Don’t manage time, manage goals

While you can’t actually manage time – because it operates independently of you — you can manage your goals, said Susan Robison, a psychologist and faculty development consultant with Professor DeStressor, during her 2009 TAA Conference session, “Time Management: Why You Don’t Need It, Can’t Do It Anyway – And What To Do Instead.”

“One of the things that the research on time management workshops show, is that they don’t work,” she said. “What happens to people emotionally is they come out of the workshops feeling absolutely overwhelmed by a thousand techniques they’re not going to do, and so they’re not going to manage their time any better.”

Don’t manage time, manage goals Read More

How to maintain a good relationship with your editor

If you develop a good business and personal relationship with your editor, you can get a better feel for how they can provide you with support, said Marilyn “Winkie” Fordney, the author of insurance billing and medical assisting books.

“Find out where the person came from and whether they have been in business for a long time,” she said. “Find out about their personal life. Do they have children? If they do, you’ll know that if sometimes they are unavailable, it might be because their children are sick. When you visit with them, bring toys for their kids. This shows that you remembered about their children.”

How to maintain a good relationship with your editor Read More

Marketing strategies: Reinforce textbook adoptions with promotional calendar

Physical geography author Robert Christopherson recently published a calendar to promote the seventh edition of his award-winning textbook, Geosystems.

The calendar’s two opening pages describe the strengths and new features of the new edition, and list the accompanying student and instructor supplements. The calendar itself features factoids that match physical geography and Earth systems science events, as well as photos for each month depicting physical geography subjects, such as the rapeseed crop in full bloom in northern Scottland; frost-shattered rock in Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean; and a birch forest in south-central Norway.

Marketing strategies: Reinforce textbook adoptions with promotional calendar Read More

How to protect yourself from lower textbook royalties from foreign sales

Textbook authors need to be alert for the possible impact on them of the practice among some U.S. textbook publishers of selling books in foreign countries using an “inter-company” transfer price.

U.S.-based publishers generally sell into overseas markets through relationships with foreign publishers based in the destination country. Books sold in this way are sold to the foreign publisher at a discounted price to compensate the foreign publisher for its role in the distribution process. In such a case, the author’s royalty is calculated on the lesser amount received by the U.S. publisher from that sale.

How to protect yourself from lower textbook royalties from foreign sales Read More

‘Publication party’ great way to promote your new textbook

Writing a textbook not only has the potential to generate royalties, but is also a great way to advance your career. Karen Morris, author of Hotel, Restaurant and Travel Law, has used her textbook to do just that by hosting a “Publication Party” each time a new edition of her book is published.

A “Publication Party” is an event designed to celebrate the accomplishment of completing the book and to remind people that you are an author.

“If you don’t take advantage of this opportunity to promote yourself, in my mind, it is such as wasted opportunity,” said Morris, also distinguished professor at Monroe Community College. “It’s a way to gain publicity and notice, which is part of my goal in writing textbooks.”

‘Publication party’ great way to promote your new textbook Read More

Textbooks-to-trade shift not always easy

The trade book market can be lucrative, so it’s no wonder some textbook authors have their hands dipped into both pots. But how can a textbook author “cross over” to trade? Most literary agents agree that being academically published gives trade book-author wannabes extra credibility, but the question is, does the textbook author have what it takes to write for the trade book market.

Sheryl Fullerton, a literary agent with Sheryl B. Fullerton Associates, said text and academic author experience is important in trade publications, especially if the author is writing on the same subject, but it doesn’t guarantee ready acceptance among publishers. “A trade book has to look like, smell like, and taste like a trade book; it can’t have the pedagogical trappings or the professional jargon that are common to text and academic titles,” she said. “For most academic authors, shifting to writing for a trade audience is challenging.”

Textbooks-to-trade shift not always easy Read More