Text and Academic Authors Association

"I'll be back." This is not the Terminator speaking, or even Arnold Schwarzenegger, but your new interim president of TAA for 2010-11. I first started publishing in the mid-1970s and I was a founding member of TAA in 1987. I marvel at the changes in publishing over the last 35 years, although TAA's core mission remains the same — assisting the creators of intellectual property, be they text or academic writers, with their writing and publishing activities.

TAA has continued to adapt to the changing face of publishing, seeking to keep authors informed and abreast of the changes. Helping writers succeed in this new world of publishing continues to drive TAA. When I first began publishing, writing with a computer was a daunting task, desk top publishing a novelty, and electronic books and course kits were but in their infancy. Today, all are central to the publishing landscape.

TAA has grown with the times, offering writers a full array of information and tools to aid in their writing. TAA offers contract assistance, publishing grants, teleconferences, writing and grant writing seminars, networking, mentoring, conferences, and a web site full of helpful information. All this is dedicated to assisting authors with their writing needs.

TAA has never lost sight that it is a member based organization. TAA seeks not only to serve authors and new authors, but TAA seeks input from its membership. If there are ideas or projects you want TAA to investigate, let us know. If you want to help shape the direction publishing moves in the future, there are opportunities to become involved on TAA committees of the governing council of TAA. The TAA staff welcomes hearing from its members.

I'm back! And as the 2010-11 interim president of TAA, I want to again serve my fellow authors in their writing activities, to assist writers get published, and to help writers receive recognition, and even compensation, for their publishing. I am eager for the challenge of the coming year.

Ron Pynn

April 2010
TAA seeking next generation of leaders

TAA President Paul Siegel

As I prepare to leave office this summer, let me point out that the TAA
leadership is engaged in some serious soul-searching as we try to discover how best to bring the association to its full potential. What began as the brainchild of a tiny handful of dedicated textbook authors a quarter-century or so ago has now grown to an association pushing towards the 2,000 membership figure—and this is but a tiny fraction of the size we should be, given our mission and potential market.

Your elected Council is committed to a program of, for want of a better phrase, selfimprovement. We will be creating a detailed “job description” for Council membership, to enhance accountability. We also need to identify TAA members to serve on Council itself or on committees that will include “lay members.” We are especially anxious to find individuals with expertise in such areas as:

Event Planning. Planning the annual TAA conference is a major undertaking, taking up much Council and staff time. We would love to have TAA members with special expertise in event planning to assist in programming, and perhaps negotiations with hotels.
Financial Management. We need to attract more Council members with expertise in financial management; ideally some members will come to Council with a background in accounting, thus especially well-positioned to serve as Treasurer of the TAA.
Information Technology. TAA will always have a need to review and improve upon our use of data about our members and about our own management. Fostering networking opportunities among members improves as we better organize information about our members.

There may be other areas of expertise that will be identified later on, as the Council engages in its own self-improvement program.

For now, let me encourage members to step forward, not to be shy. We need you.

Paul Siegel

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January 2010
The joys of interdisciplinarity

TAA President Paul Siegel

Years ago, when I was living in DC, my Gallaudet University windbreaker prompted a stranger to approach me during intermission at a Kennedy Center arts event. "I know someone who works at Gallaudet's counseling center," he explained, and proceeded to give details about an individual who turned out to be a Wisconsin friend and co-worker I had lost track of a couple of decades ago. I emailed my long-lost friend later that night. Unbeknownst to us, we had been working two buildings apart for over four years. Talk about campus silos!

The story reminds me of something worth celebrating about TAA — its sheer interdisciplinary. Born of a small group of textbook authors from disparate fields seeking mutual support, TAA provides to text and academic authors alike a chance to mingle with folks whose expertise may be far different from our own, and who typically have a special knack for explaining their fields to neophytes.

I love the fact that our annual conferences, almost without exception, are opened with the Christophersons' "geo-primer" of our chosen site, especially my knowledge of Geology is pretty much limited to occasional episodes from PBS's NOVA series.

I also never took an Art History class in college, and was beaming when fellow Council member Fred Kleiner recently gave me a delightful "coffee table tome" — his own best-selling textbook. Theatre professor and new TAA member Scott Boyd has been an invaluable sounding board for me as I, a professor of communication who has never taken a for-credit drama class, am toying with the idea of offering a Freshman seminar on "Post-911 Drama."

TAA is a gathering place of highly competent academics who enjoy each other's company and who give freely of their time and expertise. It's a privilege to be among you.

Paul Siegel

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October 2009
Premium Broadway tickets scheme clue to textbook rentals?

TAA President Paul Siegel

Recently the TAA listservs were buzzing with postings about the whole issue of textbook rentals, as described in a recent New York Times article. Members were understandably upset at intermediary companies profiting from their books' transfer from 1st to 2nd and 3rd owners, while authors see no return from such transactions. This all reminds me of how Broadway theatre owners put a dent in scalpers' profits by doing their own "scalping" (though they would never call it that, of course). The larger Broadway houses hold back "premium" center section orchestra seats, making them available to the public at markups of up to 250 percent over the price of other orchestra seats. Last minute theatre-goers willing to pay scalpers' prices for relatively inferior seats would surely prefer to buy these premium seats directly from the theatre owners, the logic goes, and apparently the system is working pretty well.

One cannot help but wonder what would happen if more textbook publishers put the secondary rental market out of business by entering the fray themselves. And if savvy textbook authors insisted on contract clauses providing a share of that income as royalties, we would seem to have a win-win situation.

The only impediment I would see, beyond that of persuading our publishers, is our own pride as authors, which might take a bit of a beating as we consciously enter a market that presumes our students really don't want to keep our books long after the semester ends. Can we get over ourselves?

Paul Siegel

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May 2009
Once more, with style

TAA President Paul Siegel

It was the textbook part of "Text and Academic Authors" that first brought me into the association. Like many members, I was an academic author long before I became a textbook author. I suppose the two kinds of writing are rather different. They are addressed to different audiences, and often edited by folks with quite different agendas. But do those differences dictate that our writing style must change?

