speaker and mentor panels will feature several publishing industry professionals with expertise on topics such as intellectual property, copyright, publishing contracts, and royalties. The conference will be held in Old City, Philadelphia, June 14-15, 2019.

Intellectual property attorney Brenda Ulrich, a partner at Archstone Law Group PC, will kick off the conference with a session titled “Legal Issues for Independent Contractor Authors and Self-Publishers.” This session will explore legal issues in the “post-traditional publishing contract world.” Topics covered will include 1) Nontraditional contracts with major publishers: work for hire contracts, alternative contributor or independent contractor arrangements; 2) Contracts with smaller or non-traditional publishers and content provider: some things change, some things stay the same; 3) Self-publishing: wearing many hats; and 4) Open Source/Creative Commons.

CPA Juli Saitz, Senior Managing Director at Ankura Consulting Group, and Sean Wakely, Vice President of Product and Editorial at FlatWorld, will present a session titled “Can My Publisher Really Do That?” This session will address some common questions authors have about what prerogatives publishers have in respect to publication decisions, calculating royalty payments, marketing, and more. Saitz and Wakely will approach hypothetical examples from an industry insider and third party auditor’s point of view.

IP Attorney, Steve Gillen, partner, Wood, Herron & Evans, and Karen Morris, author, judge, and distinguished professor of business law, will present a session titled “Mergers and Acquisitions Among Publishers: Author’s Need a Life Jacket.” The session will focus on how mergers and acquisitions can impact authors, what to do if it happens, and author options. Participants will get answers to these and related questions, and ideas on how to survive well.

These are just three of the more than 30 sessions that will be featured at TAA June conference. The speaker and mentor panels includes veteran authors, authoring attorneys, and publishing industry experts who will present sessions focused on writing strategies and productivity, copyright and royalty issues, eBook and technology trends, marketing and branding, open access and other exciting and challenging trends in academic publishing. For the full list of session descriptions and presenter bios please see the program listing. Early registration ends April 15.