January to July 2022
The original deadline for the manuscript was December 2021. The pressure of (paying) work meant I missed it, and the revised one of March 2022. Indeed, I had barely started by then. I got a further extension to July 2022 and focused on the book 5 days a week from April.
When I started work on the third edition by digging out the manuscript for the 2nd edition. It turned out to be 150,000 words and there was little prospect of adding new material about COVID-19 and also cutting the book to 130,000 words. The first thing was to get permission to increase the word limit to 150,000.
Having the view that the second edition was a much better book than the first edition, I did not expect to need much time to update the existing chapters and drop in some new material. I was wrong. I spent more than 200 hours on the manuscript.
Some parts needed a lot more work than others. Chapter 1, the introduction to the main concepts of public financial management, was completely re-written to reflect the new-found importance of PFM during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter 9, on auditing, also had a major re-write because I have learned a lot about auditing since 2014. Chapter 10 was deleted. Deleting it was easy enough but there was a lot of wrestling in my mind before I made the decision. I spent time and effort to write the chapter and it’s hard for anyone to throw away something they have invested in. I reached the conclusion, though, that it did not add much value and something had to give if I was to hit the 150,000 words limit.
The remaining chapters needed more updating than I had anticipated. In part that is because a book published in 2023 can’t be based only on books and articles written more than ten years earlier. I needed to include up-to-date views about PFM. It was also because one item of feedback about the 2nd edition was a request for more exercises. I therefore wrote some new exercises for every chapter and included suggested answers in a section at the back of the book.
Finally, on 8 August 2022 I sent the manuscript files to my editor, for the copyediting and typesetting processes to be commissioned.
March 2023
I am writing this diary entry just a few weeks after I got a message that the typesetters had finished and the book is “in press” and one day after my “author copies” arrived (see photo). Later this month it will be in readers’ hands. If you want it you can get a 20% discount if you buy it at
https://www.routledge.com/Financial-Management-and-Accounting-in-the-Public-Sector/Bandy/p/book/9781032157306 using the code AFL01. This is valid until 30 June 2023.
Conclusion: has it been worth it?
From the point of view of business, no. I earn royalties from sales but it is a niche topic and the annual sales are in hundreds, not hundreds of thousands. If I converted my cumulative royalties into an hourly rate for the hundreds of hours I spent writing the book they would fall well below the UK’s minimum wage.
But there are a lot of qualitative benefits that more than make up for that. First, I can tell people I am a published author. People recognise what an achievement that is even if they have absolutely no interest in PFM and would never read my book.
Second, all the editions are published in the UK and USA and that means the copyright libraries, including the British Library and the Library of Congress, have copies. And they’ll have them long after I’m dead.
Third, it’s a great feeling when you’re teaching a class to be able to give your own book as a prize for a test or a task.
And lastly, it has led to opportunities. It has made my name more widely known as both an expert in PFM and someone who can write clearly about it. This has helped me to land some very interesting and rewarding assignments. I hope that continues with the third edition.
