TAA Announces Michael Sullivan Lecture on Textbook & Academic Authoring

The Michael Sullivan Lecture on Textbook & Academic Authoring honors the life and work of mathematics textbook author Michael Sullivan, a long-time TAA member who has authored or co-authored more than 120 mathematics textbooks, many of which have been published in multiple editions.

The Lecture series provides a forum for textbook and academic authors to learn from veteran textbook and academic authors and other academic and textbook authoring and publishing experts. It will feature an invited lecturer whose textbook or academic authoring accomplishments are prolific, award-winning, and highly engaging and inspiring, or whose experience in the textbook or academic authoring or publishing industry qualifies them as an expert. The lectureship was established in 2023 by a generous gift from Michael Sullivan.

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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?”.

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Do Side Writing Projects Sideline Your Book Project?

By John Bond
Journal articles. Grant proposals. Book chapters. White papers. Blog posts for a friend. Contributions to the university newsletter. Alumni magazine articles.

There are lots of “opportunities” or requests from colleagues and friends to write. As you develop in your career, the number will increase, especially if you can deliver. On time and with the expected results. But there may come a day when you will have a contract for your own textbook or monograph. Then things will all be on your shoulders.

And the other writing request will keep on coming. Is this a good thing? Do they help or hinder the book project? As with most questions, the answer is that it depends.

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2/21 TAA Webinar on Navigating Your Writing Process

Do you ever find yourself writing in circles, struggling with decision fatigue or a lack of purpose in your scholarly writing? Do you wish you had a structure for your writing process that felt expansive and flexible enough to account for the complexities of scholarship creation?

Join us Wednesday, February 21 from 1-2 p.m. ET for a one-hour webinar, Navigating Your Writing Process as a Purposeful QuEST. Margy Thomas, PhD, of ScholarShape will walk you through the simple yet powerful QuEST framework as a way of structuring your writing projects in any genre.

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How ChatGPT Improved Textbook Author’s Amazon Book Description

Dr. Margaret Reece, author of Physiology: Custom-Designed Chemistry, recently used AI tool ChatGPT to revise her book’s description on Amazon. The following illustrates how the process worked, including a before and after description and the prompt she used. “I did some minor editing of the AI response, but I think it is much better than the original,” she said.

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TAA Member Phil Wankat: Archival Articles on Textbook Production From the ‘TAA Report’

The fifth installment of TAA Member Phil Wankat’s curation and commentary of the archival issues of the TAA Report (now The Academic Author), Production, is now available. Articles include “A Production Primer for Authors,” Series: An Author’s Garden of Editors,” “A Production Primer for Authors,” Series: “Manuscript to Bound Book,” and “A Production Primer for Authors,” Last in Series: “Your Index: Does it Help Sell Your Book?,” and more.

Wankat 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. 

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