As many of us return to campus for the fall semester, it may be time for both textbook and academic authors to take a look at what our institutions are doing regarding textbook purchases and costs. Is your campus offering Cengage Unlimited or signing up for Pearson’s Inclusive Access? With Pearson’s recent announcement this past July that it will also be “moving from ownership to subscription based access models”, several of the major publishers have now committed to digitally transforming their businesses into something more akin to Netflix than what authors have been used to (DVD purchases).
TAA’s 2020 Conference Call for Proposals
TAA is accepting session proposals for its 33rd Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference. We invite the submission of presentations relevant to writing, publishing, and marketing textbooks and academic works (journal articles, books, and monographs). The proposal deadline is October 7, 2019.
TAA’s conference will be held at The Westin San Diego Gaslamp Quarter located in the heart of beautiful downtown San Diego, CA, June 12-13, 2020. A highly interactive event, the conference will be attended by authors and aspiring authors of textbooks, journal articles, and other academic works, as well as by industry professionals from across the country.
Nominations for the 2020 Textbook Awards now open
Nominations for the 2020 Textbook Excellence Award (“Texty”), McGuffey Longevity Award (“McGuffey”), and Most Promising New Textbook Award, open September 1 and will run through November 1.
For more than 20 years, TAA has supported textbook and academic authors through these highly-recognized awards, given annually to emerging and veteran published authors in eight subject categories.
MindTap and Cengage Unlimited under fire from two new class action lawsuits
On August 12, 2019 the law firm of Susman Godfrey LLC filed a class action lawsuit against Cengage Learning on behalf of Douglas Bernstein and four other authors. Three days later, a similar suit was filed by Slarskey LLC on behalf of Grafton H. Hull.
Both cases reflect elements of a 2018 lawsuit against Cengage Learning by authors David Knox and Caroline Schacht, which was handled by Slarskey’s firm. At issue in all of these cases are Cengage’s emerging publishing practices and royalty calculations associated with its digital MindTap platform and the Cengage Unlimited subscription service.
Pearson’s move to ‘digital first’: Perspective from a key Pearson executive (Part II)
On July 24th, I had the opportunity to interview Paul Corey of Pearson by phone for about an hour regarding…
Pearson’s move to ‘digital first’: Perspective from a key Pearson executive (Part I)
On July 24th, I had the opportunity to interview Paul Corey of Pearson by phone for about an hour regarding the recent announcement that Pearson will move to a digital first strategy for its textbook business. Paul is the Senior VP of Global Content Strategy for Pearson, and thus plays a key role in developing and implementing plans like the digital first strategy. Paul also has primary responsibility for Pearson’s relationships with authors, so I was especially appreciative of the chance to hear his thoughts on how the new direction might affect authors.*
I started the conversation by asking Paul about the principal reason for Pearson to shift its focus to a digital-first strategy. He responded with three specific rationales for the move, not necessarily in order of importance: