Discovery Press was born in 1994 as a partnership between two faculty members, Dean Raymond B. Landis and Prof. Martin S. Roden. The company was started to offer an alternative to the major publishers, particularly in the area of pricing.
The first text produced by Discovery Press was Studying Engineering, a Roadmap to a Successful Career. This text was offered at $22.95, a price that has barely changed in 25 years through five editions. Texts of this length from other publishers typically sell at twice this price or more.
The pricing policy continued as the publisher expanded into areas of the core Electrical Engineering curriculum. Text published include introductory texts in the areas of Introduction to Engineering, Analog and Digital Communications, and Electronic Design.
In 2009, we added a Technical Communications text to our lineup. Writing and Speaking for Technical Professionals is a student-oriented text which is ideally suited to writing and communications courses in Engineering, Business, and the sciences. It also serves the “writing across the curriculum” component of technical majors, including senior design. It covers student writing, professional writing and oral communications in an entertaining and non-threatening way. With a retail price of $24.95, it continued our tradition of student-friendly pricing.
Besides a pricing structure very sensitive to students, the books of Discovery Press are highly student oriented. A student commented that “the books are written for students, and not as an ego trip for the author to impress readers with their extensive knowledge.”
In 2015, Professor Steffen Peuker joined the Discovery Press team to work with Ray on the materials and workshops related to the Studying Engineering text. To help with the 5th edition of Studying Engineering, Professor Jennifer Mott joined the team in 2017. The 5th Edition of Studying Engineering represents a continued legacy of the quality and affordability that Ray and Marty started in the 1990s.
Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to Ray Landis in July 2018, when he passed away from cancer. He may be gone in body, but his sprirt lives on the Studying Engineering text he authored and updated for almost 25 years. Both Jennifer and Steffen are honored to continue Ray’s work to help engineering students become the best engineers they can be by publishing the 5th Edition of Studying Engineering in 2019.
While Discovery Press will remain small, we are always interested in talking with prospective authors, although we will continue to be highly selective in choosing projects.