TAA member Jean Derricotte-Murphy, D.Min., Ph.D, is under contract with Cascade Books to publish her first book, A View From the Balcony: Opera Through Womanist Eyes, in early 2024. Excerpted from the book’s abstract: “..this work offers the reader a historical glance at the philosophical and religious underpinnings of systemic racism by presenting a new healing hermeneutic, a Balcony Hermeneutic, from which to view, critique, assess, correct, and reverse the devastating effects Anthropological Poverty has inflicted upon the world.” She will also be presenting the paper “Beloved, Margaret Garner, and the Desperate Flight to Freedom” at the November 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio Texas. Congratulations Jean!
Welcome New TAA Members
Welcome to the new members of TAA who have joined us in the past two weeks. With TAA membership, you are not alone. You become part of a diverse community of textbook and academic authors with similar interests and goals. We are so glad to have you.
Adeli Cortez | Pattie Dillon | Gisela Esteva | Gislene Ferreira dos Reis |Ashley Frutos | Belle Fuller | Carla Guice | Robert Manske | Andrea Monteverdi | Terri Peerenboom | Mariah Phillips | Kenny Roberts | Ian Van Deventer | Tashea Walker | Yong Kuk Yu | Kelly Zinn
Busy TAA People: TAA Member Margarita Huerta’s Work Reaches the 1,000 Mark for Citations
TAA member Margarita Huerta, PhD, writer and Founder of Real Academics, reached the 1,000 mark for citations on her Google Scholar profile on August 25, 2023.
Her top three most cited articles (out of 20 articles tracked by Google) include:
- “Graduate students as academic writers: writing anxiety, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence” (2017), M Huerta, P Goodson, M Beigi, D Chlup, Higher Education Research & Development, 36 (4), 716-729. (205 citations)
- “The effect of an instructional intervention on middle school English learners’ science and English reading achievement” (2012), R Lara‐Alecio, F Tong, BJ Irby, C Guerrero, M Huerta, Y Fan, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 49 (8), 987-1011. (184 citations)
- “Connecting literacy and science to increase achievement for English language learners” (2010), M Huerta, J Jackson, Early Childhood Education Journal, 38, 205-211. (62 citations)
To Promote Your Book, Consider a Webinar
In addition to all the social media, a webinar is an excellent promotional tool for your book. Combining PowerPoint slides and audio and posting on your website, YouTube, and the ubiquitous social media, a webinar delivers valuable information and shows you’re the one to deliver more. But you’ve gotta do it well, or people (potential readers/buyers of your book) will click off. As the proud veteran of one webinar (I blush to admit with some excellent feedback), here I share what I learned about designing and delivering an excellent webinar.
For the webinar on my book Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), I had wonderful help and structure from the publisher’s promotion director. You can achieve similar results alone or with a few seasoned colleagues. In any case, the steps are similar.
Don’t Kill Your Chances With a Publisher By Making This Mistake
Kevin Adams, a research engineer at Vanderbilt University and author of over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and three books, including Systemic Decision Making: Fundamentals for Addressing Problems and Messes (with Dr. Patrick Hester), which won 2018 TAA Most Promising New Textbook Award, shares his insight into what can kill your chances with a publisher:
“Technical writing in the engineering field often suffers from insufficient clarity and supporting references, issues that significantly reduce the validity of the author’s notions. Having sufficient and properly cited references improves the reliability of the author’s thesis and gives the reader sources for further investigation. The use of quotation marks and page numbers for direct quotations provide context rich information and reinforce the author’s points in the paper. Properly cited references from scholarly sources that use the modern digital object identifier (doi) ensure that readers can locate and access the reference cited. Peer reviewed scholarly sources prove to be the best cited sources as they have both high reliability and validity.”
Nominate Your Book For a 2024 Textbook Award
Recognize your textbook by nominating it for one our industry-respected awards. The 2024 Textbook Awards nominations are now open:
McGuffey Longevity Award – to recognize long-standing textbooks and learning materials that have been in print for at least 15 years.
Textbook Excellence Award – to recognize excellence in current textbooks and learning materials.
Most Promising New Textbook Award – to recognize promising textbooks and learning materials in their first edition.
Learn more and start preparing your nomination.
Questions? Contact Kiley Thornton, Director of Membership & Programs, at kiley.thornton@taaonline.net