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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
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Read the archives for both Listservs here
If you have any questions, please email Kim Pawlak
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Greetings!
Happy New Year!
If your New Year's Resolution is to devote more time to your authoring projects, you won't want to miss these upcoming TAA Teleconferences:
Faculty Success: Tenure, Promotion & Merit Demystified
Presented by Kathleen King
Thursday, Feb. 4, 1-2 p.m. EST
BrandStoria: The Power of Your Unique Brand Story
Presented by Sharlene Sones
Tuesday, Feb. 9, 12-1 p.m. EST
Fresh Eyes: How Working With An Editor Can Improve Your Work
Presented by Laura Poole
Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2-3 p.m. EST
If you have any questions or need assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me directly by phone at (608) 687-3106 or email kim.pawlak@taaonline.net
Sincerely,
Kim
Kim Pawlak
Associate Executive Director
kim.pawlak@taaonline.net
(608) 687-3106
(507) 459-1363 cell
www.TAAonline.net
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Hansen-Thomas awarded $400 TAA Publication Grant
Holly Hansen-Thomas
Holly Hansen-Thomas, an assistant professor of bilingual and ESL education at Texas Woman's University, has been awarded a $400 TAA Publication Grant to cover expenses incurred in authoring her book, English Language Learners and Math: Discourse, Participation, and Community in Reform-Oriented, Middle School Mathematics Classes, published by Information Age Publishing, Inc.
"I was thrilled to learn that I had received a grant from TAA," said Hansen-Thomas. "It will help to defray some of the costs I personally incurred in preparing the book to go to press. Now, I will be able to focus my time on both promoting this book, and developing new projects for publication. I am glad to know that TAA provides such important support for academic authors and I am very happy to be affiliated with the organization."
Hansen-Thomas's book takes a community of practice perspective that highlights the learner as part of the community, rather than a lone individual responsible for her or his learning. The ethnographically-influenced study investigates how Latina/o English Language Learners (ELLs) in middle school mathematics classes negotiated their learning of mathematics and mathematical discourse.
The book presents the stories of how six immigrant and American-born ELLs worked with their three teachers of varied ethnicity, education, experience with second language learners, and training in reform-oriented mathematics curricula to gain a degree of competence in the mathematical discourse they used in class.
TAA members can apply for publication grants of up to $750 to cover expenses incurred in publishing already accepted print academic journal and book and textbooks including academic journal page costs or university press subventions; the cost of preparing artwork or other charts, diagrams, or images to be included in accepted journal articles or academic books or textbooks; and journal reprint costs. Grants are also available for expenses incurred as a direct result of research leading to publication of a book or article, including: - Interlibrary loan costs, or computer time costs incurred in the analysis of data, leading to publication of academic print materials.
- Costs of single photocopies of source materials for research related to the publication of an article or book.
- Costs of secretarial (copying and/or delivery) services incurred in the preparation of academic print materials.
- Cost of permissions incurred in the preparation of academic print materials for reprinting images, quoted material.
TAA has up to $4,000 available for making TAA Publication Grants in 2009-2010. Grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. The deadline for applications is May 1, 2010.
How to Apply: Download a PDF form and mail to: TAA Executive Director Richard Hull, 3241 Heather Hill Lane, Tallahassee, FL 32309-2307 |
Authors Asking:
Q: "I am writing a book under contract and my chapters have been running so long I have already written the maximum number of pages negotiated with my publisher, yet have only fulfilled half the overall content promised. How should I approach this with the publisher? Should I renegotiate the overall content covered in the book or engage in some major editing?"
A: Laura Taalman, mathematics textbook author: "This may not be an issue with you, but are you sure that YOUR page count is the same as theirs? Depending on what program you use for your writing, and
what kind of format the graphic designers and compositors will use, your count may be very different from what they will be counting. Maybe your problem can magically go away?"
A: Mary Ellen Lepionka, Publisher, Atlantic Path Publishing: "I suggest first clarifying if the publisher's contract is referring to book pages or manuscript pages. You can usually figure 2.5 double- spaced manuscript pages per book page for a book with around 500 words per page, which is standard for an 8 X 10 trim size, which is standard for a textbook. For a 14- to 16-chapter textbook, no chapter should exceed 40 book pages in length.
Second, book length and the table of contents are marketing decisions. Your book should be around the same length as directly competing textbooks for the same course from which the publisher is hoping to take market share. Also, your contents should be no more detailed than what is expected or wanted by instructors teaching the course at the level of instruction for which you are writing. Consider that you can move details to your instructor's manual or support web site.
