Q: How do you phase out a coauthor who is now retired and with whom you have worked with for…
Call for Proposals: Textbook and academic authoring conference
TAA’s 31st Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference will be held at La Fonda on the Plaza, Santa Fe, NM, June 15-16, 2018. The conference is attended by authors and aspiring authors of textbooks, journal articles, and other academic works, as well as by industry professionals from across the country.
TAA invites the submission of presentations relevant to authoring and publishing textbooks and academic works (journal articles, books, and monographs).
Why textbooks need development and why authors should do their own
Mary Ellen Lepionka, author of Writing and Developing Your College Textbook: A Comprehensive Guide, shares why textbooks need development and why she recommends textbook authors do their own.
Major educational content providers and distributors join together to fight counterfeit textbooks
Cengage, McGraw-Hill Education, and Pearson have joined forces with distributors Ingram and Chegg, Inc. to have them adopt and implement…
4 Higher education publishers team up to fight counterfeit textbooks
In an effort to fight counterfeit textbooks, four higher education publishers, Cengage, Elsevier, McGraw-Hill Education and Pearson, have teamed up to create a website called Stop Counterfeit Textbooks.
The site includes information on how to avoid counterfeit textbooks, how to identify a counterfeit textbook, and what to do if your textbook is counterfeit. The website states: “Counterfeit textbooks are a substantial problem in the educational marketplace, burdening students with inferior products; exposing distributors to legal liability and unsaleable inventory; and depriving authors and publishers of the funds necessary to reinvest in new educational content.”
3 Novice textbook authors share lessons learned
At a 2017 TAA conference session, entitled “So You Want to Write a Textbook? Lessons Learned and Advice Sought,” moderator Laura Frost, a veteran chemistry textbook author, interviews three novice writers, Brent Blair, Dave Dillon, and Rick Mullins.
Brent Blair is an Associate Professor of Biology at Xavier University in Cincinnati and is writing his first textbook, Environmental Science: Ecology and People, for Oxford University Press. Dave Dillon is counseling faculty and an Associate Professor at Grossmont College and is authoring the second edition of his textbook, Blueprint for Success in College. Rick Mullins is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Xavier University in Cincinnati and is writing his first textbook, Organic Chemistry: A Learner-Centered Approach, for Pearson Education.