Nominate your book for a 2017 TAA Textbook Award

Gain recognition with your fellow authors and within the textbook publishing industry by nominating your textbook for a 2017 TAA Textbook Award now through November 1, 2016.

The Textbook Excellence Award recognizes excellence in current textbooks and learning materials. The McGuffey Longevity Award recognizes textbooks and learning materials whose excellence has been demonstrated over time.  The Most Promising New Textbook Award recognizes excellence in 1st edition textbooks and learning materials.

Two new templates added to TAA’s Templates & Samples Resource Library

Two new templates have been added to TAA’s Templates & Samples Resource Library, a Workflow Chart Template, and a Royalty Tracking Template.

The Workflow Chart Template was contributed by Kevin Patton, author of Anatomy & Physiology (9e), who uses it to track his workflow. Available in both landscape and portrait, each row is a chapter or section and columns track items such as chapter number/title, research, reviews, copyedited draft, etc.

2016 TAA Textbook Awards presented at a ceremony in San Antonio, TX, June 24

Seventeen textbooks have been awarded 2016 TAA Textbook Awards. Eight textbooks received Most Promising New Textbook Awards. Six received Textbook Excellence Awards, and three received William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Awards. The awards were presented at the 2016 TAA Conference in San Antonio on June 24. Nominations for the 2017 TAA Textbook Awards open September 1.

How educators and textbook authors can make learning mobile

“Next stop, mobile apps!”—that was the title of a webinar I attended last week, presented by one of the major textbook publishers. Like most educators, I’m skeptical about technology-driven claims made about mobile apps or other tools. Technology should serve learning, not drive it. Students and instructors should be supported in using the most appropriate and accessible tools and technologies for a given situation. Newer is not necessarily better.

Register your own copyright: When, why, and how?

As textbook and academic authors, your copyrights are your livelihood, and the value of your copyrights is often enhanced by registering them in the U.S. Copyright Office – something that you can easily do for yourself.  Yet, as publishing and copyright attorneys, we find that many text and academic authors know less than they should about copyright registration. Here’s our sample Q&;A conversation with an author who wanted to know more about when, why, and how to register the author’s copyrights: