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.
Just released by TAA Press: ‘Guide to Textbook Publishing Contracts’
When it comes to negotiating your textbook publishing contract, you have more leverage than you think.
In this 40-page guide by Stephen Gillen, a Partner at Wood Herron & Evans, you will learn the key provisions of a typical textbook contract and how to determine what’s important to you so that you can enter into the contract negotiation process better informed. Get the “better”, “best” and “better still” options you can consider when making decisions about what to negotiate.
6 Key takeaways from the 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, says Janet Salmons, an independent researcher, writer and consultant with Vision2Lead, Inc. In the April 13 TAA Webinar, “Go on the (Virtual) Road to Promote Your Book”, Salmons shared steps authors can take to launch their own virtual tour as a way to interact with present and future readers. Here are 6 key takeaways from the presentation:
Textbook award-winning insight (part 1): Getting started and boosting your confidence
I recently reached out to winners of the 2016 TAA Textbook Awards and asked them to answer some questions about how they made the decision to write their textbook, how they interested a publisher, what they do to boost their writing confidence, how they fit writing time into their schedule, and more. I will be sharing their answers in a series of posts over the next few weeks. This week’s installment focuses on why they decided to write their textbook, how they got started, and what they do to boost their confidence as a writer.
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.
The textbook of the future: What will it look like?
What does the textbook of the future look like? I asked my students to explore this question, and their answers will surprise and, perhaps, inspire today’s textbook authors.