2008 TAA Conference attracts record number of attendees
The 2008 TAA Conference at Harrah's in Las Vegas June 19-21, attracted a record number of attendees. Among the almost 80 participants of this year's conference were many first-timers, including several from the University of Las Vegas.
Attendees gave the conference high marks, and several commented positively on specific features of the conference, such as the pre-conference workshops, the Roundtable Discussions, and the 15-minute sessions with authoring attorneys, a literary agent and veteran authors.
Visit the 2008 Post-Conference website
View Conference testimonials
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2008 Texty, McGuffey winners participate in Q&A during TAA Conference Awards Ceremony
Five of this year's Texty and McGuffey winners attended the TAA Awards Ceremony in Las Vegas held June 21 during the 2008 TAA Conference on Text and Academic Authoring.
After being presented with their awards from TAA President John Wakefield, Texty winners Bradley D. Fahlman, author of Materials Chemistry; Charles Corbin, co-author of Fitness for Life: Middle School; Janet Belsky, author of Experiencing the Lifespan; and Jay Withgott, co-author of Environment: The Science Behind the Stories; and McGuffey winner Belverd E. Needles, co-author of Principles of Accounting, participated in a Q&A session with attendees.
Q: What is the hardest part about becoming a textbook author?
Fahlman: "I wrote my textbook before I gained tenure. The hardest part about writing the textbook was managing a research group and publishing enough articles for tenure while writing the book at the same time."
Needles: "Everything you have to do after the first edition is written. I took me eight years to write my first textbook. Writing the first edition is not the end of your work. There's much to do after that."
Withgott: "The time commitment. There were tremendous sacrifices of family and leisure time while writing the book. The rewards in the process and the end result are worth it."
Belsky: "Forcing myself to get to the computer at 8:30 every morning."
Corbin: "The hardest part of becoming textbook author was convincing the publisher there was a need for the book, and the second hardest was convincing adopters that they needed the book."
Read more Q&As from the TAA Awards Ceremony
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TAA staff awards
TAA Program Assistant Margaret Matson receives 2008 TAA Norma Hood Service Award: Click for more | Kenneth Henson receives 2008 TAA Franklin Silverman Lifetime Achievement Award: Click for more | Molefi Kete Asante receives 2008 TAA Mike Keedy Award: Click for more| TAA Associate Executive Director Kim Pawlak receives 2008 TAA Paul Anderson Award: Click for more
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Conference Session: Making your work more visual
Communication law author Paul Siegel told an audience of textbook and academic authors during his 2008 TAA Conference session "Making Your Work More Visual," that he hired an art student on his campus to create original cartoons based on his ideas, that illustrated the points he made in his textbook, Communication Law in America.
Download Paul's PowerPoint from the 2008 TAA Conference, which includes a slideshow of cartoons from his textbook (7.8 MB)
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Download recordings of select 2008 TAA Conference presentations
TAA members can download select recordings of 2008 TAA Conference presentations. The recordings, available as MP3 files, are of the following sessions: "A Play of Words: Acting Out Contract Negotiations, Part II"; KISS (Keeping It Simple Isn't Stupid): Making the Complex Comprehensible"; Beyond Google Book Search: Emerging Strategies to Drive Online Discovery"; "Breaking Writer's Block: How to Overcome the Psychological Inhibitions That Keep You From Writing"; and "Leveraging the Wisdom of Your Crowd: Five Things Every Author Can Do to Maximize a Book's Impact". The recordings are available to members only.
Download them here
Don't have your username and password? Email TAA
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Minority authors to publishers: Don't be afraid to approach us for a publishing project
African American history author Molefi Kete Asante responded to Publisher Mary Ellen Lepionka's question, "Publishers are under pressure to sign minority authors and their major complaint is that there is a small pool to choose from. Where can publishers find more potential minority authors?", during his panel presentation on "Issues Faced by African American & Asian Authors" at the 2008 TAA Conference:
"If you're looking for an African-American author to co-author a mathematics textbook, ask someone like me 'what are the top schools for mathematics in the historically black schools?' I will tell you to go to the math department at North Carolina A&T, Florida A&M, and Lincoln University, and search for young assistant professors who could do this. Publishers could also benefit by asking African American scientists who work for NASA, and there are hundreds of them, or professional associations of black mathematicians (such as the Association of African American Mathematicians). You have to generate authors that way. I also encourage publishers to examine where there are Latino/Hispanic authors as well."
Other members of the audience commented that African-Americans and Asians are more afraid than Caucasian authors of being taken advantage of by publishers.
