I am excited for TAA’s upcoming 29th Annual Conference in June! In just a few short months I will join fellow textbook and academic authors at the Hotel Contessa in San Antonio for two full days of connecting, collaborating and being inspired by fellow TAA members. This will be my fourth conference since joining TAA in 2012. Last year at the conference I shared with some colleagues what TAA means to me, and how being a part of TAA has advanced my writing career and helped me to become more successful. I compared my experience, prior to joining TAA, as being born with three eyes. While having three eyes could be a positive attribute, I felt isolated, misunderstood, underrepresented. Different. As a textbook and academic author in a community college in Alabama, I had no method of connecting with other authors.
Hull, Trujillo elected to TAA Council
Richard Hull and Al Trujillo have been elected to the TAA Council, the association’s governing board. They will serve three-year terms beginning July 1, 2016.
Hull is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at SUNY at Buffalo, and was TAA’s executive director for eight years. Trujillo is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Earth Sciences at Palomar Community College, and coauthor of two leading college-level oceanography textbooks.
Join us for the 4/21 webinar, ‘3 Essential Steps to Breaking Your Writing Block’
You know the feeling. You have a writing project and you have a deadline. You think about the project all…
TAA once again stands up for authors in Google Books case
More than a decade ago, in 2004, Google initiated a program, in concert with several university and large public libraries, to scan and digitize the entire contents of millions of books without regard to whether they were or were not still under copyright, ultimately making complete digital copies of more than 20 million books. Google’s goal was to expand its search business to include print works as well as online works. It spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this project, suggesting what Google believed to be its commercial potential.
Join us 4/13 for TAA Webinar, ‘Go on the (Virtual) Road to Promote Your Book’
Whether you are self-publishing or working with a major publisher, you will need to actively promote your textbooks and encourage faculty to adopt them. Traditionally, writers have taken book tours and given talks, but textbook publishers are unlikely to fund world travel. Why not offer a book tour online? Janet Salmons, PhD, author of Doing Qualitative Research Online and four previous books, did just that. While some “virtual book tours” simply place guest posts or advertisements on potential readers’ sites, Janet’s highly interactive approach includes webinars and online discussions with groups or classes.
TAA announces 2016 Textbook Award winners
Seventeen textbooks have been awarded 2016 Textbook Awards by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA). Three textbooks received 2016 William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Awards, six textbooks received 2016 Textbook Excellence Awards, and eight textbooks received 2016 Most Promising New Textbook Awards.