A couple of semesters ago I was teaching a bit beyond my specialty a course called Language and Communication. (We don't have a Linguistics department at the University of Hartford, so lots of us get to tread on this turf). One of the texts I adopted was Stephen Pinker's best-seller, The Stuff of Thought. I used the class as an excuse to begin an email correspondence with Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor. In one message I lamented how my students were not appreciating the cleverness of his writing, that I had to spoon feed them a bit more than I would have liked. To be fair to my students, Pinker is not always easy reading. In one chapter he is making the point that "dirty" words are often familiar to us in less taboo contexts (a point George Carlin made many years ago in his famous "Seven Dirty Words" routine). As to the Pinker chapter, perhaps many undergraduates would recognize a "barnyard epithet for insincerity" (bullshit), but might it be a bit much to expect them to decode a "gynecological-flagellative term for uxorial dominance" as "pussy whipped?" Paraphrasing now a bit, Pinker's reply to my query: "The New York Times Book Review figured it out — do I really need to worry about ill-prepared undergraduates?"

You've got to admire his style, I suppose, even if it would be a hard sell for most textbook publishers.

Paul Siegel

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February 2009
Plagiarism case raises issues of style

TAA President Paul Siegel

The Guardian of London called a plagiarism dispute at Central Connecticut State University (just down the road from my own university) "brilliant movie script material." Cristina Duquette and Matthew Coster were enrolled in the same semester in two different sections of CCSU History professor Ronald Moss's class in Western Civilization. The final paper in the course was to be on the Holocaust. When Moss began reading the two papers, he noticed some disturbing similarities, chief among them the "dumb mistake" (Moss's words) of referring to "Communist Germany."

The papers were structured almost identically, although Duquette's paper manifested fewer of the misspellings and diction problems (confusing "there" and "their," "weather" and "whether" "striped" and "stripped" ) found in Coster’s paper.

Moss concluded that Coster, whom he judged the weaker of the two students, was the plagiarist. A university investigatory panel backed up the professor, and Coster was expelled. Just this past December a state judge in Connecticut ruled in a civil suit that Duquette was the more likely intellectual property thief. Evidence in Judge Scholl's court included testimony of computer experts who concluded that Coster's paper was composed several days earlier than was Duquette's version. Also, Scholl found it highly implausible that Coster would have stolen a paper, then hastily inserted the numerous errors that only his paper manifested. Duquette was ordered to pay over $25,000 in damages to Coster.

As I write this column Scholl's ruling is being appealed, but the university has written Coster a letter that, while not quite admitting fault, does offer him reinstatement and the president's intervention in changing the young man's grade for that one course.

No one involved in this little escapade came out unscathed. Neither of the two students seems very bright (recall that "Communist Germany" gaff), and whoever was the thief must have been living in a fog to imagine she or he would get away with the transgression, in that both papers were to be read by the same professor on or about the same day. Professor Moss himself hardly emerges a hero, excusing as he did his own faulty "fact finding" by pointing out that "I'm not a private investigator, I'm not a lawyer. I teach history." All well and good if a few points of disputed extra credit are involved, but a possible expulsion?

Perhaps even more dismaying about the case is that no one — not Professor Moss, not the university's investigatory panel — apparently made an attempt to ascertain which of the two students' "styles" of writing more closely resembled the prose in the disputed final exam. Had neither student already written enough during their time at CCSU to have developed a style? My memory wandered to a recent faculty meeting at my own university in which a number of us confessed that we create mechanisms in some of our classes to minimize the likelihood that we will have to read scores of mediocre term papers. Some of us make the "major" paper optional for all save those who want a chance at receiving an "A" in the class, thus nudging only our best students to write. Such tricks of the trade may make our own end-of-semester crunch a bit less chaotic, but don't we thus contribute to the creation of what one author has called "The Dumbest Generation?"

Paul Siegel

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November 2008
Diminish used book market with more memorable prose

TAA President Paul Siegel

It is not news to readers of The Academic Author that the high cost of textbooks is on many people's minds these days — at least to the extent that our minds have room to fret about anything beyond our shrinking portfolios. A LEXIS/NEXIS search conducted in October 2008 found over 300 articles appearing in "major newspapers" in the past six months in which the word "textbook" appeared within 15 words of either "cost" or "price." Many of those articles point to the undeniable fact that the retail price of textbooks has increased at a rate far higher than that of other consumer goods. A report from the state of Florida tells us that the average community college student pays $117 per course for textbooks, with state university students having to cough up $127 per course. Some states are even seeking legislative solutions to what they perceive as price gouging.

Of course one of the main reasons for the high cost of textbooks is ther used book market. The "first sale doctrine" in American copyright law dictates that no monies are due to the publisher or author of a work when the book changes hands from its first user to another user (or, more frequently, to a college bookstore or to a freelance "jobber" who will then re-sell the book to the next user).

I cannot help but muse about why so many students re-sell their textbooks. At the risk of stating the obvious, there is a difference between books, especially textbooks, and most other consumer goods. If a friend covets my rocking chair, and I give it to her, I am deprived of both the chair and its utility. With textbooks, perhaps even unlike most other kinds of publications, I have already enjoyed the utility of the item by getting to use it in the semester in which I take the class. Thus, while I give up the possession of the material object (the bound book), I do not miss out on its primary function by selling it to a classmate or a bookstore.

Not every communication medium suffers from this selling (or giving, or lending) to second and third users. In the magazine industry, those recipients of their friends' kindness are collectively referrred to as the "pass-along readership," which publishers add to their circulation data when they argue for higher payments from advertisers. Unless and until textbooks routinely run ads, our own pass-along readers will not represent a source of income.

But let's get back to that notion of utility as applied to textbooks. Why must a text's utility end something during Finals Week? I am reminded of a psychology professor who kept his 400-plus survey students' attention when introducing a week's worth of lectures on Jean Piaget. "Not all of you have to listen to me this week," he began, a provocative speech introduction if I ever heard one. "Actually there are only three groups of you who have to pay attention to this lesson." The first group, naturally enough, were those among us who planned to be psychologists. No matter what kind of psychology we practiced, the professor warned us, "a professional who is anything less than fluent with Piaget's theories would be akin to a chef who did not know how to sauté." The second group who needed to listen were those who planned to take any additional classes in the department. "So infused is the field with Piaget's theories that virtually every other professor in every other course has a right to assume your familiarity with this body of knowledge."

Who, then, comprised the third group who had to listen? "Oh, that would be those of you who plan to be intelligent, functioning members of modern society." Zing. He went on to explain that Piaget had to be understood by anyone "destines to raise children, or take care of an aging parent, or indeed to become aged themselves."

