TAA Announces Michael Sullivan Lecture on Textbook & Academic Authoring

The Michael Sullivan Lecture on Textbook & Academic Authoring honors the life and work of mathematics textbook author Michael Sullivan, a long-time TAA member who has authored or co-authored more than 120 mathematics textbooks, many of which have been published in multiple editions.

The Lecture series provides a forum for textbook and academic authors to learn from veteran textbook and academic authors and other academic and textbook authoring and publishing experts. It will feature an invited lecturer whose textbook or academic authoring accomplishments are prolific, award-winning, and highly engaging and inspiring, or whose experience in the textbook or academic authoring or publishing industry qualifies them as an expert. The lectureship was established in 2023 by a generous gift from Michael Sullivan.

TAA Featured in New Book on Teaching Research Methods

The Textbook & Academic Authors Association was featured in a new book on research methods published by Edward Elgar Publishing, entitled Handbook of Teaching and Learning Social Research Methods.

TAA member and Research Community Manager for SAGE Publications Dr. Janet Salmons co-authored Chapter 23, “Teaching research methods online: informal or semi-formal professional development,” which featured TAA’s webinar program and facilitated writing groups, including the TAA Writing Gym and the Month of Motivation.

Busy TAA People: Dr. Janet Salmons Authors Chapter in New Book on Research Methods

TAA member Dr. Janet Salmons, Research Community Manager for SAGE Publications, recently published a chapter in a new book, Handbook of Teaching and Learning Social Research Methods (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023). The book “illustrates the wide range of approaches to teaching and learning social research methods in the classroom, online, in the field and in informal contexts.” Salmons co-authored Chapter 23, “Teaching research methods online: informal or semi-formal professional development.”

Textbook, Academic Authors Report Very Little Communication with Publishers Regarding AI

Eighty percent of respondents to the Textbook & Academic Authors Association’s latest survey, “Generative AI, Your Publisher & You,” said they have not had conversations with their publishers about their position on AI, their use of AI in their work(s), and/or contract clauses related to AI. The purpose of the survey, conducted between December 12, 2023, and January 8, 2024, was to help members advocate for themselves in conversations with their publisher(s) about generative Al (like ChatGPT) in contracts, policies, and statements.

How to Organize a Book Launch

Congratulations! Your book is in print. It’s time to party.

Ok, do you literally want to have a party where people come and celebrate this significant milestone with you? If so, read on.

A book launch is an event that occurs on or around the official release date of your book where people come together to celebrate your book publication and learn more about your book.

You can host a book launch at a local bookstore.

If you’d like for your book launch to happen at a local bookstore, the first step is to find a bookstore that hosts events and has staff who support events. The second step is to pitch to them. Bookstores struggle to find audiences for book events so your job will be to convince them that you have an audience. For most writers, that audience includes your friends, neighbors, and colleagues. This is why it’s easiest to have a book launch in the city or town you live in.

Busy TAA People: Jean Murphy Under Contract For First Book

TAA member Jean Derricotte-Murphy, D.Min., Ph.D, is under contract with Cascade Books to publish her first book, A View From the Balcony: Opera Through Womanist Eyes, in early 2024. Excerpted from the book’s abstract: “..this work offers the reader a historical glance at the philosophical and religious underpinnings of systemic racism by presenting a new healing hermeneutic, a Balcony Hermeneutic, from which to view, critique, assess, correct, and reverse the devastating effects Anthropological Poverty has inflicted upon the world.” She will also be presenting the paper “Beloved, Margaret Garner, and the Desperate Flight to Freedom” at the November 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio Texas. Congratulations Jean!