One member of the audience, Angela Jackson, an African-American Ph.D. in the field of Counselor Education, had this comment on the issue: "As budding African American authors, we can feel vulnerable to publishers taken advantage of our inexperience. So it is wise for us to have a 'healthy paranoia' regarding any entity (including publishing) that does not have a history of successfully appreciating and valuing African American contributions. Hence, please know that we desire to publish and have our voices heard, so approach us for the opportunity knowing our historical frame of reference."
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2008 TAA Conference
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Greetings!
I hope you have had a chance to visit the newly designed TAA website and have found it to be more user-friendly.
The 2008 TAA Conference, held two weeks ago in Las Vegas, was a great success! This issue of the News Alert has some news and information from the conference, but I encourage you to visit the post-conference website often as we are adding new items daily.
On July 1, TAA's new Council members took office. TAA's new president is Paul Siegel. You can learn more about Paul, and the other new Council members, in the TAA Council section of the TAA website.
Enjoy the rest of your 4th of July weekend!
Sincerely,
Kim Pawlak
Associate Executive Director
Text and Academic Authors Association
Send me an email
(608) 687-3106
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TAA Publication Grants process revised: New form and rules simplify application process
TAA has revised its guidelines for applying for a 2008-2009 TAA Publication Grant to make it a simpler process for members. TAA's Publication Grants program provides individual grants of up to $750 to cover the cost of publishing already accepted journal articles, or for the preparation of artwork or other charts, diagrams or images to be included in accepted articles or academic books.
Learn more
Download New Form
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Membership in TAA continues to grow
As of July 1, 2008 membership in TAA stands at 1,481, up from about 1,300 at the same time last year. This growth in membership has been a result of several factors, including TAA's workshop program, gift memberships given by current members, the TAA website, and the TAA Conference, as well as the association's spring 2008 Teleconference Series, said Kim Pawlak, TAA's associate executive director.
"Gift memberships continue to be the best way to attract new members to the organization," she said. "If you know a colleague who you feel could benefit from membership in TAA, you can give them a one-year gift membership for only $15."
To give one or more gift memberships, you can fill out a secure online TAA gift membership form and pay by credit card, or print out and mail a PDF along with a check payable to TAA: Click here
Alternatively, you could donate $15 or more to the TAA Foundation, and your tax-deductible gift would go to purchase gift memberships for TAA's prospective member list. To make a donation to purchase gift memberships, send your check, payable to TAA, with a note identifying it to be used to purchase gift memberships for prospective TAA members, to Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA), P.O. Box 76477, St. Petersburg, Florida 33734-6477.
Other ways you can help TAA grow:
- Encourage your colleagues to visit the TAA website and tour the members-only section to test drive TAA's member benefits and services.
- Share with your colleagues how TAA has benefitted you as an author.
- Add a TAA banner to your website (located in the TAA Member Center. You will need your username and password to access this section).
- Ask TAA to send you copies of the TAA brochure and then send them to your colleagues, or leave a stack of them in your department's office.
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New TAA Council members take office
New TAA Council members took office on July 1, 2008. TAA's new president is Paul Siegel, a professor of communication at the University of Hartford. TAA's new vice president, president elect is Don Collins, a professor of mathematics at Western Kentucky University. New TAA Council members are Barbara Waxer, a freelance author and developmental editor of computer software and Internet intellectual property textbooks for the academic and trades markets, and Fred Kleiner, a professor of art history and archaeology and chair of the Art History Department of Boston University.
Learn more about the TAA Council
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Requesting and receiving feedback and how to use it effectively
By Dave Harris
by Dave Harris
We shall take it as a given that a good academic work is focused. I have trouble imagining a dissertation writer who wouldn't agree that their dissertation ought to be focused. But focus doesn't get enough attention early in the process. Yes, early in the process we are seeking to refine a focus by exploring a range of possibilities. All of these are important reasons not to focus too intently, too early.
But this piece is about feedback and how to get and use feedback effectively; this is about submitting work to professors for feedback. You may have many ideas in your head and you may still be seeking focus, but, when it's time, you want to submit something that is focused. You can have all the competing ideas that you want rattling around in your head, but what you put down on paper for submission needs to be focused.
Read entire article
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Websites enhance textbook materials for students
By Kim Seidel
Chemistry author Karen Timberlake created a website for the seventh edition of her textbook, Chemistry: An Introduction to General, Inorganic and Biological Chemistry (now in its 10th edition) several years ago, before publishers entered the Internet and began adding online materials such as website supplements to textbook packages.
At Timberlake's website, www.karentimberlake.com, students can access learning and teaching activities that complement both her chemistry classes for allied health and her Chemistry textbook, including:
CheModules: PowerPoint Tutorials (PPTS) use mini-lectures and short learning checks to actively engage students in learning.
ChemLinks: Web sources related to each of the topics may enhance a student's study and learning.
LecturePLUS: Chemodules using (PPTS) develop important chemistry concepts for many topics in the allied health and preparatory chemistry courses.
Books: These give more information on the textbook and supplements.
Quizzes: Self-graded quizzes give practice and immediate feedback on topics covered in chemistry for allied health.
Read the entire article
Promote Your Textbook Website
Share the website addresses for your textbooks and we'll post them with this article on the TAA website and in the Busy TAA People section. Email your website addresses to Kim Pawlak. |
How to find a textbook publisher
By Kim Seidel
If you have an idea for a new textbook a great way to start looking for a publisher is by attending your discipline's annual meeting -- which typically hosts book vendors -- where you may be able to make some good contacts with publishing companies, said Dr. Laura Taalman, a mathematics professor at James Madison University.
"It is worth stopping by the exhibit booths of the publishers you are interested in; the editor you seek might be right there," she said. "Sales reps can sometimes give you an idea if your book fits in with their company's list. They also will often have contact information for the appropriate editors."
When Taalman was looking for a publisher for her textbook, Integrated Calculus: Calculus With Precalculus and Algebra, (which was published in 2004 by Houghton Mifflin) she shopped the idea around to sales reps at her university and at yearly math meetings. "The sales reps communicated with the math editors and someone turned out to be interested," she said.
Read the entire article
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Bovee, Thill file amended royalty complaint against Pearson
Textbook authors Courtland Bovee and John Thill filed an amended complaint on May 28, 2008 against Pearson Education in the United States District Court of Southern District of New York.
The suit seeks monetary damages for "systematic breaches and bad faith performances" of author agreements. The authors contend that Pearson has withheld, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of dollars of royalty income generated by the sale of their business communication and introduction to business textbooks.
Read entire article
Read the Expanded Royalty Manipulation Suit Filed Against Pearson
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TAA Gift Memberships
TAA member Kevin Patton gave gift memberships to Larry Checkett and Gayle Feng-Checkett
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TAA thanks Sustaining Member
Allyn J. Washington
TAA thanks Contributing Member
Christopher Kenneally
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Busy TAA People:
Kenneth Henson, distinguished professor of education at The Citadel's School of Education, received the 2008 Franklin Silverman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA). The award is named after Frank Silverman, a former TAA president and founder of the TAA workshop program who died from brain cancer in 2004. Click for more
Molefi Kete Asante, professor of African American Studies at Temple University, received the 2008 Mike Keedy Award from TAA. The award is named after TAA Founder Mike Keedy. Asante serves on the TAA Foundation Board. The Mike Keedy Award honors recipients for dedicated service on behalf of authors. It was presented at the 2008 TAA Conference on Text and Academic Authoring in Las Vegas, June 21. Click for more
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TAA Listserv split in two
TAA has split the TAA Listserv into two separate Listservs, one for textbook authors and one for academic authors. Choose which Listserv (or you can subscribe to both) you would like to subscribe to, and subscribe yourself. The current TAA Listserv will only remain active for a few months to allow members to switch over to the new Listservs.
Subscribe to the Textbook Authoring Listserv by sending an email to TAATextbookAuthoring-on@mail-list.com
Subscribe to the Academic Authoring Listserv by sending an email to TAAAcademicAuthoring-on@mail-list.com
You can switch to the Digest version of the Textbook Authoring Listserv, in which you receive only one email message per week with all that week's posts contained within it, by sending an email to TAATextbookAuthoring-switch@mail-list.com
once you have been subscribed.
To switch to the Digest version of the Academic Authoring Listserv, send an email to TAAAcademicAuthoring-switch@mail-list.com once you have been subscribed.
After you are subscribed to the Textbook Authoring Listserv, send messages to TAATextbookAuthoring@mail-list.com
After you are subscribed to the Academic Authoring Listserv, send messages to TAAAcademicAuthoring@mail-list.com
If you have any questions, please email Kim Pawlak
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TAA Teleconference Series
Listen to the recordings from TAA's Spring Teleconference series in the members-only section of the TAA website.
"Tips & Tricks for the Do-It-Yourself Indexer" moderated by Seth Maislin: Listen Now
"Don't Settle For a Publisher's Standard Contract: Terms You Can & Should Negotiate" moderated by Authoring Attorney Stephen Gillen: Listen Now
"A Coach's Perspective on Finishing a Dissertation" Teleconference moderated by Dave Harris: Listen Now
"Royalty Q&A" Teleconference moderated by Paul Rosenzweig, former president of Royalty Review Service: Listen Now
"Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar" Teleconference moderated by Tara Gray: Listen Now
Suggest Topics for the Fall TAA Teleconference Series
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