4 Tips to help you lose the stress and enhance your writing

At the 2017 TAA conference, Robert Barlow shared “10 Tips to Enhance Your Writing & Take the Stress Out of Polishing Your Work”. Among the tips a common theme of planning and preparation provide the key to reducing the stress of the writing process.

Although the tips related to preparing for your audience and the style of your discipline are effective in framing the destination of your manuscript, and the grammatical tips are foundational, the four organization tips (organize, research, scaffold, and review) were the key takeaways for managing stress throughout the writing process.

Member Spotlight: Siddhartha (Sid) Dastidar

TAA member Siddhartha (Sid) Dastidar is an Associate Professor (Adjunct) at Columbia University. As a textbook author in business, economics, and finance, his most recent publication is Capital Markets and Investments: Essential Insights and Concepts for Professionals (1st ed.).

What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on getting the word out regarding my recently published textbook. It is designed to accompany introductory/ intermediate finance classes that discuss the financial markets.

Friends – How to keep them but keep them away when you need academic immersion

Note: This is the first of two posts on how to handle your friends so you maintain their friendship but hold them off when you need most of your time for your academic project.

The piercing voice of Kathryn’s best friend on the other end of the phone threatened to puncture her eardrum. Penny screamed, “You’re never around anymore! Why is this damn project so important to you anyway? You think you’re too good for me!”

Kathryn mumbled an excuse about the doorbell ringing, hung up, and started to sob. For 18 years, Penny was her best friend, confidante, and supporter.

TAA signs on to Copyright Alliance letter seeking changes to copyright provisions of NAFTA agreement

The Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) was one of 19 groups to sign on to a letter from the Copyright Alliance to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer asking him to “modernize the copyright provisions of the NAFTA agreement for the digital age and to establish a template for future agreements.” Meetings to renegotiate the NAFTA agreement began August 16, 2017.

“The internet’s global reach has made copyright protections and enforcement increasingly important to free trade agreements,” states the letter.

Collecting unpaid royalties: Trends, traps, and litigation strategies in textbook royalty enforcement

Much has been written about changes in the college textbook marketplace over the last decade. The industry has adapted to new pedagogical methods, the proliferation of digital learning materials, and profitability pressures felt by publishers — all leading to significant innovation in the publication of learning materials. Some observers have concluded that we may be witnessing the death of the textbook as we have known it.

As the textbook publishing marketplace has changed, so too have relationships evolved between authors and their publishers. Commercial arrangements forged in the era of print media — which were amended and extended over time to apply to the publication of new editions — have been impacted by these industry-wide changes.