Pratt says market forces have made Yale University Press lean toward trade books, but not at the cost of academic monographs.

"If we think that someone has a capacity to write to a larger audience, we will encourage them," she says. "We never tell them to water it down."

Writing Beyond the Ivory Tower

For the academic, writing trade books winners requires an ability to relate to a non-specialized audience.

Professor of Anthropology Richard Wrangham, co-author of the popular book Demonic Males, says trade books demand the same rigor as scholarly monographs, but with a touch of color.

"I don't think that one has any lesser demands in terms of the quality of the argument," Wrangham says. "The two areas I see being added are dramatic and aesthetic content."

According to Freed, some junior professors have had difficulty shaping their language to a general audience.

"I think they're a little bit naive about the difficulty that general readers are willing to endure," she says.

Some academics who do succeed in popular writing have worried that this will cause them to lose the intellectual respect of their peers, Freed says, pointing to Carl Sagan as an example.

But Wrangham says there is no stigma attached to writing trade books--the downside is just a matter of opportunity cost.

"The more popular writing you do, then the less academic writing you do," he says. "There's a delicate balance."

Scholars and managers of university presses say they are still seeking that happy equilibrium.