Call for proposals deadline October 6 for TAA’s 2017 Conference

TAA’s 30th Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference session proposals deadline is October 6, 2016. TAA invites the submission of presentations relevant to authoring and publishing textbooks and academic works (journal articles, academic books, and monographs).

The conference will be held at the Renaissance Providence Downtown Hotel, Providence, RI, June 9-10, 2017. The conference will be attended by authors and aspiring authors of textbooks, journal articles, and other academic works, as well as by industry professionals from across the country.

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Nominate your book for a 2017 TAA Textbook Award

Gain recognition with your fellow authors and within the textbook publishing industry by nominating your textbook for a 2017 TAA Textbook Award now through November 1, 2016.

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

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Why textbook & academic authors should make time for Twitter

Of the major social media platforms, Twitter is, in my opinion, the most effective for wordsmiths like textbook and academic authors. The 140-character constraint on tweets—the messages one posts on Twitter—turns out to be rather freeing: the site rewards concision and encourages straightforwardness.

Specialists like textbook and academic authors can and should use Twitter for professional marketing purposes—to demonstrate their know-how, interface with other experts, reach readers, generate leads, generate publicity for their work, and make professional connections. All of these aims can be furthered with Twitter—it’s just a matter of tweeting intentionally.

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Changing educational publishing industry fraught with ‘disruptors’

In today’s fast-evolving e-publishing market, both publishers and authors must continually evaluate and reposition to retain relevance in the academic markets, said author, educator and digital book pioneer June Jamrich Parsons. “The traditional textbook publishing business model has been besieged by disruptors, such as MOOCs, used book dealers, consumer advocates, and content pirates,” she said.

In her 2016 TAA Conference session, “Digital Book Report 2016”, Parsons, co-author of the 2012 TAA McGuffey Award-winning textbook New Perspectives on Computer Concepts, outlined some of these trends and how they affect authors, instructors, and students.

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