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One issue that people have not raised is the contractual aspects of the book, and here I
believe that textbooks are quite different than other books. In the standard textbook
contract when they are no longer active in the book authors generally get 50% of royalties
in the first revision that he or she is not a part of and 25% of the royalties of the
second revision after he or she is gone, and none thereafter.  Those general issues can be
overridden by specific contractual agreements, but that is the general amount. Some
contracts specify that the authors name cannot be used after they no longer get royalties.
In that case, it would be illegal to still use the name.  Thus, I think textbooks, today,
are different than other books, and whether to include a name as an author is a marketing
decision made by firms.
 
I have one book (Hunt and Colander, Social Science, Allyn and Bacon) which is now in its
11th edition. (12th edition will be out next May)  I am told that it actually began in the
1930s by five authors and eventually one was doing it all, and at that time it switched to
him being the only one listed. When I took it over he was dead for 10 years.
 
I still include his name on it because that is how the book is known, even though I have
done the last 6 editions alone, and the book now reflects my views--actually it reflects
the reviewer's views as much as mine--but it doesn't reflect his views.  I would not feel
bad or immoral removing his name as one of the authors.  If I put my name alone on it, I
would be the author of a book that was first published at least 10 years before I was
born.  Actually, when they shifted from the joint publication to the one author, they
stopped listing the earlier editions of the book in the front matter, so it actually is in
a higher edition than the 12th.
 
My point is that with textbooks what they are today--business propositions--the issue of
authorship is less important than it was earlier, and on the grand scope of publishing
problems the issue of who is listed as the author after someone dies is not high on my
agenda of concerns.
 
David Colander 
 
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