2009 TAA Conference Sponsors
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Sponsor the 2009
TAA Conference for only $200!
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TAA member benefit: Books for Purchase
TAA members may list and promote works on-line if they hold the rights. These works can be out-of-print or self-published.
Works will be posted on the TAA site, permitting adopters and individual buyers to buy directly from the author.
Authors set the price.
Authors provide the means of delivery, either electronic or print format.
To list your work in the Books for Purchase section, fill out this application. Email an image of the book cover to kim.pawlak@taaonline.net
To view the works for sale visit http://www.taaonline.net/books/index.html
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TAA thanks Sustaining Member
TAA thanks Sustaining Member Kevin T. Patton.
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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 Fall Teleconference Series
TAA's free 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!
Just a reminder that the deadline for proposals for presenting at the 2009 TAA Conference in San Antonio June 25-27 is Nov. 15.
Here are our current needs for sessions and/or presenters:
- 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, acquisitions 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" presented by Linda Searby, Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Alabama Birmingham
There's still time to sign up for this free TAA teleconference, which will be held Thursday, November 13, 1-2 central time
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 here
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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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Authors, publishers, and Google reach landmark settlement
The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and Google today (October 28, 2008) announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of incopyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search. The agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, would resolve a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors and the Authors Guild, as well as a separate lawsuit filed by five large publishers as representatives of the AAP's membership. The class action is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the Web. The agreement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works.
Read more
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2009 TAA Conference shaping up
The program for the 2009 TAA Conference on Text and Academic Authoring, which will be held in San Antonio, TX June 25-27 is almost complete. The 2009 Conference will feature four workshops, almost two dozen sessions, a 10-topic Roundtable Discussions Luncheon, mentoring sessions, the opportunity to meet with attorneys specializing in publishing and a literary agent, an evening awards ceremony and Q&A session with winners of TAA's Textbook Excellence and McGuffey Longevity Awards, and plenty of networking opportunities.
Workshops include "Textbook Writing 101," an expansion (6-hour instead of 4-hour) on last year's conference workshop by Michael D. Spiegler, Professor of Psychology, Providence College; "Cut the Crap! How to Develop the Art of Academic Writing," a two-hour workshop by Dr. Robert Ginsberg is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University; "How to Get Published by Scholarly Journals" a second two-hour workshop by Ginsberg; and "How to Write When You're Not a Natural Writer," a six-hour workshop by Dr. William Waters, an assistant professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown.
Moderators and topics are still needed for the Roundtable Discussions Luncheon. If you are interested in serving as a moderator, contact Kim Pawlak, TAA's associate executive director, at kim.pawlak@taaonline.net If you are planning to attend the conference and would like to serve as a mentor during the conference, please contact Pawlak.
Sessions so far include:
"Geo-Primer--Great Plains and the Texas Crossroad" 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. A regional and place geography. An important geographic theme is that of "place." No two places are identical and each is unique. San Antonio is at a crossroads, a point of convergence in geography and history; a richness of cultural heritage. We see the physical setting in the southern Great Plains (precipitation, air pressure, temperatures, weather and climate, and landscape). The challeneges to settlement posed by dryness, vast distances, depth of water tables, the Native American population, lack of fence building and construction materials, and the Eastern mindset extended and tested in a new landscape. Also, the human and cultural response and overview. A brief mention of the regional environmental topics such as San Antonio's changing climate this century, water, and growth issues.
"Collaboration Agreements: How to Ensure Your Co-Author Won't Become Your Enemy"
by Stephen E. Gillen, Authoring Attorney, Greenebaum Doll & McDonald. No one ever sets out to co-author a work with their first enemy, but when a collaboration goes bad that's where you can end up if you haven't planned for that possibility. Gillen, an authoring attorney, long-time TAA member, and member of the TAA Council, knows all too well that disputes among co-authors are more likely to result in Mutually Assured Destruction ("MAD") than in a successful outcome for one author or the other. He explains what can go wrong, and provides tips for how authors can plan for the best even while preparing for the worst. He will also walk attendees through the provisions of a typical collaboration agreement.
"The Second Time Around: The Do's Don't's and Maybe's of Preparing a Second Edition" by Janet Belsky, Professor, Psychology, Middle Tennessee State University; Kevin Patton, Professor of Life Science, St. Charles Community College. It's time for the next edition. Now what do you do? From avoiding common pitfalls, to judiciously responding to reviews, from managing chapter sizes, to dealing with cutting, rewriting, and planning your time - Belsky, author of the 2008 Texty-winning, Experiencing the Lifespan, gives a first person account of the joys and heartaches involved in revisiting a textbook the second time around. Patton, author of two McGuffey longevity award winning texts, then follows up with the long view to suggest practical tips for planning an ongoing cycle of revisions.
