For academics: Are your kids growing up without you?

You were probably thrilled beyond words (mono- and polysyllabic) when your kids were born and you witnessed the true miracle of those so-young lives. The kids grew older, and you hunkered down into your academic career. Maybe your feelings changed—you don’t love them any less, but you may see the children as distracters and interrupters of your work. After all, we have important completions of all the conference abstracts, articles, books, chapters, dissertations, even the course syllabi. And we need to finish all these projects for advancement.

Granted, children can be annoyances and disrupters. Most of the time, though, barring a fall from the tree house, they are bothering you because they want—no, crave—your attention.

Meggin McIntosh to present 2-hr webinar on marketing for academics

Imagine having people read your writing! Imagine having others interested in your work and talking about it! Imagine your efforts receiving recognition! Guess what?! You have to market yourself and your work and you don’t have to spend a lot of money or hire a PR firm.

Join us Monday, May 1 & 8 from 2-3 p.m. ET, for this two-part focused and practical TAA webinar, “Marketing? You’re Kidding Me! I’m an Academic! Marketing that Matters (Lessons from a Puffin)”, where you’ll learn:

2017 TAA Council election results announced

Five TAA members have been elected to the TAA Council, the association’s governing board. Laura Frost has been elected Vice President/President-Elect, Juli Saitz has been elected Treasurer, and Claudia Sanchez has been elected to a second term as Secretary. Robert Christopherson and Dave Dillion have been elected to Council positions. This will be Christopherson’s third term.

10 Tips to help you evaluate an index for quality

The book you have spent so long writing and editing is almost ready to be published. It is in its final layout, and has been proofread multiple times. The one hurdle remaining is the index. Finally, you receive the index manuscript for review. While it may be tempting to give the index just a cursory glance before blessing it with your imprimatur, it is worth investing a modest amount of time to ensure that the index does your book justice. A complete and well-constructed index adds real value to your book by making its content more accessible to readers. How can you be confident that the index you receive is good enough for your book?

Trade vs. textbooks: 6 Key takeaways from my experiences

I am the author or co-author of three books. A textbook with a vanity publisher, two trade books with an academic publisher, and an upcoming introductory textbook.

My first book was the result of a publisher’s agent knocking on my office door and asking if I would be interested in writing a textbook. All the publisher asked was that I would require the book within my courses and sign away the copyright. I was excited to get started, so I barely even read the publishing contract. I now know this experience epitomizes that of working with a vanity publisher – the goal is to generate some revenue rather than produce the ideal product.  The textbook ended up being an effective tool within my course, but it wasn’t adopted anywhere else.