Pearson’s ‘digital first’ announcement: A legal perspective

Interpreting, Adapting, and Amending Textbook Publishing Contracts in a Changing Publishing World

In announcing its new strategic commitment to digital courseware and its dramatic break from the traditional model of successive print editions of textbooks, Pearson addressed a letter “to our author community.” In the letter, Pearson emphasized its ties to “our authors and partners” and declared that “together we can provide updates, enhancements, and digital functionality to respond more quickly to changing customer expectations, demands, curricular shifts and developments in your field.”

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Pearson announces move to digital-first

Pearson, one of the world’s largest educational publishers, recently announced that all of its U.S. higher ed titles will be released in digital-first format. The announcement comes as Pearson takes steps to regain profitability in a market that has become increasingly price sensitive.

For Pearson, digital-first is a departure from the traditional publishing model in which final drafts are handed off to a compositor who lays out pages that are then sent to be printed. Once a print edition is produced, a second production process swings into gear to create a digital book, either by outputting to PDF format or by transforming text and media into a digital format that is uploaded to a cloud-based learning platform.

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2019 Textbook award-winning insight (Part 1): Deciding to write and getting the interest of a publisher

We recently reached out to winners of the 2019 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. We will be sharing their answers in a series of posts over the next few weeks.

This first installment of the five-part series focuses on why they decided to write their textbook, and how they got the interest of a publisher.

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Cengage announces launch of new ‘Author Relations Team’

Cengage announces the launch of its new three-member “Author Relations” team, which will be responsible for working with its higher education authors on their business-specific needs and questions related to contracts and royalties.

According to a post on their blog that answered questions posed by TAA last fall, “The AR team will take lead on working with authors regarding royalties across the board. Each author will have an AR rep that they can call directly with questions of that nature.”

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Early registration open for TAA’s 2019 Conference

Join us in Old City, Philadelphia for TAA’s 32nd Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference. Early registration is now open!

TAA’s conference will be held on June 14-15 at the beautiful Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District Hotel. Located in the heart of Philadelphia’s Old City, the neighborhood known as America’s most historic square mile, rich with treasures of American heritage, the Wyndham hotel sits adjacent to the historic Christ Church and Burial Ground, one block off charming Market Street, and within easy walking distance to Independence Hall, Liberty Bell Center, and the Betsy Ross House.

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