We were suckered obviously, in that we were really being told, with more than a bit of theatric flair, that all of us had to pay attention, that we would need what we were about to learn for the rest of our lives.

Imagine if our own writing were the kind that students felt they needed to retain for the rest of their lives. It would certainly be one way to put a damper on the used book market.

Paul Siegel

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August 2008
Examining our self-concept as authors

TAA President Paul Siegel

This is my first President’s Message in my new capacity as president of TAA. As I write these words I am settling back into my daily rituals after the association’s very successful annual conference in Las Vegas. We had a record number of attendees this year. During the conference I asked the gathering of almost 80 textbook and academic authors how many first-timers were among us, and well over a dozen hands were raised. This is very exciting, especially since we have been making a concerted effort to increase new member participation in not only the conference, but in the overall membership of TAA as well.

If you have never been to one of our conferences, my simple and unsolicited advice is “Come!” It is a truly rejuvenating experience. While the presentations were quite varied, some focusing on law, and others on technological advances in publishing and in author-maintained websites, I would like to share with you a bit about one of the more earthbound and universal topics presented: “Breaking Writer's Block.”

The presenter was Dr. Erin Oksol, a clinician and professor at the University of Nevada, and president of the Nevada State Psychological Association. Like so many of the stellar “local talent” presenters we have enticed (begged?) to participate over the years, Oksol had no previous affiliation with or awareness of TAA. She donated her time and expertise simply because we asked. Like Blanche DuBois, TAA is often enhanced by the kindness of strangers.

Oksol called upon vocabulary borrowed from Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy [REBT] to suggest that we writers become our own worst enemies when we engage in negative self-talk, such as “I should have met that deadline and I failed. I am worthless and unreliable.” We have all been there. There are too many “shoulds” in the world, Oksol reminded us: “Don’t ‘should’ on yourself!”

In order to help us do a “reality check,” REBT asks us first to construct the very worst self-talk we can imagine for our situations then laugh at the resulting absurdity. That we had a well-attended lunch hour Roundtable Discussion earlier in the conference for non-tenured faculty found me free associating during Oksol’s address, wondering how an untenured assistant professor’s worst self-talk might emerge: “None of my publication projects will come to fruition. I will be denied tenure. I will never get another job. I will become homeless, and live my last few pathetic years desperate and alone.”

But many TAA members have been awarded tenure. And among the textbook authors in our membership, I would suspect that a large percent of us are not dependent on our royalty incomes. For this part of our membership, even the most negative self-talk would not likely conjure images of starving on the streets. At worst we might imagine that “my current edition won’t sell, and I will never again get a book contract.” For these authors it is the powerful but intangible self-concept as authors that we most fear losing.

This struck me as a powerful cognition. What is it about getting to see ourselves as authors that we find so intrinsically rewarding? One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons depicts a New York cocktail party, with the hostess comforting a fellow we presume to be the guest of honor: “Relax. You’re a famous author. No one expects you to talk about anything but yourself.” I hope the cartoonist, while getting a chuckle from us, nonetheless has it backwards. Our status as authors, especially as we are always looking toward the next edition, means that we manifest more curiosity about others, and the world in general, than do most people. Perhaps the grain of truth in the cartoon is the reference to being famous. Is fame what we crave? If so, very few of us will ever be satisfied. But surely recognition is something authors desire. We love having our works cited with approval in others’ publications. We love the fact that people in our fields who are not of our acquaintance know our names. Perhaps we especially love the experience of strolling on a campus hundreds or thousands of miles from our own and seeing students reading our book.

How entwined is your self-concept with the label, “author?” How much would you grieve if it were taken from you? Many thanks to Dr. Oksol for prompting the discussion.

Paul Siegel

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March 2008
Expert review makes self-published books respectable

Former TAA President John Wakefield

Textbook and academic authors come to self-publishing for different reasons. Some own the rights to a book out of print. Some seek editorial control or a larger financial return. Some cannot find a publisher to adopt a specific project. I came to self-publishing by accident when I inherited two local history books published by my father and several hundred copies in cardboard copies from the printer.

I convinced my wife that we should take copies of one of the books with us on a vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Mobile Bay is the site of a well-known Civil War battle that was the subject of one of the books. We took a side trip to Fort Morgan at the mouth of Mobile Bay, where I showed the little book to the site historian, asking him if the museum there was interested in selling it. He examined it and asked how many copies I had with me. "About ten." He said, "We can sell them all."

My wife and I later shipped all that we had, redid the book in a second edition, sold out the first printing of 1,000 copies and had the second edition reprinted. That little book has inspired a self-published series that I work on during my unscheduled time.

Anecdotes like this one abound, but at the top of the scale is the story of John Saxon, who authored and self-published a series of K-12 math textbooks. In 1980, Saxon was a retired Air Force officer teaching math at a junior college in Oklahoma. According to a 2001 article in the Washinton Post, he wrote his first math textbook on his dining room table, used $80,000 from an inheritance and a second mortgage on his house to publish the book and market it himself. Twenty years later, his K-12 math series, in which he authored or co-authored nine books, was in some form of use by an estimated 25,000 schools, and annual sales of Saxon Publishers approached $100 million. John Saxon passed away in 1996, and his company was sold to Harcourt-Achieve in 2004. Though revised and now published by others, much of the series remains in print today.

In his book Self-publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials (Atlantic Path Publishing, 2004), Frank Silverman, a former president of TAA, lists a number of academically respectable books that were initially self-published. In the nonfiction category, they include Poor Richard's Almanac (Franklin), The Elements of Style (Strunk and White), Familiar Quotations (Bartlett) and Roberts' Rules of Order (Roberts). In ther fiction category are many more books including The Jungle (Sinclair) and Huckleberry Finn (Twain). In The Self-publishing Manual (itself self-published), Dan Poynter reminds us that many well-known non-academic, non-fiction books have also been self-published. The one perhaps best known to recent college graduates is What Color is Your Parachute? 2008 (Bolles).

What makes a self-published book respectable? My answer is expert review and expert approval. The review can occur prior to publication, but without expert review, the book will be perceived to be no more than the product of a vanity press. With expert review and approval, the book becomes respectable, even if its sales are few. Review can take many forms, from the formative draft review, to selection committee review, to newspaper/journal review, to library acquisitions review. Experts can be defined somewhat differently, depending on who the user will be. Academic reviewers are often leading experts in their discipline. On the other hand, ordinary citizens are on some textbook selection committees, along with teachers, subject matter specialists, and school administrators.