Another consideration is the budget for your book, for which the publisher has already bought the paper. Also, the pricing has also already been set based on that cost. If your book is a signature over-length (32 pages longer than planned), multiply that by the number of books to be printed and you will get a sense of the magnitude of the problem from a business perspective. This has further ramifications; e.g., a book that does not break even or is not profitable is not revised, however good it is (and a lot of good books have disappeared this way, believe me).
It's probably better to bite the bullet and cut, and plan a more realistic length estimate for when you next revise. Suggest ask your publisher for help with length if you can't do it without sacrificing schedule. It's really hard to cut what you create objectively. Following is an excerpt regarding length control from a chapter on length and schedule in my book on textbook writing (Lepionka, M. E., Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, Atlantic Path Publishing, 2008). fyi:
'Disaster Control Guidelines for Length.
Scenario A: Your chapter is too long and there is simply no way you can cut it without destroying its brilliance and integrity.
Following Hippocrates, the following solutions for correcting length problems are ordered in terms of the principle of least intervention. In addition, following the principle of the conservation of energy and matter, solutions aim to preserve content in some form while cutting length.Solution 1: Scour for wordiness and tighten your prose (see Chapter 6). Especially look for strings of unnecessary prepositional phrases, unnecessary qualifying remarks and disclaimers, and any gratuitous-
seeming or jargony elaborations. Change every sentence to active voice.
Solution 2: Search for paragraphs you can drop. Especially drop a paragraph whose source citation is more than ten years out of date, unless this source is an essential classic. Also, ruthlessly drop paragraphs that are in any way tangential or digressionary, however amusing or clever. Then consider dropping extra examples and applications, shortening them, or substituting more economical ones.
Solution 3: Check that you have the prescribed number of pedagogical features and chapter elements. Choose the best ones and then combine, condense, move, or drop any extras, however good they are. Consider repurposing the best of them for use in your ancillaries or supplements.
Solution 4: Where possible, condense and convert portions of narrative to a figure or table. For example, the formula for estimating length took only 12 lines of type but essentially replaces 54 lines of manuscript preceding it.
Solution 5: Where possible, depending on your evaluation of their importance for your purposes, drop long figures or tables and preserve the content in condensed or summarized narrative form. For example, 'Research clearly shows that sleep deprivation has a negative effect on productivity in the workplace (Smith, 2002)' might easily replace a graph occupying one -third of a book page.
Solution 6: Ask your editor for suggestions or assistance in reducing the length of the chapter. It is important to identify and discuss any dropping of whole topics or headings and sections. Your editor might have reason to believe that some of your proposed cuts will compromise meeting customer needs. Avoid cutting any elements that are part of the publisher's book plan, because this is the plan for marketing, advertising, promoting, and selling your book, which are already underway....'"
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Bringing in a co-author requires 'reconstitution' of book project
Finding a co-author for your textbook should involve more than finding someone to share the workload, said Mary Ellen Lepionka, owner of Atlantic Path Publishing and author of Writing and Developing Your College Textbook.
"Rather than serving merely as a hired hand, each co-author should have content to contribute," she said.
Senior authors often bring in junior colleagues working in areas at the edges of their expertise or in emerging fields, to serve as coauthors, said Lepionka, but among the best sources of co-authors are colleagues from the author's past schooling, from his or her present institution or group, and individuals in groups the author interacts with at professional meetings.
Spouses and children don't usually make the best co-authors, she said: "From what I've seen, authors with spouses or offspring as co-authors are taking a big chance. Textbook writing is in itself a marriage with offspring."
In most fields, co-authors should be a Ph.D. with the rank of at least assistant professor and preferably associate professor, she said: "This is because if a textbook is successful, it will go into several revisions over a span of many years, and the coauthors need to be able to step into the principal author's roles as needed."
Unless hired just to provide pedagogy or serve some other specialized role, all the authors on an author team should also be credible and reliable as authoritative sources of the content, she said.
Once you have found a prospective co-author who is qualified and available to write a textbook, the next step is to determine whether his or her voice and style are a good fit, said Lepionka.
"The one thing that invariably makes textbooks successful, both academically and commercially, is the writing as a reflection of the authorial voice and style," she said. "Textbooks that do not have unity of voice (e.g., purpose, attitudes, assumptions) and consistency of style (e.g., level and use of language) inevitably fail in the marketplace."
Read rest of article here
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TAA NOTES
TAA thanks Contributing Member Martin S. Roden.
TAA thanks Sustaining Member Steven Barkan.