"A Dozen Strategies for Successfully Marketing Your Book," 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.
"Accessibility for Authors: Understanding the Reading Needs of Disabled Students" by Robert Martinengo, Publisher Services Manager, Alternative Media Access Center (AMAC). Students with disabilities that prevent or impair their ability to read standard printed books are protected from discrimination under various statutes. This means that textbooks and other instructional materials must be provided to these students in a format that they can use, such as braille, large print, audio, and newer electronic formats. Conversion to these "alternate formats" is often done by schools or non-profit agencies, but publishers are coming under increased pressure to provide accessible materials through the same channels and at the same prices as printed books. This is causing a ripple-effect up the textbook production chain, to the point where authors should be aware of accessibility issues in order to understand how their materials are being reformatted for use by disabled students. At the same time, other market factors, such as the perceived high-cost of textbooks, is driving publishers to develop viable electronic book products and distribution systems. These trends, the legal imperative for accessibility and the market pressure for affordability, intersect at the issue of digital rights management. While publishers are afraid to sell ebooks without layers of technical protection, they are also obligated to provide unlocked, unprotected files of these same books at no cost for use by disabled students. Academic authors should have a basic understanding of accessibility issues so they will be prepared to intelligently respond to disability-related requests from their publishers, their administration, and their students. This session will provide sufficient background information and analysis of the current situation for authors to address accessibility issues in their own work environment.
"Orientation to the Journal Publishing Industry" by Robert Ginsberg, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University, and Director of the International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry. Publishing scholarly journals is a big business for publishing houses. This highly profitable commercial activity sells a desirable product--the latest scholarship--to a small but reliable market--academic libraries and the membership of scholarly organizations. To assure quality of contents, and to attract subscriptions from institutions, publishers must respect the autonomy and expertise of the academic editors. Scholars, in turn, are expected to respect the business acumen of their publishers. This sounds like a reasonable cooperative arrangement. But what shall we do when publishing costs go up, individuals and institutions can no longer afford subscriptions, editors are called upon to shape contents for better marketability, and scholars do not have enough opportunity to publish their work?
"Scholarly Writing: Strengthening Your Literature Review" by Dr. William Waters, an assistant professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown, and coauthor of Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation. You've written a literature review before - perhaps many, many times. But are you happy with the process and results? Most scholars aren't. Perhaps you have a method that works to compile and synthesize the relevant literature, but what you write is a tedious list of studies that readers are likely to skip over. Or perhaps you sit at your desk facing several huge piles of books and several piles of articles asking yourself "How am I supposed to begin to tackle and process all of this material? Isn't there a more useful way to organize a literature review?" Even if you felt like you could get through it, how are you supposed to keep track of everything you read? How will you synthesize it and put it all together? Waters will share a method you can use that will make processing and writing your literature review efficient and manageable. It is also a method that allows you to make connections among your literature in an original and unique way - connections that elevate the quality of your thesis, dissertation, or articles. There's an added bonus, too. After you've completed the process, the literature review almost writes itself.
"Open Access: What is it and What Does it Mean for Academic Authors?" by C. Jeffrey Belliston, Scholarly Communications Librarian in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. What is Open Access? The modern Open Access (or OA) movement has historical roots - some fairly recent and some much older. If one has a correct understanding of these historical roots, the OA movement will properly be seen as evolutionary rather than as revolutionary. In addition to this theoretical treatment of the "what is OA" question, a treatment of what John Willinsky has called the "flavors" of OA will elucidate the very practical side of the same question. What does OA mean for academic authors? Just as with the "what is OA" question, there are multiple sides to the "what does OA mean" question. One side of this question are the practicalities of how an academic author would go about OA publishing. Because OA comes in various "flavors" there are a variety of ways a scholar can publish OA materials. As is to be expected, there are both commonalities and differences to all of these flavors and within these flavors depending upon one's discipline. Another side of the "what does OA mean" question deals with the benefit academic authors can derive from OA publishing. Were there no benefits, we would not see OA publishing taking off like it is. This discussion of OA would not be complete without addressing current issues related to it, including the recent acquisition of BioMed Central by Springer (and the whole issue of the economics of OA publishing), the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, the NIH OA mandate the Act is designed to overturn, Harvard's OA mandate, and others.