Tenure and promotion committees may have difficulty understanding the nuances of expert review, so my advice especially to a new academic author is to seek a traditional publisher. Working with an editor and through the process of review and publication will give you insights that later can be used for publishing your own work, should for one reason or another, you wish to take that path. If successful, self-published works will be sought by traditional publishers to add to their title lists, and then the question becomes whether to license your work or to continue to self-publish.

John Wakefield

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December 2007
TAA's model of services

Winter brings with it thoughts of both what we have accomplished in the past year and what lies ahead for next year. To help me outline what we have done, and what remains to be done, I propose a simple two-by-two model. The vertical of the model would be divided into novice and expert categories and the horizontal into academic and textbook categories. Four cells result: Novice academic, expert academic, novice textbook and expert textbook. These four categores might be used to classify authors, but we tend to bridge categories. They might better be used to classify our assistive services.

Novice academic services
We have done much this year for the first time to support early career academic authoring. First, we have developed a new category of membership to acknowledge both the budget constraints of those new to academy and their trial membership in TAA. Graduate students and instructors can now join and renew for $15 per year; assistant professors for $30. Second, Council has expanded its financial support for workshops that address the needs of new authors focused on writing scholarly articles and grant proposals. Tara Gray's workshop on scholarly journal authoring and Ken Henson's workshop on grant writing can now be offered more often. Third, our annual conference is committed to including presentations by and/or for new academic authors. In June, for example, we had an informative session on how to turn your dissertation into a book. Fourth, Council in June authorized $7,500 for grants of up to $750 to defray costs associated with publication of an article in a refereed journal. These articles might very well have grown out of an idea explored during a workshop. Fifth, we have revitalized our author mentoring program to help new academic authors. Sixth, we are encouraging and supporting the development of learning communities of authors on university campuses.

It can be said that 2007 has been "the" year for developing assistive services for authors who are newly focused on scholarly articles and grants, and I expect even more ideas now under discussion to emerge as service initiatives in 2008.

Expert academic services
What do we have to offer the experienced academic author? First, TAA now offers the opportunity to join or renew at a rate commensurate with academic rank ($55 for associate professors, $75 for professors and $35 for emeriti professors). Second, Council increased support for Tara Gray's advanced workshop of authoring scholarly articles, for Robert Ginsberg's workshop on scholarly writing and editing, and for Elizabeth Boepple's workshop on preparing effectively-written, camera-ready copy. While novices would profit from these workshops, the benefits extend to experienced authors who might also be interested in editing a book or journal or self-publishing. Third, our 2007 conference in Buffalo in June allowed expert academic authors to present their authoring.editing expertise in an "academic track". Along with newer academic authors, I enjoyed listening to an experienced journal editor describe what she looked for in submissions, providing insight to her audience (including me!). We plan to continue the "academic track" at our 2008 conference, along with sessions of general interest and those geared to textbook authors. We shall also be linking out website to information about scholarly retreats.

Novice textbook services
Our revised membership categories differentiate between authors who have less than versus more than $5,000 in royalty income ($30 vs. $75), acknowledging that royalty income tends to increase with experience as a textbook author. Second, our increased support for workshops extend to Michael Spiegler's workshop on writing a textbook, which will be offered at TAA's 2008 conference in Las Vegas, June 19. This workshop continues the TAA tradition of offering an introductory seminar t help prospective or new textbook athors. Third, TAA continued its facilitation of communication between authors and literary agents and/or attorneys. Agents and attorneys offered many brief consultations free of charge at the conference, and they participated in dynamic conference presentations on contract negotiation with publishers. Fourth, email traffic throughh the TAA listserv increased substantially, often with useful advice for new authors regarding coauthors, potential publishers, contract clauses, royalites, revisions, etc. Fifth, TAA continued its Texty awards for new ttextbooks that won highly positive reviews from a set of experienced textbook atuhors. In the year aheaad, you can expect new supportive servies to emerge for new textbook authors.

Expert textbook services
Twenty years ago, TAA was born from the interest of experienced textbook authors in sharing information about financial issues and joining an advocacy group, TAA recognized the contribution of its most senior textbook authors by creating an "emeritus" textbook author category of membership ($35). TAA also continued to serve the information and advocacy needs of expert textbook authors. Executive Director Richard Hull led a "Stomp the Comp" campaign to reduce the number of complimentary copies that are entering the used textbook marketplace and undermining royalties. TAA joined with the Association of American Publishers to oppose burdensome provisions of a new disclosure law in Oregon; investigated the potential misclassification of custom copies by publishers as "abridgements" to reduce their royalty payments to authors; and financially supported (through a grant) the defense of copyright in a lawsuit. TAA's foundation (TAAF) attracted sufficient funds, often from expert textbook authors, for plnas to be made to launch its own grant program in the near future. Finally, TAA continued its support for expert testbook authoring through its McGuffey Longevity Awards presented at the conferenc this and every year. A highlight of the conference was listening to these authors share some of the secrets of their success.

All of these categories of service are receiving attention from your leadership. Should you have an ideaaothow TAA could better serve you in the year ahead, do not hesitate to contact us with it.

John Wakefield

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August 2007
Textbook price controversy

Each year now, news articles appear about the high cost of attending college, including the cost of college textbooks. Most recently, the Department of Education's Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance reported on May 25th that "the marketplace for textbooks and learning resources is broken." (Click here for more)

The argument is that because teachers order the books and students must pay, "the end consumer has little, if any, direct influence over price, format or quality of the product." It is questionable whether or not teachers would want students to have direct influence over the format or quality of textbooks. (If students were learning experts, who would need teachers?) But what about price?

The ACSFA report asumes that students are paying too much for their textbooks and other learning materials. As our Executive Director Richard Hull wrote in his reaction to the report, "textbook prices have been rising at a rate approximately equal to the increase in room and board, transportation and Consumer Price Index, but equal to only a fraction of the increase and tuition and fees" (Click here for more)

This data comes out of a chart in the ACSFA report. If students are paying too much for their textbooks, it is not evidenced by this chart.

