By Kim Pawlak
On July 2, 2026, a class action lawsuit was filed against Meta and Mark Zuckerberg on behalf of textbook authors whose copyrighted textbooks were used without authorization or compensation to train its large language model (LLM), Llama.
Finding the right publisher can be daunting, especially with so many options available. This year’s Textbook Award winners shared how they found their publishers, why they were a good fit, and what factors to consider when evaluating potential publishing partners.
What does the future of textbook and academic publishing look like in the age of artificial intelligence? According to Bryan Alexander, award-winning futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and educator recognized internationally, the answer is already beginning to take shape.
We asked several veteran TAA textbook author members to respond to a fellow member’s inquiry on how to compensate a new coauthor, and we’re sharing those responses with all members who may find it helpful as they also grapple with this issue.
This was the question posed: A TAA author with a long-running, high-earning solo textbook is transitioning to retirement and is about to engage a junior coauthor. They plan to coauthor about two more editions before the senior author retires entirely. The senior author is seeking information or recommendations on the initial division of royalties—what percentage of the royalties to offer the new coming author for their first edition together, to be fair, incentivizing, and within professional norms.
We asked 2026 Textbook Award winners some questions about their authoring experience. Two respondents, Peter Copeland and Janok Bhattacharya, co-authors of Earth History: Stories of Our Geological Past (1e), winner of a 2026 Most Promising New Textbook Award shared their journey.
Forty-seven textbooks have been awarded 2026 Textbook Awards by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) Awards Committee. Twelve textbooks received William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Awards, 11 textbooks received Most Promising New Textbook Awards, and 24 textbooks received Textbook Excellence Awards.
