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 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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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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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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Greetings!
Authoring a textbook, academic book, scholarly journal article or grant application can be a challenge if you don't have a support network.
A TAA Chapter can help you connect with other authors so you don't have to feel so isolated. It can also help you create a sense of community, find collaborators for joint projects, and provide you with accountability partners. Your chapter's members can not only provide each other with peer support, but share advice that can increase their writing skills to get their book projects completed, their grants funded, or produce more scholarly journal articles.
You may think you don't have the time to lead or participate in a writing group, but a writing group can actually help you manage your time better by helping you become more productive and challenging you to complete your projects. It's important that your group meet in-person at least monthly and that each member sets personal goals and a deadline for reaching them.
A TAA Chapter can be started with as few as 15 members.
TAA will help you start a TAA Chapter by providing you with a $500 start-up grant, which can be used to purchase a library of authoring resource materials and conduct a chapter recruitment event.
TAA Chapters also receive:
- A chapter website linked to the TAA website
- A chapter listserv to be used for communicating among chapter members.
- Administrative support from TAA headquarters (TAA headquarters staff will process all chapter memberships and send renewal notices to chapter members).
- 20 percent of each chapter member's dues returned each year.
- All the benefits of a TAA membership for each chapter member.
- Chapters with 30 or more members receive one free TAA-sponsored workshop of their choice per membership year. TAA pays all the costs of bringing the TAA-sponsored workshop to your campus. Learn more about TAA's workshops: click here
Ready to get started? Contact me to receive a Chapter Membership Recruitment Package containing TAA membership brochures, chapter membership forms, sample issues of TAA's print member newsletter, The Academic Author, TAA Workshop brochures, and TAA letterhead and envelopes to help you in your recruitment efforts.
Let us help you get published in 2009.
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 2008 Teleconference Series
TAA members can now listen to recordings from TAA's 2008 Teleconference Series. The playback options have been enhanced to enable members to rewind, fast-forward and pause the recordings in addition to stop and play. The recordings can also now be downloaded and listened to on a computer or Mp3 player.
These recordings are for members-only. Only TAA members have permission to download TAA Teleconference recordings. Recordings may not be copied, shared with, or distributed to non-members.
Listen to or download the recordings:
Learn more about these teleconferences at http://www.taaonline.net/TAATeleconferences/schedule.html
Don't have your member username and password? Email Kim Pawlak
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Notable Author
Author transcends time zones, continents with his textbooks
By Kim Seidel
Over the last decade, award-winning author Ric Martini has experienced the textbook publishing process shifting electronically and multi-nationally. "At one point I had a compositor in Italy; keystroking/coding was done in India; the illustration team was in Virginia; I was in Hawaii or New Zealand; the publishing group was in San Francisco; the publishing headquarters was in New Jersey; and the corporate chiefs were in London," Martini said. "Talk about time zone problems. Just try scheduling a conference call."
Yet despite the wide distances with his team at times, his list of textbooks has grown, including the eighth edition of his first textbook, Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology (2008). The newest edition includes a translated edition in Italian and was written with his newest co-author, Judi Nath. "The translation usually follows publication by at least a year," Martini said. "The eighth edition just came out, so I don't expect there will be a translated version until late next year. Translating 75,000 labels takes a lot of time."
Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology (third edition) won its first Textbook Excellence Award (Texty) from TAA in 1996. It has since won two more, one in 1998 (fourth edition) and one in 2002 (fifth edition). Martini's Human Anatomy textbook won a Texty in 1995 for the first edition. The fourth edition won a design award at the Bookbuilders West book show. "The award list stopped as of 2003 when my texts were transferred from Prentice Hall to Benjamin Cummings, because BC publishes other anatomy and physiology textbooks," he said. "They are unwilling to submit my text or their others, probably for fears of perceived favoritism."
As Martini's accomplishments grow, he's gained co-authors on the most time-consuming text projects. However, Martini, who credits part of his success to long office hours, admitted that gave him time to start new projects.
