The TAA Conference Committee invites proposals for its 2025 Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference, which will be held online June 6-7. Presenting at TAA’s 2025 Conference provides an opportunity to share your knowledge, experiences, and ideas with other textbook authors, academic authors, and industry professionals. The theme is “The Future is Now.” We welcome proposals from first-time and veteran presenters! The deadline for submitting a proposal is October 13, 2024.
Court Certifies Class of Textbook Authors in Class Action Against Cengage
By Zick Rubin and Brenda Ulrich, Archstone Law Group PC
On September 25, 2023, Judge Andrew Carter of the federal district court in New York City certified a class of textbook authors in a class action brought against Cengage Learning (Bernstein v. Cengage Learning, Inc.). The lawsuit alleges that Cengage unfairly apportioned the revenues it received from sales of “MindTap” digital interactive versions of the authors’ texts, arbitrarily allocating to the authors either 50% or 75% of these revenues and reducing royalties accordingly. In the wake of the class certification, lawyers for the authors can proceed to seek reimbursement on a class-wide basis for the allegedly underpaid royalties. The class may consist of hundreds or thousands of authors, and the total claimed underpayment may total many millions of dollars.
Busy TAA People: TAA Members Named to 2024 Edition of Best Lawyers
TAA Members Brenda Ulrich and Zick Rubin, intellectual property attorneys with Archstone Law Group, PC, were named to the 2024 Edition of Best Lawyers. Recognition by Best Lawyers is widely regarded by both clients and legal professionals as a significant honor, conferred on a lawyer by their peers. Their lists of outstanding lawyers are compiled by conducting exhaustive peer review surveys in which tens of thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. Congratulations Brenda and Zick!
Long-time TAA Member Phil Wankat Goes Back Into the TAA Newsletter Archives and Finds Gold
TAA Member Phil Wankat, who joined TAA in 1989, pored over his archival issues of the TAA Report (now The Academic Author), selected articles that have information that is still valid today, and included commentary on each. We will be adding these articles to the web page, “Articles from TAA Report Archives (now The Academic Author) with Commentary,” over the next few months. The articles are organized into 10 categories, including Authors Needed, Cartoons, Contracts, Ethics, Money, Production, Recognition and Rewards, Software, Textbooks as Scholarship, and Writer’s Block. The first installment is Authors Needed.
Apply for Academic & Textbook Writing Grants
TAA offers two forms of grants to assist U.S. authors with some of the expenses related to publishing their academic works and textbooks: Publication Grants and Textbook or Academic Contract Review Grants. Both are open to members and non-members. The next grant application deadline is October 1. Grants will be awarded by October 31.
Textbook publishing contracts in an evolving publishing world
Over the past several years major publishers have been moving away from physical or electronic books into online learning platforms and courseware, and from straight sales of standalone books to bundles, custom products and subscriptions. Traditional publishing contracts were developed at a time when a book was a discrete unit, sales could easily be tracked in those units, and revisions occurred on a predictable cycle. Publishers are trying in various ways to update and adapt their contracts to the new textbook landscape. In her 2023 TAA Conference session, presenter Brenda Ulrich, an attorney at Archstone Law Group, will explore the ways in which the contracts are changing, and what the implications are for authors.