Over the past decade, digital textbooks have become the norm in many college classrooms. That may sound like progress, but there’s an issue: moving content onto a digital platform only solves the problem of the medium of delivery. It doesn’t inherently change the teaching or learning experience. Making something digital does not aloneserve the needs of today’s students and, in fact, challenges arise because there is no simple one-to-one correlation between the print and digital experience. In order to build content for digital delivery we need to be intentional about what we are building, why we are building it and how we are building it. Great digital learning experiences are intentional.
How to evaluate an effective book cover
Go ahead. Judge that next book by its cover. Or, at least, judge the cover itself and what purpose it serves for the book. Textbook author, Paul A. Krieger tells us that “Good book covers are important” and shares four specific benefits to a quality cover design.
- The book cover serves as an advertisement for your book;
- A quality cover makes a positive first impression with your readers;
- It informs your readers what the book is about; and
- It can improve overall sales.
Published textbook authors invited to take TAA’s 2022 Textbook Contracts & Royalties Survey
Are you curious what royalty rates other textbook authors are receiving for print and digital books? What about what they’ve been able to negotiate regarding first right of refusal, the sunset clause, or royalties for bulk, wholesale and foreign editions?
If you are a published textbook author, we invite you to participate in TAA’s 2022 Textbook Contract & Royalties Survey, which aims to provide a look into the range of royalties and contract options offered for print and digital textbooks.
TAA announces 2022 Textbook Award winners
Forty-five textbooks have been awarded 2022 Textbook Awards by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA). 12 textbooks received William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Awards, 13 textbooks received Textbook Excellence Awards, and 20 textbooks received Most Promising New Textbook Awards.
The McGuffey Longevity Award recognizes textbooks and learning materials whose excellence has been demonstrated over time. The Textbook Excellence Award recognizes excellence in current textbooks and learning materials. The Most Promising New Textbook Award recognizes excellence in 1st edition textbooks and learning materials.
Class action complaint filed against Cengage alleging unfair, deceptive royalty-reporting practices
A class action lawsuit was filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Cengage, one of the leading publishers of educational textbooks, alleging that its unfair and deceptive royalty-reporting practices violate Massachusetts’ Consumer Protection Law.
The lawsuit, filed by Slarskey LLC and Casner & Edwards LLP on behalf of art history author Fred Kleiner and similarly-situated individuals, alleges that Cengage’s practices are designed to conceal that Cengage systematically underpays royalties due to authors in the range of 10-30 percent.
2/24 TAA Webinar: The Future of Textbooks
Join Eirik Wahlstrøm, Ingrid Skrede, and Harald Manheim from Ludenso on Thursday, February 24 from 102 p.m. ET for the TAA webinar, The Future of Textbooks, to learn what AR is and how it can be used in the existing and future print textbooks to better illustrate complex concepts and spark curiosity. In the webinar, you will get a live demo of the technology, insights into the research findings from the initial tests of using AR in classrooms in the Nordics, as well as a step-wise guide into how you as an author easily can bring your books to life.