Martini has interesting - and at times, frustrating - experiences when the production of the North American editions, the standard English iteration of his texts, are distributed internationally. This tendency to spread the production process around the planet peaked around 2006; since then, the focus has shifted back to North America.
While he doesn't know the financial complexities of that decision by the publisher, the shift has made his life easier in some ways. The time zone differences, for example, are reduced to a maximum of six hours. Every shift introduces new wrinkles, however, as the new production groups learn the layout conventions and standards for these texts, he said.
When his textbook's production work is under way, Martini deals with many challenges. "Even over a mere six time zones, the major issues are communication and coordination," he said. "With all of those time zones represented, somebody is almost always working and sending e-mails with questions or requests. No matter how much time you spend in the office, when you come back the next morning, there are e-mails expecting an immediate response."
Telephone calls are another difficulty. He's lost count of the number of times he's received calls at 2 a.m. from someone on the East coast who was excited about something and wanted to talk to him right away that morning.
With work going on at stations all over the world, multiple iterations of the text and art are occurring at all production stages. It's not easy to keep everyone "on the same page," in terms of tracking and proofing, he said. At times, two books are in production simultaneously, which can bring further complications with artwork and text.
It's not surprising that Martini said it was much simpler when the publisher handled all aspects of the textbook in-house, rather than distributing and outsourcing production work throughout the world. "It does save the publisher money, and it's always good to have a solvent publisher," Martini said. "From the author's perspective, it is pretty much a 'wash.' It has shortened the production time, which gives more time for manuscript development, but it has made the paging process a real high-pressure situation."
The benefits of International Editions (IEs) are tactical, financial, and personal. Martini pointed out the three different multi-national iterations in this process. He's experienced all three, and their advantages and disadvantages.
Read the entire profile
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2009 TAA Conference Workshop
How to Write When You're Not a Natural Writer
Dr. William Waters
Dr. William Waters, an assistant professor of English at the University of Houston, Downtown, will present a six-hour workshop on "How to Write When You're Not a Natural Writer" at the 2009 TAA Conference in San Antonio, TX, June 25 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
This workshop will offer hands-on practice of the principle skills involved in moving research insights from your head to the page and then from the page to the publisher. Specific skills will include finding and scheduling writing time, strategies for staying on schedule, the principles and practice of fast writing, how to efficiently use serial revisions to increase professional presentation, and how to use personal style sheets to identify and repair individual or language specific (ESL) issues.
Waters's research and teaching interests are in writing theory and practice, the history of the English language, linguistics, and modern grammar. He is the coauthor of Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation and was the managing editor of La Puerta: A Doorway into the Academy. He also has published several poems in national journals. Dr. Waters earned his Ph.D. in language and linguistics from the University of New Mexico and previously taught at the University of Maine; University College in Galway, Ireland; and Cheongbuk National University in Korea.
Conference registration is now open. Register here.
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2009 TAA Conference Session
Time Management: Why You Don't Need It, Can't Do It Anyway -- and What To Do Instead
Susan Robison
Susan Robison, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, will present a session entitled, "Time Management: Why You Don't Need It, Can't Do It Anyway -- and What To Do Instead," at the 2009 TAA Conference in San Antonio on June 26.
Are you in charge of your to-do lists or are your lists in charge of you? This session will encourage you to make time for what is important to you and to procrastinate even more. Come prepared to unlearn everything you have heard about time management so you can apply practices that will increase your effectiveness in teaching, writing, serving, and living well.
Participants will learn to:
- Develop their Pyramid of Power so they can focus on important tasks instead of wandering from task to task.
- Procrastinate creatively so they can make time, energy, and space for professional activities including research and writing.
- Apply the "strive for nine - or less rule" so that their to-do lists are realistic and achievable.
- Construct "unschedules" so they can play hard to work more productively.
- Plan backward and estimate time-to-completion more accurately.
- Use the "focused 15" to develop work habits that lead to flow, engagement, and fun.
- Develop and apply the CARS that bring them consistent results from their efforts.
