President’s Message: TAA Reaches and Exceeds 3,000 Member Milestone, Other 2023 Accomplishments

It’s my privilege to enthusiastically report that we have had a banner year at TAA in 2023!

Thanks to the tireless efforts of our amazing new Executive Director, Kim Pawlak, and our two other new full-time staff members, Sierra Pawlak, and Kiley Thornton, TAA has been flourishing and the future looks brighter than ever. I’m proud to report that we ended 2023 with a record 3,020 members!

Allow me to highlight some other important accomplishments this year. We sent out a membership survey that revealed that thirty-one percent of responders said they joined the organization for our benefits and services. The top three benefits rated as most valuable were:  (1) educational webinars (31%), (2) our annual conference (18%), and (3) our monthly print newsletter, The Academic Author (14%).

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Considering Writing a Textbook? Questions to Ask

By Sierra Pawlak

In her November 9, 2022, TAA webinar, “Textbook Authoring Inspirations, Insights, and Innovations”, award-winning textbook author Jamie Pope shared several questions you should ask yourself before writing a textbook. Those questions include:

  • What’s the book’s primary focus and level?
  • Who’s your target audience?
  • What are your qualifications to author the book?
  • How does it differ from other books on the market?
  • Why would someone adopt it over your competitors?

She used these questions to contrast what went right with her successful textbook, Nutrition for a Changing World, the recipient of a 2020 TAA Textbook Excellence Award, and what went wrong with a creative trade book proposal that was never published.

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