The Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) announces a Call for Proposals for its 2020 conference to be held June 12-13 in San Diego, CA. We invite the submission of session presentations relevant to writing, publishing, and marketing textbooks and academic works (journal articles, books, and monographs). The session proposal deadline is October 7, 2019.
Can my publisher really do that? Common author questions and answers from industry pros
At TAA’s 2019 Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference, industry insider Sean Wakely and royalty auditor Juli Saitz addressed some common questions authors have about what prerogatives publishers have in respect to publication decisions, calculating royalty payments, marketing, and rights, with hypothetical examples from their point of view.
Here are the questions and answers from that session, divided into five parts:
For lagging doctoral candidates: How to finish your dissertation and keep your family
If you are in the throes of your dissertation, you probably realize that, other than yourself, your family is most affected by your dissertation, and they most affect your progress. It can be hard for family members to understand what you’re going through and must continue to endure for several years.
A poignant example from one of my dissertation coaching clients: Ava wailed to me, “I get calls daily from my mother, my three sisters, and my two cousins! They all say they’re tired of me not coming to the family events. I had to go to the reunion!”
Like Ava’s relatives, family can start squeezing you.
Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: July 5, 2019
This week’s collection of articles from around the web is filled with resources and advice that you will want to save for present and future writing projects. It opens with some new books on writing that you might want to add to your personal library and then continues with specific advice on mistakes to avoid, data visualizations, how many references are appropriate, and graphical or video abstracts for your articles. Finally, there are some articles on other important topics including research funding, Plan S, and the need for outside jobs in grad school.
As you move forward on your writing projects this week, we wish you great success. Happy writing!
Textbook publisher mergers and acquisitions: What authors need to know
If you’ve been published (or simply signed, for that matter) by a US publisher in the last dozen years, there is a fair to excellent chance that the master to whom you are now answering is not the master to whom you indentured yourself when you signed your original publishing contract. Among the larger transactions:
Welcome new members to TAA: June 2019
With membership in TAA, you are not alone. You become part of a diverse community of textbook and academic authors with similar interests and goals. We are pleased to announce the addition of 51 new TAA members who joined us in June 2019.