Students don't hang on to textbooks anymore, and the prevalence of second-hand merchandise obliges publishers to recoup their costs the first semester after a new release. Thus, those publishers are loath to experiment with novel approaches and are hypersensitive about reviewer criticism. Steven I. Dutch, who spent a decade preparing an earth-science text, suggests that those who would like to have more rigorous, up-to-date books to choose from, should take more risks with what they adopt in their own classes. And, rather than letting student preferences dictate the text, he writes, professors should remember that any student who can afford alcohol can afford a good new textbook. (Contains 17 notes.)