Register with Authors Registry to receive reprographic payments
TAA recently partnered with the Authors Registry (www.authorsregistry.org) to help facilitate the distribution of title-specific reprographic payments to its author-members. Click for more
Recordings of 2009 TAA Fall Teleconferences
Recordings of 2009 TAA Fall Teleconferences are now on the TAA website:
- "Generating & Refining Research Ideas, Parts One & Two"
- "Textbook Supplements: The Big Three" "Textbook Supplements: Electronic Products"
- "How Authors Can Navigate Successfully Through Copyright-Related Issues" "Making the Most of the Author-Editor Relationship: Insights From An Author & Editor"
- "Using Social Media to Promote Your Writing & Your Personal Brand"
- "Learn About Sisters of the Academy Institute (SOTA): Scholarly & Professional Development for Black Women"
Recordings are free for members. Non-members pay $69 for each recording.
Listen to or download teleconference recordings: click here
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INDUSTRY NEWS
Blog shares info about permissions
A blog by Anne Wallingford, "May I Have Your Permission, Please?" contains some great information about why authors need to obtain permission to use copyrighted work, and how to ask for permissions. Click to go to blog
View news about the Copyright Clearance Center and its Beyond the Book program: Click here
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TECH BIT:
I Can Hear You Now!
Cell phones have become an integral part of society.There are over 200 million cell phone users (that's two out of every three people in the United States).
When I sold the family rep agency in 2000, I decided to use my cell phone as my primary business phone number. With as much traveling as I've done since, it was a good choice. My phone works almost everywhere in the world-except inside my house.
Even though there are more than 180,000 cell sites, when I'm in my home office my cell phone barely works. On a good day, I get one or two bars of signal. One a bad day, my phone shows no signal at all. Most of the time I get voice mails, not a ringing phone. T-Mobile, my carrier, is nice enough to show their coverage map, you can see exactly why I have problems.
I used to have the same problem in our offices/warehouse, but that could easily be explained by all the metal in the building's construction.
As we become more dependent on our cell phones for our business, locations without good cell coverage can mean losing a lot of business-especially when those locations are where you spend a lot of your day. There have been solutions for in-building cell coverage issues, but they have been expensive costing between $10,000 and $25,000.
Now there are solutions inexpensive enough to make sense for an office or house. The first unit I tried was a simple cell phone repeater.
It operates with two antennas (one outside the house/office, one inside) and amplifiers. The outside antenna, which I mounted on the top of our fireplace chimney to give it the best view of existing cell phone towers in my area. The antenna is Omni directional so it can pickup more than one tower. The signal is then fed into the amplifier inside and rebroadcast inside. When I'm making calls the reverse is true, my signal from the phone is picked up by the inside antenna and rebroadcast using the outside antenna. This all happens so fast there is no delay added by the system.
The negative of this approach is that if your neighbors all find out what you have and decide to get their own repeaters pretty soon they are going to be interfering with each other. Similarly you shouldn't use several repeaters in the same office/warehouse building.
The other approach is a new smart repeater from Spotwave. Using the same basic technology as their commercial (all building), the Z-1900 costs a lot less at $399.
The Spotwave unit uses a square directional antenna outside (the NAU--network access unit, its intelligent amplified antenna) and a very small amplifier antenna combination inside (the CU coverage unit, the miniature indoor cell tower). I did notice the mounting hardware for the outside antenna (which I have mounted on the second story of the house) only allows mounting at 90 degree angles, so my outside antenna is not pointed exactly at the cell tower, I suspect lowering my signal a half a bar or so.
The big difference between the Spotwave unit and a simple repeater is it prevents feedback between the two antennae. You know the squeal of a PA system when sound from a speaker makes its way into the mike to create a loop. The same thing can happen to cell signal boosters that aren't smart enough to counter the problem; for them, feedback effectively blocks any desired communications from happening. Echo Feedback Cancellation happens in the Spotwave cell-band booster through patented interference & oscillation protection technology.
Both of these units were designed to operate in the PCS 1900 MHz range. There are some services using the older 850 MHz range (even new installations where there are spectrum availability issues). Obviously these units won't work with those services, so check with your carrier what band you are actually on before getting one.
I guess now that I have 4 bars of reception anywhere in the house, even the basement, I don't have any reason to miss that call of yours. Maybe this isn't an improvement after all.
Gregg Marshall, CPMR, CSP, is a speaker, author and consultant. He can be reached by e-mail at gmarshall[at]repconnection.com, or visit his website athttp://www.repconnection.com
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DISCLAIMER: TAA has not tested and neither endorses nor opposes any product or procedure recommended or referenced in any TAA publications, teleconferences, or workshops.
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