How hard is it to write a book? For many people, it's almost like giving birth. You may have written one before, or perhaps are considering writing one in the near future.

A major focus of Linus is: providing high quality course material, including textbooks, readers, case-books, and lab-manuals. We offer the opportunity for you to create a text using [i] your own materials; [ii] published materials from other sources; or [iii] a combination of the two.

Consider the book you've adopted for your course. You may not use a good portion of the book your students bought, and may end up distributing hand-outs and other supplements to the class. All this means time and money: your time and your students' money. Instead, you have the option of taking some of that material—chapters, articles, cases, reports from other scholars—and adding it to your own. Not only this, but our short print-runs allow you to replace that material in a new edition each year.

Once your manuscript is ready, send us a copy. Your editor will review the material and work closely with you to develop the manuscript. We'll provide several cover designs for you to choose from; designs that can best express your vision for the book. We also provide the shortest turnaround time in the industry. Finally, we will market your book to other institutions; using a marketing program that has proven very successful.

Customized lab manuals offer many advantages. High-resolution images, perfectly illustrated graphs, and line art—all can have a big impact. We re-label where necessary and create new illustrations to match your needs.

As we mentioned elsewhere, we handle all the thorny copyright issues. And your students wind up paying half the price for their textbooks.

• If you don't have an outline ready, create one, using your syllabus.

• Specify the content: It can be your generic work or third-party content (This can be any published material that you think matches your class's needs)

• List your selections and group them under different topic headings. These headings can serve as a preliminary table of contents.

• Create a citation for each selection. Citations should include: (a) publisher, (b) date of publication, (c) title of book or article, (d) author's name, and (e) page numbers of the original book or article.

• Include a brief description of the book, as you see it: a few paragraphs— something less than a page.

• Your editor will present the material to Linus's expert panel.

• Once the proposal is approved, your editor will send you a formal document related to the project.

• Feel free to send your materials in any form or combination of forms: photocopies, CD, email, or uploaded to our file transfer protocol (ftp).

• We encourage you to send chapters as you finish them, without waiting to complete the book. This lets us give you instant feedback and allows us to get on with other aspects of the publishing process.

• We'll send you sample layouts, using one of your selections; plus several optional covers. You can pick your best layout and cover design or advise us of your preferences. Your editor will then work with you to produce the best possible combination of elements.

• Provide us with your initial pages, including title, preface, acknowledgement, dedication, and introduction.

• Create your own questions and interactive exercises at the end of each selection, where appropriate. We are also developing online supplementary material that will be made available for students, and welcome any suggestions you may have.

• If it is a textbook, include the names—if any—of 3 major competitors to your textbook (author, title, publisher, publ. date & edition). This will help our editor make development suggestions for your text).

• Submit chapter or ms. with 1.5 point spacing between lines.