Registration is now open for the 2023 TAA Conference on Textbook & Academic Authoring

Network with other textbook and academic authors and gain knowledge on writing and editing strategies, writing productivity, textbook contracts and royalties, and much more! You will leave inspired!

You’ll have the opportunity to participate in more than two dozen educational sessions, one-on-one mentoring sessions with veteran textbook and academic authors and industry professionals, and plenty of networking and information-sharing sessions.

TAA’s 35th Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference will be held online, June 9-10, 2023, on an interactive virtual conference platform.

Observations on teaching and textbook writing

During a career spanning several decades, I have often reflected on the relationship between teaching and textbook writing. Indeed, in my experience, every successful textbook author I have met or read about has always been a very accomplished—often a prize-winning—teacher. The reverse does not seem to be the case, however. I know of excellent teachers whose textbooks never gained traction. And there are thousands of great teachers who do not have the slightest interest in writing a textbook. (I too never aspired to textbook authorship until a publisher approached me about becoming the junior author of the leading introductory art history textbook. I eventually consented because I found enormously appealing the prospect of extending my teaching nationwide and reaching tens of thousands instead of hundreds of students every year.)