What seems to motivate the conclusion that the market is broken is the assumption that student should pay less for their books and instructional materials than they historically have. The proposed means to accomplish this end, in the long run, is government sponsorship of a national digital marketplace. In other words, the government should step in and fix things. Hmm. Let's try some of our own solutions first, and see what we can do to lower the costs of textbooks.

First, letters to the editor of the local newspaper can be used to promote our "Stomp the Comp" campaign. Stomping out the resale of complimentary copies would have the effect of relieving some of the pressure for publishers to increase wholesale prices. Should it help, here is a letter that I wrote to my local Alabama newspaper editor when the "broken market" headline appeared late this past summer.

August 3, 2007
This letter is in regard to your July 23rd article about the "broken" college textbook market. As the article indicated, many who work in and around colleges are trying to keep textbook costs down. For their part, textbook authors are conducting a campaign among college faculty to discourage the sale of complimentary textbooks (also known as "comp" copies) that are provided free of charge to them.

These freebies aren't really free — sales to students must pay for them. That is a legitimate cost of doing business, but every year a large number of comp copies find their way into the used textbook market, decreasing new book sales. Many of these copies are purchased from faculty by resellers. Under the 1995 Ethics Law, it is highly unlikely that the Alabama Ethics Commission would be of the opinion that a complimentary textbook, whether solicited or unsolicited, could be sold by a faculty member for personal gain.

My observation is that the textbook market is not broken. Many instructors care deeply about how much students pay for their books, but not all are aware that one way to keep textbook costs down is to "stomp the comp" by using these copies for reference, returning them to the publisher, giving them to a colleague, or donating them to a library.

John Wakefield
President, Text and Academic Authors Association

The current "Stomp the Comp" campaign builds on our history of advocating for ethical practices by faculty and enforcement of campus policies to keep textbook resellers off college campuses. (See Stomp the Comp info here)

Second, we should remain vigilant in response to attempts to dictate how faculty choose textbooks and course materials. On June 25th, Oregon State Senate Bill 365 was signed into law. The bill requires publishers to make textbook prices accessible to faculty, to list textbooks separately from their ancillaries, and to inform potential adopters of previous editions. Although the burden of any changes in current marketing practices will fall on publishers, TAA supported the Association of American Publishers in their efforts to educate legislators about some of the more burdensome aspects of the original bill. (See AAP's site)

Authors too want to help keep the costs of textbooks and educational materials low. At the same time, we want to keep the quality of textbooks and instructional materials high. These are not incompatible goals, but achieving them both requires that we all do our part.

John Wakefield

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June 2007
U.S. textbook selection process needs work

Have you ever tried to explain our textbook selection process in the United States? Last month, I replied to an inquiry from a foreign ministry of education asking me to do just that. I would like to share with you my answers to four of the questions posed to me:

1) Opinion of the way our educational system gets instructional material: The current U.S. textbook development and adoption policy is very uneven in its results. Because the U.S. Constitution leaves educational policy to the individual states, not all states use the same policy. In 20 of the 50 states, statewide "textbook adoption" committees composed of educators and community representatives decide which textbooks can be used by all school districts. In the other 30 states, local district or local school committees choose the textbooks that they will use. Local decisions are often thought to be better because they are closer to the classroom, but there is no evidence that this is so. Until now, neither state nor local committees have evaluated them based on the assessment of student learning. They evaluate them based on whether or not textbook content matches state or local curriculum guides. The failure to focus on textbook effectiveness research means that adoption decisions do not systemically lead to improved student learning through increasingly effective textbooks.

2) Intended changes in the near future: There is a movement to highlight research on textbook effectiveness. Current reforms in education are being guided by a national law passed in 2001 called "No Child Left Behind." This law has the ambitious goal of leading all students to achieve at or above their school grade level (or "proficiency") in reading and mathematics by 2013. Included in this law is the requirement that schools use "scientifically based research" strategies in the classroom and for professional development of staff. A scientifically based research study is required to be large, quantitative and controlled. The U.S. Department of Education has established the "What Works Clearinghouse" (www.w-w-c.org) to idenitfy educational programs or products (including textbooks) that have been evaluated by research of this kind. Because the law covers only reading and mathematics, only research on programs and products in these subject areas is included, and only a few of those studies have been done. Nevertheless, this web site represents a frist attempt to focus on effectiveness reserach as a criterion for textbook adoption. Whether the decisions of state and local adoption committees are beginning to reflect these research results is not known.

3) How long are these resources used? Textbook adoption decisions are made in each state for each subject area every six or seven years, usually one year after curricula are revised. Not all subjects come up for textbook adoption each year. They are staggered so that if mathematics textbooks come up in 2007, language textbooks may come up in 2008. Mathematics texts would not come up for adoption again until 2013 (or 2014, in states on a seven-year cycle). The effect of staggering different subjects in different states is to make a continuous market in which to introduce new editions. Consequently, publication cycles (also known as revision cycles) are somewhat shorter than adoption cycles. New editions of existing textbooks come out every four years or so. With revision cycles two or three years shorter than adoption cycles, no child in the USA uses a textbook with content more than 10 years old at any time.

4) Are these materials used everywhere in the USA, and if not, what is the difference? The textbook industry in the USA is large ($4.3 billion) and led by four multinational publishers who print books that compete with one another (sometimes in the same publishing house). Consequently, adotpion committees haev considerable choice abotu which books to recommend for purchase.

There is great overlap in curricula between different states and districts, but different committees deciding on textbooks for the same subject choose different textbooks for different reasons. As a result, the same materials are not used everywhere. Reasons for different choices should be related to different curricula from state to state and district to district, but this relationship is not always the reason for objecting to a particular book. Much is written about other reasons. (www.edexcellence.net/institute/publications/publication.cfm?id=335)

What I found somewhat troubling was that I could not recommend our textbook adoption process as a model for other nations. I could only note, with some hope, that a mechanism was being developed to improve the process through long-needed research on textbook effectiveness. When "No Child Left Behind" is revised, as it surely will be, what will happen to the nascent support for textbook research? All I can say is "stay tuned."

John Wakefield

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March 2007
Reflections on 20 years

"An organization of textbook authors was formed in the spring of 1987." Thus rather modestly began our first newsletter, the TAA Report, 20 years ago. The first issue, as well as all subsequent issues, can today be accessed by members through our archive. That first year, only two issues were put out to describe the formation and direction of the infant association, but they provide some insight into both the origins and development of TAA.

