The third installment of TAA Member Phil Wankat’s curation and commentary of the archival issues (1994 to 2010) of the The Academic Author, Contracts and Legal Comments, is now available. Articles include “Judges Frown Gravely on Plagiarists,” “Authors bristle at 10 percent electronic royalties.” “Protecting your rights to original art.,” and more.
Share Your Book Contracts, Royalty Statements for Complimentary Review
TAA member Joseph Rust, CPA, CFP, an accountant with Prager Metis CPAs, is seeking authors interested in sharing their book contracts and royalty statements for a complimentary review. Rust would also like to know what authors’ concerns and questions are when it comes to their contracts and royalties statements. He plans to take the information he learns to provide resources, including a glossary of royalty statement terms, to TAA members in the coming months.
Please reach out to him directly at jrust@pragermetis.com. His full contact information can also be found in TAA’s Professional Directory.
WIPO Publishes Contracts Toolkit for Authors and Publishers
The World Intellectual Property Association (WIPO) has published a new toolkit for authors and publishers that includes “a checklist of the most essential considerations while drafting and concluding a contract.”
Contracts in Publishing: A Toolkit for Authors and Publishers, was drafted by Brian Wafawarowa, Chairperson of the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA), and Isobel Dixon, a renowned South African poet and Head of Books at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency in the UK, in consultation with several international author and publisher organizations.
From the Archives: Articles on ‘Recognition and Rewards’ From TAA Report, Compiled by TAA Member Phil Wankat
The seventh installment of TAA Member Phil Wankat’s curation and commentary of the archival issues of the TAA Report (now The Academic Author), Recognition and Rewards, is now available. Articles include “Frustrations of a University Book Author,” “The New Paradox of the College Textbook,” and “What Effect is Using a Text You Authored Likely to Have on How Students View You?”.
More Archival Topics From TAA’s Print Newsletter with Commentary From Long-Time Member Phil Wankat
Long-time TAA Member Phil Wankat has dug back into his TAA print newsletter archive, this time into the black-and-white early issues published between 1994 and 2010, finding more gold to share with you along with his brief commentary of the value of each article.
We will be adding these articles to the web page, “Articles from TAA Report Archives (now The Academic Author) with Commentary,” along with the other articles he shared from the TAA Report, over the next few months. The articles are organized into 12 categories, including Authors Needed, Bios, Contracts and Legal Comments, Diversity, Managing and Planning, Money, Production, Publishing first book, Recognition and Rewards, Teaching, Textbook Scholarship and Textbooks in Promotion Cases, and Writing and Writer’s Block.
The first set of articles we are sharing, in the Authors Needed category, include:
“Co-authoring a book originally written by another,” by Frank Silverman. “Look for a book that has an author who is retired, or close to retirement or, well, deceased,” says Wankat.
“Authors uneasy over Pearson deal.” “Big mergers ‘reduce the opportunities for new authors and even close the door on experienced authors,'” says Wankat.
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.