2024 TAA Textbook Award Nominations Open Sept 1

It’s almost time! Nominations for the TAA Textbook Awards will open in two weeks. Starting September 1st, we’ll start accepting nominations for our three prestigious awards:

  • McGuffey Longevity Award – to recognize long-standing textbooks and learning materials that have been in print for at least 15 years.
  • Textbook Excellence Award – to recognize excellence in current textbooks and learning materials.
  • Most Promising New Textbook Award – to recognize promising textbooks and learning materials in their first edition.

Learn more and start preparing your nomination.

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TAA’s Textbook Awards Are Coming Back!

The TAA Textbook Awards are coming back, and we’ll begin accepting nominations on September 1. Get ready to apply! We’ll be accepting nominations for the following awards:

McGuffey Longevity Award – to recognize long-standing textbooks and learning materials that have been in print for at least 15 years.

Textbook Excellence Award – to recognize excellence in current textbooks and learning materials.
Most Promising New Textbook Award – to recognize promising textbooks and learning materials in their first edition.

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Exploring diversity in science textbooks

When Kathy Burleson, a senior lecturer of biology at Hamline University, was preparing to teach a course on the biology of women, she was surprised that she couldn’t find any images of the female muscular system to use for the class. “I got really curious about the discrepancies in how women’s and men’s bodies are portrayed across anatomy and physiology textbooks,” she said. To learn more, she embarked on a research project in 2016 with the goal of helping to close diversity gaps in STEM.“Textbook images tell us a story about science and who belongs in science,” she said. “My hope is that, informed from interviews and data, we can give textbook publishers something to think about.”

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Laying the foundation for an academic textbook: Testing for audience

It’s one thing to write a textbook; it is another matter entirely to get a critical mass of people to buy. For someone socialized as an academic, the audience for a textbook is a far less specialized one than one is accustomed to addressing. The format has to be perceived as accessible; the audience has to find it welcoming.

A website about trade books provides analytics enough to give a would-be author pause. According to Bookscan, of the 3.2 million books tracked in 2021, fewer than 1percent sold more than 5,000 copies. While I confess to find myself turning to book writing for the sheer love of the spaciousness it affords to expand on ideas, it’s hardly a wise investment of all-too limited time to a write a book that only a few will ever buy.

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Busy TAA People: Barbara Price authors new book

AA Member Barbara Price’s book with biochemist Katherine Reid, Fat, Stressed, and Sick: MSG, Processed Food, and America’s Health Crisis, was accepted by Rowman & Littlefield in Fall 2022, with a publication date of September 2023. 

“In November 2021, I was selected by TAA to receive a complimentary book proposal evaluation from Publishing Consultant John Bond,” said Price. “His insight was enormously helpful in getting my book accepted for publication. The take-home is that TAA = SUCCESS.” Congratulations Barbara!

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