Other 2009 Conference sessions include "Staying Sane in Insane Places: Juggling Your Family, Academic & Writing Roles" by psychologist Susan Robison; "The Business of Authoring" by Robert Christopherson and Charles Williams; "Learn About TAA's New & Revised TAA Publication Grant" by Richard Hull; "Contracts for New Authors" by Michael Lennie and Jan Kardys; "Making Your Work More Visual w/Lab" by Barbara Waxer; "Author & Publisher Open Discussion" by Jan Kardys (more presenters to be announced); "Contracts for Veteran Authors" by Michael Lennie and Jan Kardys; and "Finding Images: Understanding Licensing & the Public Domain"by Barbara Waxer.
Visit the 2009 TAA Conference website at www.taaonline.net/TAAConference 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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Professor replaces textbooks with Web tools
by Kim Seidel
Gerald Kane, an assistant professor of information systems at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, has created an entire suite of "Web 2.0 tools" that he uses in place of textbooks in his technology-driven course, Computers in Management. His Web 2.0 tools, which include blogs, wikis, social networks, and RSS feeds, are all tied together with a wiki.
"I fear that most people hear 'wiki' and think 'Wikipedia'," said Kane. "Our use of the tools is very different than that."
Kane said that he didn't purposely set out to replace his textbooks with technology. "I found that the more I used Web tools for managing my class, the less relevant and important the textbook became to what we were actually doing," he said. "Eventually, the traditional textbook just sort of dropped off because it became less relevant to the real learning in the class, but (the textbook) was still very expensive."
The cost of using Web tools is essentially "zero," said Kane, since wikis, blogs, social networks and RSS readers are available for free. While he writes some of the Web 2.0 content he uses, he largely takes advantage of free content from the web, and then creates a PowerPoint presentation to tie together the themes and issues he finds. "Web tools can be used to leverage the vast amount of content already available on the Internet," he said. "Of course, certain content, such as the Harvard Business School Case Studies and other copyrighted content, have to be paid for, and I have used some of these on occasion. For the most part, though, it's a fair use of existing content on the web."
Kane's students contribute content to his wiki by posting articles, blog posts or even YouTube videos that are relevant to discussions. When contributing content, they are required to include a reason why they consider that particular content important. They are also required to research and build a part of the wiki as one of their class assignments. "Their creations more closely resemble Wikipedia than other tools used in the course," he said. "Much of the student's content is good enough to retain for future classes."
Other educational content for his Computers in Management course comes from an open source textbook, Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology, written by Kane's colleague, John Gallaugher, which will be published in 2009 by Flat World Knowledge (www.flatworldknowledge.com), that Kane has been given early access to.
An open source textbook gives readers the ability to contribute to and edit the content, said Kane: "One benefit to this approach is that textbook authors can get feedback from their readers, including faculty and students, to improve the content."
Read more
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Call for Papers: The Clearing House
The Clearing House, a peer-reviewed journal that publishes material of interest to middle level and high school teachers and administrators, as well as postsecondary education faculty members and their students, is seeking submissions.
Contributors should visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/heldref/tch for submission information and guidelines.
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Member finds TAA mentoring helpful
TAA member Gail Baura, a professor at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences and author of three textbooks, recently contacted TAA mentor Michael Sullivan for assistance as she negotiates a contract for her fourth textbook.
"Even though I have three textbooks, I don't know much about the book contract process," she said. "It seemed like a good idea to get advice for my fourth textbook."
Baura said she chose Sullivan from TAA's list of mentors because his area of math was closest to her area of biomedical engineering. She sent him an email and when Sullivan responded, they set up a time to talk by phone. "So far I have spoken to him once, but now that I have draft contracts with two publishers, I will call him again," she said. "He was very knowledgeable and helpful. I'm not through the contract process yet, but so far I have been able to negotiate having the publisher obtain my permissions, write my index, and pay someone else to write my solutions manual. Until Michael mentioned these topics, I did not know they were negotiable. I also now know that an attorney should read my close-to-final contract."
TAA's Mentor-A-Member online mentoring directory is free for members. TAA mentors provide advice, suggestions, or direction on a variety of career or authoring issues; feedback on an article, book proposal, manuscript, or other type of writing; or just answer questions or provide guidance. View TAA's mentoring directory: click here
If you would like to serve as a TAA mentor or have a TAA mentoring experience to share, please contact Kim Pawlak, TAA's Associate Executive Director at kim.pawlak@taaonline.net or (608) 687-3106.
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Council of Fellows nomination deadline Nov. 30
The deadline for applying for membership in TAA's Council of Fellows is Nov. 30. The association'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.
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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