Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: May 3, 2019

This week’s collection of articles from around the web is full of opportunities. Opportunities to improve your academic reading practice, to tell your story, to make your writing more interesting, to broadcast your research, or to go freelance. It’s also filled with challenges and uncertainty. Challenges of parenting and academia, predatory journals, the uncertain future of university presses, neurodiversity in scholarly publishing, and the affect of the planned merger between Cengage and McGraw-Hill on the textbook market.

With each opportunity comes challenge and uncertainty. Equally so, with each challenge or uncertainty comes opportunity. As Ray Bradbury once said, “You fail only if you stop writing.” So, here’s to success. Happy writing!

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McGraw-Hill and Cengage intend to merge

An announcement jointly made by Cengage CEO Michael Hansen and McGraw-Hill CEO Nana Banerjee is sure to raise questions among authors of both organizations. The two entities are planning a merger in 2020 that will, according to the company’s public release, “accelerate innovation and accessibility” and provide “seamless integration across our range of learning sciences, adaptive solutions, and learning tools.”

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Cengage says authors cannot opt out of Cengage Unlimited

In a recent post on the Cengage blog, Erin Joyner, the company’s senior vice president of product, said that authors cannot opt out of Cengage Unlimited. However, industry experts say Cengage cannot make this sweeping statement.

“The large majority of publishing agreements do not contemplate the Cengage Unlimited model of distribution,” said David Slarskey, a litigator with Slarskey LLC. “Refusing author demands to opt-out tends to undermine the terms of the contract.”

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The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: April 13, 2018

This week we begin with tips for academic book authors, insight into publishing an open access book, discussions on indexes, and the humbling experience of reviewing a copyeditor’s work on your manuscript. We then found insight into developing the narrative of a tenure dossier, social media concerns for academics and writers, issues of authorship abuse, the impact of article recommendation features, and the value of a master’s degree in Publishing. Finally, there were several industry news articles of note including a student’s perspective on Cengage’s efforts to promote Cengage Unlimited to professors, a win for publishers in a textbook counterfeiting suit, a new collaboration between VitalSource and McGraw-Hill, and changes in Top Hat’s OER Marketplace.

Bindu Adai said, “If writing is your passion, write and don’t let anyone else convince you otherwise. You don’t need to quit your day job to do it. Create a realistic schedule and stick with it.” As you head into a new week of writing, be encouraged by the other authors in and around TAA who share your passion for writing so that you may find greater success.

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The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: March 30, 2018

We begin this week’s collection of textbook & academic posts from around the web with a royalty calculation update from Cengage as it relates to their Cengage Unlimited service. We then have several articles of interest to textbook authors and faculty considering OER textbook options. Finally, we found advice for academic writers on structuring papers, coping with peer review processes, and being scholar-activists.

Chris Almeida put it best when he said, “The next best thing after finishing writing a chapter is starting a new one.” As you write this week, we hope the end of March brings with it some finished work, and the start of April brings with it new beginnings in your writing.

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The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: December 8, 2017

This week our collection of articles from around the web contains innovative practices and changes in the publishing industry, suggestions for Open Education, ways to repurpose your finished research into a journal article, academic friendships, social media impacts on author and publisher success, and actions to reduce predatory publishing practices.

As we come to the end of the first week of December, a month where many of our writing projects are faced with increased struggle as academic terms come to an end, remember the words of Nona Mae King, “Writing is more than a gift. It is a struggle that blesses those who see it through to the end.”

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