With membership in TAA, you are not alone. You become part of a diverse community of textbook and academic authors with similar interests and goals. We are pleased to announce the addition of 16 new TAA members who joined us in May 2022.
TAA announces results of 2022 Textbook Contracts & Royalties Survey
A recent survey conducted by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) found that nearly 30 percent of respondents agreed to allow their royalty rates to be changed. Nearly 40 percent of respondents have been asked by their publishers to sign new contracts, and two-thirds of those have complied.
Stephen Gillen, an attorney with Wood Herron & Evans (Cincinnati, OH), estimates most of those authors did not know they did not have to agree to that royalty rate change, and most of the new contracts were almost certainly more favorable to the publishers than the ones they were replacing. “My guess is that the respondents did not appreciate the differences and did not fully understand that they did not have to agree to the new contracts,” he says.
TAA’s goal with this survey is that the results, combined with tracking data from the 2015 and 2020 Textbook Contracts & Royalties Surveys, will help authors 1) negotiate better contracts; 2) negotiate higher royalty rates for print and digital products; 3) to seek professional advice when negotiating contracts and when they want to better understand their royalty statements.
Use your inner mentor for your academic project predicaments
Most of us probably had mentors in graduate school and may still keep in touch with them. But they may not be available every time we need their advice or guidance. Did you know? We have a mentor that’s always available, night and day, every season and semester, for every situation and circumstance.
The IM
This is your Inner Mentor (IM), also called your inner guide, self, voice, spirit, higher power, soul, subconscious, guidance system, intuition, even your heart or gut. It has more power than the dean of your school, your department or committee chair, or even the guy who issues your annual parking sticker.
Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: May 27, 2022
Do you start your day writing? Ernest Hemingway once said, “I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast — talk them or write them down.”
Writing, especially academic writing, requires capturing new ideas, doing so at the right time for creative development, and then formatting those ideas into content worthy of publication. As our articles from around the web highlight this week, that can seem simple, but be a lot of work.
As you go forward into the week ahead, look for ways to ensure that you get your ideas down. Happy writing!
Brand Beyond Borders: Making Your Name
The first step in developing your brand is to think about your own identity and what it is you want to present about yourself, says Janet Salmons, a free-range scholar, writer, coach, and artist through Vision2Lead.
When doing so, it’s also important to consider how that is changing, how you are moving forward and what your aspirations are, she says, as well as where your boundaries are in sharing professional and personal information and what parts of your story you want to make part of your brand.
Tips for anxious writers: You are not an imposter
Many academic writers fear that their work is not good enough and not important enough, and also that they themselves are not good enough. Such doubts are well-known in academia, and recognized by the phrase “imposter syndrome.” Trying to write often triggers such doubts and their subsequent anxiety, which interferes with the focus needed for good writing. If you’re thinking “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t have anything worth saying,” your focus is being drawn away from the things that you do have to say, and how to say them effectively to reach your audience.