Open book
Some backstory: I originally proposed three volumes, each 1000 pages, to the publisher. They laughed and told me absolutely no. My thinking was, PLATO as a topic needs to be approached the way Robert Caro approached Lyndon Johnson. It’s going to need multiple 1000-page books.
The publisher’s reaction to my proposal was laughter. Their deal was, one book, 150,000 words, take it or leave it. So I took it: I’d spent 30+ years working on the project, had accumulated some 7 million words of interview transcripts, and had to get it out. In the end I delivered 229,000 words to the publisher which even then was the result of painful and severe chopping out of not only major sections but even entire chapters–all kinds of history got removed from the manuscript. (By the way, the final book came out to 209,000 words. Publisher was pissed that it wasn’t 150,000. Editor, god bless him, stood by me, and we shipped 209,000 words. Publisher, I firmly believe, punished me by listing the book at a $40.00 list price, which is instant market death for a hardcover book in 2017. Powell’s refused to let me do a book event because they don’t allow $40 books to be presented by authors. It was sabotage, in my opinion.
I feel like this is kind of a tragedy. All this detail should have gone somewhere!
There are organizations that specialize in publishing open-access education resources like textbooks. The one I’m most familiar with is OpenStax. It seems like they don’t necessarily take random submissions but rather hire subject-matter experts in places like academia or industry (OpenStax faq: What is the authoring and peer-review process for OpenStax textbooks?). Still, it can’t hurt to reach out to them and look for other similar organizations with more reach than a personal website. With a quick search, I was able to find this list of open textbook collections on the Miami University libraries website: Miami University: Open Textbook Collections
As one fairly poignant argument against the current highest-voted answer to use a classic publisher, see:
Clarivate announced that as part of its “transformative strategy and following changes in demand from libraries” it would “phase out one-time perpetual purchases of print books”
[…]
Of course the goals of vendors and library professionals can be in conflict. And yet, in our work with vendors, as exemplified in my experience with ELUNA—a service provided by libraries and their employees to a corporation, in the form of a nonprofit, which we described as a community—it has at times been easy to feel as if we all share a commitment to libraries and librarianship.
We do not.
[…]
Going forward, libraries and library staff should approach vendors with absolute clarity about the values governing our respective work and the nature of our relationships. We must:
Increase bibliodiversity in the market and our collections (Haimé) by: Purchasing materials directly from smaller and/or more diverse publishers
Investing in academy-owned open access infrastructure and publishing that is sustainable, equitable, and diverse
I believe there is every evidence that these publishers’ interests are not aligned with those of the scientific community, and even the “good eggs” are highly at risk of being purchased by other interests and taking measures against efforts to preserve and make these works.
Here is an article by someone who published through the kinds of open processes discussed by the other answers:
Another relevant discussion regarding the WikiJournal of Science: Scientists! What are you supporting? | Alex Holcombe's blog
There are many burgeoning organizations that are working to try to provide the level of editorial support for open textbooks that authors are familiar with. A nice overall compilation is here: Want to Adopt or Adapt a Textbook? - Open Educational Resources (OER): Free the Textbook - LibGuides at Ferris State University A few other examples I’ve come across:
- https://mitpress.mit.edu/prospective-authors/
- oapen.org
- WikiJournal of Science