Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: March 1, 2019

Jane Yolen reminds us to “Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.” This week’s collection of articles from around the web provides some examples of just how to do that.

We begin our collection with a typical say in the life of five writers, planning scholarly visits, developing an academic home page, waiting on peer review, and counting down to thesis completion. We also found some articles of interest on the future of publishing platforms, books on pedagogy, and prioritizing organizational choices. Happy writing (every day)!

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When you look at your calendar, what do you see?

As an academic with the intention of being productive in your writing, your calendar is either your friend or foe.  We are going to have a series of short articles to help you make friends with your calendar.

Let’s start with determining what kinds of time your current calendar represents for you. For this quick exercise, you will need some colored pencils (and if you don’t have colored pencils or highlighters, see if a colleague or your child does and borrow theirs).

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TAA announces 2019 Textbook Award winners

Thirty-one textbooks have been awarded 2019 Textbook Awards by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA). Four textbooks received William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Awards, 17 textbooks received Textbook Excellence Awards, and ten textbooks received Most Promising New Textbook Awards.

The McGuffey Longevity Award recognizes textbooks and learning materials whose excellence has been demonstrated over time. The Textbook Excellence Award recognizes excellence in current textbooks and learning materials. The Most Promising New Textbook Award recognizes excellence in 1st edition textbooks and learning materials.

The awards will be presented during an awards reception at TAA’s 32nd Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference in Philadelphia, PA, June 14, 2019.

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Top 10 reasons to attend TAA’s June conference

There are a lot of great reasons to attend TAA’s 32nd Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference. Past attendees consistently give TAA conferences high marks for content, networking, and inspiration:

“What a great conference! I came away inspired to write many more articles, book chapters and books. The conference gave the tools to accomplish that. It was a great friendly mix of authors at all stages of writing willing to share, mentor and interact.” ~ Betsy Stringam, Professor, New Mexico State University

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: February 22, 2019

This week’s collection of articles from around the web continues to show the state of change in the publishing industry, specifically through the open access movement. From the perspective of personal change (and challenges), several other topics are included in the list with focus on feedback, negative mind chatter, bold requests, and presenting information to others.

Whatever changes or challenges your writing efforts may be facing from external or internal sources this week, remember your goals for having started in the first place and make things happen. Happy writing!

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Reflections on negotiating a contract 1: Leverage and the power to negotiate

When I wrote my last series of posts, I was waiting to hear whether a publisher would offer me a contract for my book for graduate students. The publisher—Routledge—did make an offer, marking the pleasant culmination of the 10+ month proposal process, and I could begin to look forward to publication, most likely in 2020 of my book titled Literature Review and Research Design: A Guide to Effective Research Practice. Getting the offer was a great milestone, but it didn’t put an end to the larger process of getting published. The next phase began with the question of whether to accept the offered contract and whether and how to negotiate for changes. As with my previous series of posts, I offer the reflections of a relative novice, not the advice of an expert.

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