero chance that buying this book will get you an infinite reward.” –Blaise Pascal
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and [Mike Huemer’s books].” –Immanuel Kant
About self-publishing
8. Why did you self-publish this?
Because I want to have control over it, and I want a non-negligible portion of the profit, if it makes one.
9. Does this mean that a real publisher wouldn’t take your book?
No. I’ve published 7 other single-author books (plus 1 anthology) with traditional publishers, plus >70 academic articles. By the way, when publishers decide whether to accept a book, they do it by sending the manuscript or proposal to someone like me to review. Sometimes literally me (I referee a lot of articles and books). There’s not some higher authority, and there’s not in fact anyone who’s better qualified to say whether a philosophy book is publication-worthy than me. This time, I just decided to cut out the middleman.
10. What did you mean about the "non-negligible portion of the profit"?
With traditional academic publishers, you can expect to get paid something like 3% of the cover price per sale. Not kidding. (They’ll give you something like 4-7% of the net, which is the price they charge book stores, which is much less than the cover price. So 3% of the actual cover price is realistic.) Now, there are reasons why it could be rational to take that deal, as it probably is in most cases. But this time, I want to try something else, and see how it works out. Amazon gives something closer to 70% on the e-book.
11. What things did you want to control?
(1) I wanted to control the cover design. I don’t want to have to accept one of a few designs made by someone else, with just a few color options. I want it to look the exact way that I choose – with my exact colors, with my photo, and my arrangement. I want to choose the dimensions of the book, too.
(2) I want to control the pricing. I don’t want someone else to price it, say, 6 times higher than what I would charge.
(3) I want to control the description & back cover text. Look at the description I posted on Amazon. There is just no way that a traditional publisher would accept that description.
(4) I want to control the text. I don’t want a copy editor redrawing my diagrams, introducing grammatical or formatting errors, telling me that some perfectly correct English expression can’t be used for some weird reason that only that copy editor believes, etc. (Copy editors have some of the most bizarre misconceptions about English.) A traditional publisher also probably would not accept the overall tone of this book. They wouldn’t like the flippant or sarcastic jokes, at least not for a textbook (if it was billed as a comedy book, then okay).
A traditional publisher would send the manuscript for review to some professors with a lot less of a sense of humor than me, and probably less smart than me too. They’d hold it for six months to a year, then make a long series of comments and suggestions that would be tedious to address, many of which would actually make the book worse.
(5) I want to control the publication schedule. I don’t want to have to wait for several months after I finish everything for the book to actually appear. The part that takes a traditional publisher 6 months takes me a week.
12. Wow, so everyone should self-publish everything, right?
Alas, no. Most authors are unlike me.
I’m better at copy editing than most professional copy editors are, so when they “correct” my text, they make it worse. But that’s not true of most authors. Most authors, I assume, need a copy editor.
I’m also much better at design than most authors, so I can make my own book cover, determine an appropriate layout, etc., and it won't look crappy.
Also, most would-be authors probably have no audience if they don’t get a traditional publisher. Most academic books are bought only by (1) libraries, and (2) other academics who are doing research on that specific topic. Neither will buy a self-published book. You also don’t get any academic cred for a self-published book (which is why most academic books are published).
In this case, though, I’m betting that I still have an audience. I’m thinking some general readers would like to just know about philosophy. Also, hopefully some professors will adopt the book for courses and save their students some money. (They would not do this if I wasn’t already a well-known academic, though.)
It's kind of striking how academic books are commonly priced at $40 and up. Apparently, that's how much you have to charge to make the whole thing worthwhile (given a small expected readership). And yet, it can be $8 if the author just does everything.
We’ll see how this experiment works out. If it works out well, I’ll do more independently published books.