The first steps of what was then called Textbook Authors Association were uncertain. "We are newly formed and growing," the lead article in the first issue stated. "The direction in which the organization goes will be determined by the membership." Early topics of interest that emerged were the distribution and resale of complimentary copies of textbooks, the purchase price of textbooks, contractual relations with textbook publishers, and enforcement of copyright laws. By the second issue, new members had already responded by suggesting another topic of interest — the used textbook market. Early interests were essentially financial.

Membership grew. "Getting a new organization off the ground is rather like moving a large rock," said Mike Keedy, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Purdue and first TAA Executive Director. "At first it seems as though you can't budge it, and then it moves with a surge." To keep the rock rolling, Keedy and his assistants minimized expenses by operating TAA out of his home in Orange Springs, Florida and politically engaged a proposed tax reform that would have tied authoring expense deductions to royalties. He garnered support from New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who sided with Keedy in a letter published in the second issue of the TAA Report. The proposal, which Moynihan called "absurd," was never enacted by Congress. Chalk one up for TAA, the new kid on the block willing to fight for textbook authors' financial interests.

Norma Hood was on the staff of TAA from the beginning. When Mike Keedy stepped down as Executive Director in 1992, she moved from Office Manager to Acting Executive Director. Growth had peaked, and money to support author initiatives was often scarce. Due to financial constraints, a search for a replacement for Mike Keedy was never undertaken. During this time, the office ran out of a trailer on Norma's property, and she referred member questions that she could not answer to the officers and Council members for reply. Tragically, she died from lung cancer in 1995. With the approval of Council, the Norma L. Hood Award was established in her honor and memory. Each year it is given in recognition of the efforts of a member who, because they are away from the limelight, doesn't receive the recognition they deserve.

By 1993, identity issues had not resulted in a crisis, but they led to a reformation of our mission and our name to Text and Academic Authors Association (sometimes informally shortened to "Text and Academic Authors" to accord with the TAA acronym). The change in name reflected an expansion of the mission to support different kinds of professional writing by educators. By 1994, TAA was offering workshops on how to write journal articles, how to develop a book proposal, how to negotiate a contract, and how to self-publish, among other topics. Interests had clearly broadened beyond the financial to include writing and publishing. The newsletter was renamed the Academic Author to reflect the broadened mission of the Association.

In 1995, Ron Pynn, Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Dakota, became Executive Director of TAA. Ron was a charter member of TAA. He had served as Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at UND, and twice he served as TAA's President (1992-93, 1996-97). He carefully mentored us through our transformational period. When our treasury was almost empty, and a candidate for treasurer did not step forward, he asked me to run. Over the next few years, the leadership and headquarters cut some expenses and deferred others (including Ron's salary) until revenue from membership dues picked up and other sources of revenue could be found. As an authors' association, we sought and received funding from the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations, known as IFFRO. By 2002, the combined sources of revenue put us on a financial foundation that continues to allow us to offer many services today.

In my opinion, the year 2005 marked the end of our transitional period. When Ron let it be known that he was going to step down as Executive Director, a national search was undertaken for his replacement. In June 2005 Richard T. Hull, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at SUNY — Buffalo was selected as the new Executive Director. Richard brought with him several ideas that have since been implemented by our staff. We now offer a developmental sequence of workshops; communicate with our membership through multiple channels; provide annual awards for outstanding authors through an efficiently run competition; and with special thanks to Kim Pawlak, our new Associate Director, we have planned an outstanding conference in June. In the last two years, our staff has taken our workshops, member communication, awards, and annual meetings to a new level. We have entered our adulthood as an association.

Happy 20th TAA!

John Wakefield

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December 2006
Grant writing is a learnable skill

Every once in a while you read a book that affects you in a profound but unanticipated way. About five years ago, I was reading Howard Gardner's To Open Minds (1989) for clues about creativity. The book contains many autobiographical passages, including one about his early career after he had written a textbook. An opportunity arose to write a grant. He took it. After some success with this and other grants, he concluded that grant writing is a learnable skill. A little over two years ago, I began a new position in the Office of Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost that required me to write grants. I had not written any external grant proposals before, but Gardner's conclusion gave me hope that grant writing is a learnable skill.

My first test came within a month, when a request for proposals was received for a program I knew could meet a critical need of my institution and the community in which I live. The proposal was due in six weeks, so I did the sensible thing and hired a successful program director to write the grant with me. We worked together long distance, but the program director did all the analysis and writing. As the proposal was built, I watched and did the work of an apprentice.

Six months later, the proposal came back with a score of 91/100. I was pleased but puzzled. Proposals in this competition that received less than 99 did not receive funding. This experience was a costly way to begin learning how to write grants, but I graduated from my apprenticeship to become the writer on the rest of my grants. In brief, these are the lessons I learned from applying for Federal grants as my principle academic activity over the past two years:

Lesson 1: Get to know people in the life of your grant application. If possible, become a reviewer for the agency from which you are seeking a grant. As a reviewer, you get to know what is expected by other reviewers; furthermore, reviewers get to know you. You will not be eligible to enter the competition that you review, of course, but the more people you get to know in the world of your grant, the better. You never know who will review your next grant!

Lesson 2: Work with your program officer. The Federal program officer for your grant competition can be very helpful in providing you with models of successful proposals and with technical advice. These program officers will talk with you over the phone and are available at Federally-sponsored technical workshops. Attend the workshop closest to you, and use it to network.

Lesson 3: Be collaborative. Work with others at your institution or in your community, and prudently develop relationships with faculty at other institutions. You don't want to give your ideas away, but the Federal Government likes to maximize coverage. Spreading grant money around is both the economical and the politically smart thing for the Government to do when a very limited number of awards are made.

Lesson 4: Be persistent. You probably won't get a large grant the first time around. Be ready to try three times. The first time, the reviewers are just trying to figure out where you are coming from—whoever heard of where you are, or of the needs of your institution or community—and the second time around, your proposal may not have climbed high enough on the list to make it a top priority for funding. If it does receive funding the second time around, you are fortunate.

Grant writing has much in common with other forms of academic writing. Proposals include a description of the need for a project and at least one carefully designed and described activity. They are submitted to peers for evaluation, and they often are revised and may even be re-revised for submission. Consequently, the transition to grant writing did not require me to develop a completely new set of academic authoring skills.