Robison is psychologist, author, and consultant. As a professor of psychology at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, she teaches leadership courses in the graduate school. She is the author of two leadership books (Discovering Our Gifts and Sharing Our Gifts), a co-author with Barbara Walvoord et al. of Thinking and Writing in College, as well as numerous articles on leadership and work-life balance. She maintains a clinical practice at the Center for Extraordinary Marriages where she is co-director with her husband of 39 years. Her Professor Destressor faculty development workshops are on Peak Performing Practices of Highly Effective Faculty including stress management, time management, leadership, work-life balance, and communication skills. She enjoys coaching clients who want help with improving work-life balance, time management, and increasing productivity. In 2004 the Executive Women's Network presented Susan with the Mandy Goetze award for service and leadership to business women in the Baltimore area. In 2008 she was selected as one of the Top 100 Minority Business Entrepreneurs in the Maryland, DC, and Virginia areas.
Conference registration is now open. Register here.
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2009 TAA Conference Session
Textbook 2.0: The Future of Textbook Publishing
  
Jeff Shelstad Brad Fregger Matt Ghering
Listen to several different perspectives on the future of textbook publishing, during a session entitled, "Textbook 2.0: The Future of Textbook Publishing," at the 2009 TAA Conference in San Antonio, June 26.
Matt Ghering, product marketing manager at Google, will show how Web 2.0 technologies are fundamentally changing how content is created and consumed. "The increased importance of blogs and other types of user-generated content has in many ways changed how authority is established in the modern era, and tools like wikis and social networking sites have allowed a new form of collaboration not previously possible," he said. Ghering will discuss how authors and publishers can take advantage of these trends. His presentation will focus on a case study of the collaborate book effort by Internet Medical Publishing using Knol, Google's new tool for sharing and growing knowledge.
Brad Fregger, president/CEO of Groundbreaking Press, said
there is no doubt that the Internet is a powerful tool for retrieving and sharing information. "However, as we all have learned, the Internet is also unreliable-there is no way to determine if the 'experts' actually know what they're talking about," he said. "For this, and other reasons, blogs, wikis, and the YouTube will continue to be alternative supplements to the textbook and classroom experience, whether or not the classroom is actual or virtual.
"One of the major complaints of students is the high cost of many of our current texts; as a result, many students are not purchasing the text. Providing reduced prices (while in some instances actually increasing author revenue) can make a significant difference to the student's learning experience. Digital printing technology provides the opportunity for dramatically reduced text prices at classroom quantities.
"Electronic versions of texts are also needed for convenience, such as using the computer's "search" and "copy-and-paste" capabilities; plus, the easy availability for text access during downtimes."
Fregger believes that textbooks will always be critical to education; the form may change, but the need for a reliable source of information will not; and that Textbook 2.0 includes reduced prices and electronic media.
In this world of proliferating choices, quality and authorship will still cut through the noise, said Jeff Shelsted, co-founder of Flat World Knowledge. Shelstad will discuss how the current textbook model fails to serve authors, and how authors are at the core of the Flat World Knowledge model.
Conference registration is now open. Register here.
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2009 TAA Conference Roundtable Discussions
Time Management: Unpacking the Toolbox
Susan Robison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, College of Notre Dame of Maryland
Join Susan Robison, who is presenting in a one-hour session on Time Management on Friday at 9:30 a.m., for a small-group discussion of time management.
Working With Editors: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Steven Barkan, Department of Sociology, University of Maine, and the author of five textbooks and one trade book
From the initial submission of a book proposal to the publication of the first and subsequent editions of a textbook, every textbook author works with at least one editor and perhaps several editors. Like people in other occupations, some editors are a pleasure to work with (the "good"), some editors are ineffective and have other faults (the "bad"), and some editors are downright disagreeable (the "ugly"). This roundtable discussion draws on the moderator's experience as a textbook author with several publishers and many editors during the past fifteen years. It will examine the qualities that make an editor good, bad, or ugly and offer suggestions on working with editors with these various qualities. Roundtable participants will be encouraged to discuss their own experiences with editors of various kinds and to provide other participants with advice and suggestions that may help enhance the author-editor relationship.
Conference registration is now open. Register here
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