Class action complaint filed against Cengage alleging unfair, deceptive royalty-reporting practices

A class action lawsuit was filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Cengage, one of the leading publishers of educational textbooks, alleging that its unfair and deceptive royalty-reporting practices violate Massachusetts’ Consumer Protection Law.

The lawsuit, filed by Slarskey LLC and Casner & Edwards LLP on behalf of art history author Fred Kleiner and similarly-situated individuals, alleges that Cengage’s practices are designed to conceal that Cengage systematically underpays royalties due to authors in the range of 10-30 percent. 

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2/24 TAA Webinar: The Future of Textbooks

Join Eirik Wahlstrøm, Ingrid Skrede, and Harald Manheim from Ludenso on Thursday, February 24 from 102 p.m. ET for the TAA webinar, The Future of Textbooks, to learn what AR is and how it can be used in the existing and future print textbooks to better illustrate complex concepts and spark curiosity. In the webinar, you will get a live demo of the technology, insights into the research findings from the initial tests of using AR in classrooms in the Nordics, as well as a step-wise guide into how you as an author easily can bring your books to life.

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Tips for anxious writers: Writing is only a tool

To reduce writing anxiety, it helps to re-imagine the practices in which you engage. People who struggle with writing anxiety often think of “writing” as only meaning the most difficult projects—the dissertation, the journal article, etc. They reduce “writing” to only those projects where they face serious writing blocks and anxiety. Meanwhile, these same people often write eloquently and effectively in a number of other roles—they email friends, they reach out to scholars whose work they appreciate, they make posts on social media, they complete administrative and educational materials, etc.

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: February 4, 2022

Roald Dahl once said, “A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”

While our collection of articles from around the web this week (and most) identify many of the challenges of academic writing (and ways to navigate or face those challenges), there are also countless opportunities to advance the world around us through our efforts.

Ask most authors if they have gotten rich from their writing and you will likely hear a resounding no, but it’s worth considering the other forms of compensation that may exist for us fools who choose to write. Happy writing!

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