The first year, my grants brought in only $189,000. My second year, I was either the grant writer or the recipient of Federal grants valued at over $1,000,000. Currently, proposals of which I was the author have resulted in grants that are funding seven new faculty and staff jobs at my institution and 76 multi-year scholarships for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Grant writing by an academic author does not always result in the reward of a publication or of income. Although articles and salaries do come out of grant activities, I do not believe prestige or money is the fundamental reward. For me, the fundamental reward is the satisfaction of seeing a needed project come to life or a needed program become populated with students and faculty.

Hope confirmed. Grant writing is a learnable skill.

John Wakefield

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September 2006
Textbooks vs. inquiry: A false dichotomy

At a professional meeting recently, a simmering debate came to a rolling boil between a British defender of textbooks and an American advocate of inquiry. I thought that the debate had been settled years ago, after the inquiry movement in education, led by Jerome Bruner, failed to engage the great diversity of ability found in heterogeneous American classrooms. The outcomes of this experiment in the 1960s contributed to the development of the "back to basics" movement to restore the goal of knowledge acquisition for most classes. Inquiry was largely relegated to gifted education. The debate has re-emerged, however, with the development of technology that can facilitate inquiry. Why do students need a textbook when they can electronically build their own collective understanding as a community of learners, working with primary source materials and authentic tasks?

Ambitious projects have been undertaken at several research universities over the last decade to demonstrate the power of electronic learning communities in primary, secondary, and higher education. The outcome is often measured not by test scores but is assessed as the product of a project. These outcomes (such as creative performances or digital portfolios) are impressive. We should not set them in opposition, however, to learning developed through textbooks and often measured through tests. Test scores are outcomes of learning, too, and sometimes they are important. What an inquiry-oriented program in science education at the University of Iowa recommended was that student projects supplement textbook-based learning rather than supplant it.

Authors, publishers and media specialists are increasingly adopting this recommendation. Multimedia-based portfolios can include a mixture of paintings, drawings, and photos to develop and illustrate understandings originating with the text and classroom discussion. The next step—digital portfolios—allows students to create text with hypertext linkages between webpages. Digital portfolios extend learning to web-based media. Students can be taught to create such products to supplement their text-based learning.

These products, however, lack evidence of some parameters of learning that are often considered important by society. These parameters include breadth of understanding and development of domain-specific cognitive skills. Breadth of understanding has traditionally been developed through use of a textbook that is comprehensive and organized in a way that is conducive to learning the subject. History, for example, might be organized with a cause/effect or narrative structure, while science might be organized with a problem/solution structure. Domain-specific cognitive skills are often developed through use of text-based exercises. Students can be instructed in the use of textual apparatus to complete these exercises, or they can be supplied in the teacher's guide or through another ancillary. Parameters of learning such as these are considered to be important enough by society to assess locally, nationally, and internationally.

Textbooks can also be useful as points of departure for inquiry. Their comprehensiveness served me as a teacher when launching student-selected projects. A list of thought-provoking topics, which I reviewed in class, was keyed to textbook chapters, which contained background information. Even the shortcomings of textbooks can serve teachers and students as points of departure. An editor of a teacher education text I wrote once required me to use a picture that portrayed children conducting an experiment, with two girls watching a boy do the scientific manipulations. The caption that I wrote for the picture was "If you observed this scene, what slight change might you suggest in the teacher's practices to develop a more equitable form of teaching? How would you measure the effect of this change on attitudes toward science?" It may not have been a brilliant way to deal with an editorial error, but it used an opportunity to develop thinking on the basis of what was in the text, as opposed to a disconnected exercise. Critical thinking can involve thinking critically about the text. Perhaps a student who thinks critically about her or his textbook will one day become the author of a new and better text!

What projects leave out of learning is what makes a textbook necessary. In the end, textbooks remain an indispensable tool for learning, given the goals our society has set for education. Equally indispensable, many would argue, are projects that allow students to develop deeper understandings of selected topics. No conflict is necessary here when we realize that textbook-based learning and inquiry-based learning can not only coexist, but they can form a symbiotic relationship. They can serve each other, as well as the individual and his or her society.

John Wakefield

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June 2006
Textbook research benefits students

As president of TAA, I participated in the International Seminar on Textbooks in Santiago, Chile, April 19 to 21. The seminar was organized by the Chilean Ministry of Education, and scholars attended from around the world, often through support of their embassies. A grant from the U.S. Department of State allowed me to present two papers as president of TAA, but they were reports rather than research papers. Textbook researchers are active in Norway, Australia, and other countries, but while listening to several research-based presentations, none of which came from the United States, I had to ask myself, "Why not US?"

I mentioned to my audience at the last session of the conference that they had heard no research on texbooks from the United States because, regrettably, US universities do not fund textbook research. The data that I was providing about textbook usage was from two studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. This explanation was sufficient to introduce the topic of my presentation (textbook usage in U.S. history), but again, it let me to wonder "why not us?"

Probably my own experience seeking a small, internal grant to evaluate a textbook draft is a good point of departure for an analysis of the problem. Some years ago, I wanted to administer a standardized test in the college subject and class for which I was writing a textbook, and I went before the university research committee with a request for funding to pay for the test and make revisions in the draft. My request was politely denied because in general, textbooks were not viewed as "a legitimate subject of research" by some of my peers. I protested, and presented an appeal to the committee in person, with a printout of over 100 articles and papers listed by ERIC as textbook research. My appeal was denied. Textbooks might be a subject of legitimate research, it was conceded, but universities should not financially support it. Perhaps, I was told, I could apply to the publisher for funds to support my project, since the publisher and I would be the primary beneficiaries.

Really? What happened to the students? I dropped the issue, just as others have probably done when faced with a consensus opposed to a proposal. Today, the situation is unchanged in the United States. I believe that the real reason that universities do not fund textbook research has to do with the question: "To whose advantage is it?" The assumption that textbook research only benefits publishers and authors is a false one, however, because it also benefits students and society. We should not shy away from this moral question; we should embrace it and explore it more thoroughly than those who are opposed to funding textbook research. Funded textbook research is not done here in the United States, but if we look around us, we'll see that it is being done elsewhere, because other countries have recognized that quality textbooks benefit students and society, not just publishers and authors.

As president of TAA, my plan is to respond in two ways. One is to help us become more aware of textbook research. Beginning this fall, I plan to review books for The Academic Author that offer research-based suggestions for textbook development. My plan is to begin with a U.S. book (with a U.K. publisher), Textbooks for Learning, by Chambliss and Calfee, a review copy of which sits on my desk. This 1998 book proposed significant reforms to the textbook development process at least in part based on what educational psychologists have discovered about how children learn. I also want to review international perspectives on textbook research. Norway and Australia appear to be particularly advanced in their efforts to influence textbook quality through research that aims not at a particular book but at discovering how textbooks are actually used in the social context of the classroom.

The other way I plan to respond is to open communication with researchers, both here and abroad. The seminar in Chile put me in contact with the leadership of the International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media (IARTEM). I want to learn more about how research is structured and funded in countries where it is growing and developing. I was invited by their president to attend their next conference, which is to be held in Norway in August, 2007. Finally, I met textbook scholars from around the world and exchanged contact information.

If you know of a relatively recent book about textbooks that is at least in part research-based, and if you would like to review it or have it reviewed in The Academic Author, let me know about it. If as a nation, we leave textbooks virtually unexamined, we cannot expect them to progress much, despite the food intentions of authors and publishers. We shall leave the future to those would deny support to textbook research simply because "publishers should pay for that." We are the ones who need to ask the moral question, cui bono? To whose advantage is laying all of the financial burden for research on the publisher? Government needs to fund its share, or the practice will probably not advantage the students and teachers for whom we write, or the schools and societies for which we write, and we will have lost the high ground.

John Wakefield

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March 2006
Members Services on the Increase

In my last column, I looked ahead to our annual convention on July 7-8 at the Grosvenor Hotel in Orlando; in this column, I want to look back over Council efforts in the last six months to increase member services. What I find is encouraging.

Our most visible service to our members is in the area of information.

Bi-monthly e-mail News Alerts and this newsletter come to you regularly, but have you looked at the TAA web site and noticed how it has improved over the last six months? Not only does it display current news items and links to services, but it now offers you a chance to "blog" as a member, or simply read the postings of others. The TAA web site has become a forum for text and academic authors to discuss issues, or to simply to meet and talk.

Another service is our workshop line-up. TAA's most successful workshop is Tara Gray's "Publish and Flourish," which has brought many of you into the association as new members. Executive Director Richard Hull is assiduously creating a series of workshops to help you to develop in other ways as an author. One of the challenges he is exploring is how to deliver developmental workshops so that you can select from an array of possibilities and then experience a workshop in the comfort of your own home or office. You might want to read Richard's blog about podcasting, accessible through the TAA web site here. The TAA Council also approved a doubling of the honorarium for workshop presenters (to $1,000) both to reward our veteran workshop leaders and to attract new proposals for this series. Stay tuned.

A completely new service to members is financial. The Council in January approved a set of criteria to be considered in loaning money to members to assist them in their efforts to protect their copyrights.

Basically, the Council empowered TAA to make small loans to authors who need financial assistance in this way. Loan applications will be screened, and the load amounts will be limited to $15,000, but that amount is sufficient to offer temporary, material aid to a member who often is an academic who does not have deep pockets to protect intellectual property rights. For the first time, TAA is putting some money behind its advocacy of authors' rights, but it will offer this assistance in the form of a loan to assure that insofar as possible, this service will continue to be available, and with time and success, can grow.

If you have an idea for a new service that you would like TAA to initiate, please enter into a dialog with us, your leadership. We are listening to you, and we are working for you. If I cannot respond to your question or idea, I will try to get it quickly to someone in TAA who can. Recently, we had a case of a reseller on a university campus who was soliciting instructor annotated copies as well as other comp copies.

TAA has a history of author assistance that now spans a generation. As we go forward, and as we both expand and deepen our member services, we also intend to develop and preserve an historic understanding of author needs. If you have not taken a look at the electronic archive of this newsletter on the members-only portion of this web site, you might want to do so. Click here to sign-in to the Members-Only area. (If you need to, email our Office Manager, Janet Tucker, at TEXT@tampabay.rr.com for sign-in instructions. (There you will find a generation of information, advice, and discussion about authoring issues by like-minded professionals.

Taking a look back can sometimes be just as useful as taking a look forward to guide us in our actions.

John Wakefield

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December 2005
A tip for authors: Think ahead to July

A "tip," according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "advance or inside information given as a guide to action." The best tip I have for members of TAA this winter is to think ahead to the TAA Convention July 7-8, 2006. Here's some advance information, given as a guide to action:

First, the leadership of TAA has carefully considered the venue for the convention. We have decided on a change. The Executive Committee is making plans to hold the 2006 TAA Convention in Orlando, Florida rather than New Orleans, a decision prompted by Hurricane Katrina's effect on the city. As this issue goes to press, negotiations are going on with everal hotels in Orlando with room rates at $99/night. More details and information for registration is available here.

Second, a call for presentation proposals from the convention chair, Chris Harris, will go out to the membership in January. The convention will continue to focus on both individual and panel presentations that match the special interests of text and academic authors. If you have an idea for a presentation, I urge you to contact Chris at crharris@mtsu.edu.

Third, I urge you to consider organizing a panel or making an individual presentation. The best tip I can give you for writing a presentation proposal is that topics of interest to TAA members range widely. TAA members are interested in writing journal articles, grant proposals, textbooks, and/or text ancillaries. Members write as individual authors and co-authors, for free publication, for royalties and for hire. They are interested in "nuts and bolts" information about new writing tools and techniques, but they are also interested in royalty rates and publishing contracts. Topics of interest to both authors and publishers, such as discussion of textbook sales or pricing and copyright issues, are almost always featured at the convention.

For example, this year, I look forward to learning more about the Google Print Library project from people in the know. Since I last wrote this column, lawsuits have been filed against Google, Inc. by publishers, authors, and an authors' organization, while Google has with or without permission, recommended digital copying of works under copyright. In my last column, I argued for negotiation of the issues with all parties represented at the table. That resolution seems out of the picture for the time being. What are the prospects for the lawsuits? What are the implications for author rights going forward? These questions need to be explored, even if the lawsuits remain unresolved in the immediate future.

What all of the topics of interest to our membership have in common is their focus on "advance or inside information." Some of this information may come from a mentor who is him- or herself a senior author or experienced editor. