2009 TAA Conference Sponsors
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Sponsor the 2009
TAA Conference for only $200!
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Busy TAA People: Mary Kay Switzer
Mary Kay Switzer, a professor of communication at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, was selected to develop a theatre arts initiative in her county. She serves on the board of the Pass Area Performing Artists, and directed the premiere performance of "Our Town" which got rave reviews. She is also a member of the Cultural Alliance in her county. Mary Kay has been a TAA member for 12 years, and served as TAA Council Treasurer for most of that time. She now serves as a TAA Council member.
Click for more Busy TAA People
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Busy TAA People: Clifton Meador
Clifton K. Meador, M.D., clinical professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine and Meharry Medical College and director of the Meharry Vanderbilt Alliance, recently published Symptoms of Unknown Origin, Vanderbilt University Press (2006) and Puzzling Symptoms, Cable Publishing (2008). He was also honored with the National Vanderbilt Alumni Achievement Award for 2008.
Click for more Busy TAA People
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TAA thanks Sustaining, Contributing Members
TAA thanks Sustaining Members Fred Kleiner, Ron Pynn and David Myers, and Contributing Member Michael Lennie.
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TAA Membership Renewal Coupon Expires December 31, 2008
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Please take a minute to fill out the 2008 TAA Member Survey
Your answers will help us shape future member benefits!
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TAA launches Fall Teleconference Series
TAA has launched its members-only Fall Teleconference Series.
- "Make Your Book Better & Your Online Sales Bigger with Online Feedback Tools" (listen to recording)
- "How to Craft a Winning Textbook Proposal" (listen to recording)
- "Scholarly Writing: Strengthening Your Literature Review" (listen to recording)
- "Scholarly Publishing: Finding Support Through Peer Mentoring" (Nov. 13)
- "How to Proactively Market Your Textbook" (Nov. 20)
Learn more about these teleconferences at http://www.taaonline.net/TAATeleconferences/schedule.html
Sign up for one or more Fall teleconferences
Don't have your member username and password? Email Kim Pawlak
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Subscribe to TAA Listservs
Subscribe to one or both of TAA's Listservs, one on textbook authoring and one on academic authoring.
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
Read the archives for both Listservs here
If you have any questions, please email Kim Pawlak
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Greetings!
The 2009 TAA Conference is shaping up! We only have a few open slots left for full sessions, so if you have been thinking about presenting a session, please send in your proposal soon. The deadline for proposals is Nov. 15.
Here are our current needs for sessions and/or presenters:
- A presenter or presenters for a session on orienting authors to the textbook publishing industry.
- A presenter who is knowledgeable about the tax issues of authors to serve on a panel about the business of authoring.
- Publishing representatives (editors, marketing directors, sales reps, acquistions editors, etc.) to participate in a Q&A panel to answer author questions about publishing.
- Roundtable Discussion topics and moderators. Roundtable Discussions take place over lunch on Friday.
If you have any questions, please contact me.
Sincerely,
Kim Pawlak
Associate Executive Director
kim.pawlak@taaonline.net
(608) 687-3106
(507) 459-1363 cell
www.TAAonline.net
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TAA Teleconference
"Scholarly Publishing: Finding Support Through Peer Mentoring"
Thursday, November 13, 1-2 central time
Presented by Linda Searby, Assistant Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Alabama Birmingham
Linda Searby was one of three assistant professors in the School of Education at UAB who formed a professional learning community called S.N.A.P., Support Network for Assistant Professors, in 2007 as a way to offer structured support for the School of Education's non-tenured faculty who wish to become more prolific scholarly writers.
Twelve of the School's assistant professors joined the group and began meeting monthly for peer mentoring, writing workshops, informative presentations by senior faculty, and the development of supportive, collegial professional relationships with one another. The objective of S.N.A.P. was for faculty peers to give each other 'a leg up' to 'go up' for tenure and promotion.
At the end of the first year of S.N.A.P., the group's leaders conducted a survey to determine the effectiveness of the group. More than 80 percent of the group's members said that participation in S.N.A.P. motivated them to write more or publish more. Eighty-two percent of the group's members said they had had articles accepted for publication.
Seventy-five percent of the group's members said that they met the goals they set for themselves at the first S.N.A.P. session, and all said they would participate in the group the next year.
Searby, who wrote a scholarly paper on the project, will share how she created the support group, describe the success that they have had, and tell faculty how they can develop a similar group on their campus.
Learn more about S.N.A.P.: Click here
Sign up for this teleconference
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or email kim.pawlak@taaonline.net
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Already have a writing group or are considering forming one? Make it a TAA Chapter and get a $500 start-up grant, a TAA Chapter website and Listserv, and 20 percent of your chapter's dues returned each year!
Recruit at least 30 members and you'll receive one complimentary TAA Workshop!
Contact Kim Pawlak for more information.
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TAA Teleconference
"Tips & Strategies for Successfully Marketing Your Textbook"
Thursday, November 20th, 1-2 p.m. central time
Presented by Robert Christopherson, Professor Emeritus of Geography, American River College (1970-2000), and author of the leading physical geography texts in the US and Canada
It should go without saying that when authors go to all the dedicated time and effort to produce a textbook that they do it with a goal that it will be adopted, read, and provoke learning - a change in behavior in the reader. This requires thought throughout the creative process about sales features, and the author's involvement in marketing and the post-production/sales period. These are areas of publisher responsibility for sure, however, the marketing process requires proactive and aggressive effort on the author's part for complete success. This teleconference will describe some of the strategies authors can use to successfully market their textbook, including sales manual copy, lists of new features, participation in national sales meeting with PowerPoint presentations, an author's blog linked to the text, an interactive web site, listing of author's e-mail address in the Preface, contact with sales reps, copy for ads and fliers, a calendar project, and more.
Sign up for this teleconference here or by emailing kim.pawlak@taaonline.net
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Listen to recording of TAA Teleconference on crafting a winning textbook proposal
TAA members can now listen to a recording of the October 9 teleconference "How to Craft a Winning Textbook Proposal" presented by Mary Ellen Lepionka: Click here
Some participant comments from the session:
"Mary Ellen really knows her stuff. Excellent teleconference for beginning authors."
"I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation. Mary Ellen is certainly very knowledgeable. It was also an added bonus (and real pleasure) to have someone of Robert Christopherson's experience as an author in particular items to consider in a proposal. An author's perspective on this topic was VERY helpful! Thanks for a fantastic presentation...I'm hooked!"
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Listen to recording of TAA Teleconference on strengthening your literature review
TAA members can now listen to a recording of the October 17 teleconference, "Scholarly Writing: Strenghtening Your Literature Review," presented by Sonja Foss and William Waters: Click here
Some participant comments from the session:
"The content was excellent. Thanks to both speakers! The TAA offerings are of great value to me as a beginning academic writer."
"I thought the teleconference was excellent and am looking forward to trying this method for the article I'm working on now."
"Thank you, again, for a fantastic session. It's just what I needed to hear, at just the right time."
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Geologist receives first TAA Publication Grant
Geologist Reika Yokochi, a visiting research assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been awarded a TAA Publication Grant of $750 to help cover the cost of publishing her article about the enigmatic diamond "carbonado", a naturally occurring black diamond, in The Canadian Minerologist. Yokochi's grant is the first one awarded by TAA.
TAA members can apply for a Publication Grant 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.
Yokochi, a new TAA member, learned about TAA's Publication Grants on the TAA website. "It was literally the only grant I could apply to my situation," she said. "I was not aware of the cost of publication, and was told about the charge a month before publication, while the proof was being made."
The title of Yokochi's article, coauthored with Daniel Ohnenstetter, from the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, Rue Notre-Dame-des-Pauvres, and Yuji Sano, from the Center for Advanced Marine Research, Ocean Research Institute at The University of Tokyo, is "Intergrain Variation in g13C And Nitrogen Concentration Associated with Textural Heterogeneities of Carbonado".
"Carbonado diamonds have several strange characteristics that have made geologists hypothesize that these diamonds probably did not come from the deep Earth (where ordinary diamonds originate)," said Yokochi. "Geologists have suggested that carbonado diamonds could have been formed in four ways: 1) from ancient organic carbon that subducted deep tectonic activity; 2) by an alpha-irradiation (from U-decay) of carbon in a sedimentary rock; 3) at the surface of the Earth by a high-pressure shock of asteroid's impact; or 4) in a interstellar medium and carried as a part of meteorites (These are "romantic" stories to geologists' because diamonds should normally form in deep Earth).
"Our study demonstrates that the third hypothesis is unlikely, as well as that the textures and compositional heterogeneity of carbonado diamonds resemble that of igneous rocks," she said. "Other recent studies have shown that the first and second hypotheses were disproved. There is always the possibility that the fourth hypothesis is correct, but no meteorites contain a diamond similar to carbonado.
"Overall, the textural similarity between carbonados and igneous rocks we observed may imply that they actually are formed by an igneous activity deep in the Earth," said Yokochi. "Some earlier arguments against this statement are recently being refuted although some questions still remain."
Yokochi started the article with a supervisor in Japan while studying for her Master's degree, but added data while studying for her PhD with some help from another researcher in a different laboratory in France. "Although I started as a student, I ended up leading the project," she said. "By the time the paper was accepted, I was a visiting research assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. These factors made me feel uncomfortable asking my coauthors to pay a major part of the publication cost. I appreciate this grant from TAA very much."
TAA has up to $7,500 available for making TAA Publication Grants in 2008-2009. Grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. The grant period runs from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009.
To apply for a TAA Publication Grant, fill out a grant application form. Attach a copy of the publisher's letter of acceptance and a copy of the publisher's charge invoice. Mail to TAA Executive Director Richard Hull, 3241 Heather Hill Lane, Tallahassee, FL 32309-2307.
Questions? Contact Richard Hull
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Industry News
Attend three-day course on textbook writing Jan. 5-7
Veteran textbook author Michael Spiegler will be presenting an intensive three-day course on writing a textbook in St. Petersburg, FL on January 5-7, 2009 (a Chautauqua Short-Course for teachers).
This hands-on, interactive course will cover the challenges and rewards of textbook writing by providing participants with a realistic snapshot of what it entails, what is required professionally and personally, how to get started, and how to bring the vision of a book to fruition, which includes writing a prospectus and sample chapters, contacting publishers, negotiating a favorable contract, the writing phase, the production phase, dealing with publishers, alternatives to traditional publishing, and survival skills for authors.
Spiegler is a professor of psychology at Providence College and has been a successful textbook author for 40 years, with leading books in two areas of psychology. He has presented numerous workshops on textbook writing at universities, professional conventions, and at the annual TAA conference. He is currently writing a comprehensive Handbook for College Textbook Writing.
For details about the course and to enroll, click here
For additional information, contact Michael at spiegler@providence.edu
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2009 TAA Conference to feature three workshops
The 2009 TAA Conference on Text and Academic Authoring in San Antonio, TX, June 25-27, 2009, will feature three workshops on Thursday, June 25.
"Textbook Writing 101" will be presented by Michael D. Spiegler, professor of psychology at Providence College. This six-hour workshop is an expanded version of the one offered at the 2008 Conference. It is designed for both those who want to learn how to write their first textbook and those who have written a textbook and want to learn how to write their next textbook or revision more efficiently and effectively.
It will provide attendees with the nuts-and-bolts of how to write a prospectus and sample chapters, how to contact publishers, and how to negotiate a favorable contract.
Participants will learn the basics of the writing, revising, and production phases and get advice on how to deal with publishers, alternatives to traditional publishing, and survival skills for authors.
Award-winning scholar and editor Dr. Robert Ginsberg will present a two-part workshop, "Cut the Crap! How to Develop the Art of Academic Writing" and "How to Get Published by Scholarly Journals: Confessions of an Editor."
The workshops will include hands-on participation, show-and-tell activity, behind-the-scenes reporting, roundtable editing, and question-and-answer sessions.
Participants may take one or both of the two-hour workshops. "Cut the Crap!" will cover the principles of good style: clarity, simplicity, directness; recognizing bad style in the writing of others; recognizing bad style in your writing; editing yourself to become an effective writer; unclogging your reference system; eliminating junk phrasing; activating your active voice; and learning to love the comma.
"How to Get Published by Scholarly Journals" will cover the special function of periodicals in the academic world; finding journals appropriate for your work; the formats of journal publishing: articles, reports, book reviews, letters, special issues; the discipline of writing for periodicals: house style, revision, length limits, deadlines, final copy, abstract, offprints.
The third six-hour workshop, which is still in development, is tentatively titled, "How to Write When You're Not a Natural Writer", and will be presented by William Waters, an assistant professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown.
Please visit the 2009 TAA Conference website for more information about these Thursday workshops and scheduled Friday and Saturday sessions: click here
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TAA seeks applications for Council of Fellows
TAA is seeking applications and nominations for candidates for membership in the association's Council of Fellows. TAA's Council of Fellows members are distinguished authors who have a long record of successful and diverse publication as a textbook author, an academic author, or both. Candidates should be authors whose textbooks or academic articles or books have established their presence in their field.
Council of Fellows members are chosen
by a TAA Selection Committee based on a set of criteria which includes their level of participation in TAA activities; teaching excellence; quality and quantity of textbooks (if textbook authors); and quality and quantity of professional journal articles, monographs and edited books (if academic authors). A full set of criteria is enclosed.
New Council of Fellows members are inducted at the association's annual conference, at which time they receive a special engraved medallion and lifetime membership in TAA.
TAA's current Council of Fellows are Michael Sullivan, Lee Mountain, Everette E. Dennis, Mike Keedy, Franklin H. Silverman and Karl J. Smith, inducted in 1999; Thomas L. Wheelen and William R. Pasewark, inducted in 2000; Karen Hess, D. Stanley Eitzen and J. David Hunger, inducted in 2001; Charles D. Holland, inducted in 2002; Patrick G. McKeown, inducted in 2003; and Karen C. Timberlake and Marilyn T. "Winkie" Fordney inducted in 2005.
Applications must include documentation in support of the Council of Fellows criteria. Send your application and documentation to TAA, P.O. Box 76477, St. Petersburg, FL 33734-6477. Questions? Contact TAA headquarters at TextandAcademicAuthors@taaonline.net
The deadline for application to the TAA Council of Fellows is November 30, 2008. New members will be inducted at the 2009 TAA Conference in San Antonio, Texas, June 25-27.
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