Vice President’s Message: My publisher has been acquired…Now what? A personal story

This past summer I gave a presentation at TAA’s 2021 Virtual Conference on the joys and benefits of working for a small publisher, which I have done for the past 18 years. Well, guess what? I no longer work for a small publisher because they were recently acquired by a larger publisher. This serves as yet another example of what we all know so well – the publishing business in higher education is changing rapidly and we all need to adapt to new paradigms.

Allow me to share how I have handled this transition so far. The first thing I did was contact my intellectual property attorney to solicit advice on questions to ask my new publisher.

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3 Options for authors to promote accessibility in their textbooks

Who is reading your textbook? What limitations might those readers have when it comes to consuming and comprehending your material? When focused on inclusion and accessibility, whose responsibility is it that the content be universally accessible?

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines outline multiple means of engagement, representation, and action & expression as a foundation for discussion. TAA Council President, Kevin Patton shares three sets of options for textbook design focused on creating multiple means of representation.

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What is critical race theory and why it should matter to academic authors

Recently, since the popularity of the 1619 project and its connection to critical race theory (CRT), there has been significant confusion about what CRT is. CRT used to be only known and debated by scholars in law, education, sociology and other related fields, but now it is troubling the minds of the parents of elementary students, among others. Let’s start with what it is, talk about what it isn’t and end with discussing what academic authors need to know about it.

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Five chances to reset the terms of your book contract (Part 1)

If you published the first edition of your textbook ten or more years ago, you may find yourself occasionally muttering to yourself, “I wish I kew then what I know now.”

Why is that?

Historically, the publishers start the book contract negotiation game with all the cards…backs to you. You have one card…it’s face up. And it tells everybody, “I’m new at this but I’m excited. Just tell me where to sign.”

Publishers have generally been the gatekeeper to a published book. While this may be less true now, with self-publishing and Open Educational Resources (OER), the publishers still have the most established distribution channels self-publishers cannot begin to match.

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How to use graphic design principles to evaluate the effectiveness of your book cover

All four books in textbook supplement author Paul Krieger’s Visual Analogy series showcase a visual analogy on the cover, a great advertisement for one of the key learning tools that make his books unique: visual analogies.

“My whole book idea was born in the lab from my teaching,” says Krieger, whose books include A Visual Guide to Human Anatomy, A Visual Analogy Guide to Physiology, A Visual Analogy Guide to Human Anatomy and Physiology, and A Visual Analogy Guide to Chemistry. “I used to sketch visual analogies out at my students’ lab tables, and it was students who encouraged me to write my first book 17 years ago. In the anatomy and physiology lab, students have to learn different anatomical structures. So, for example, when they need to learn the thoracic vertebra, I use a giraffe head to create a visual analogy that helps them learn and remember all of the parts of the thoracic vertebra, which is shaped like a giraffe head.”

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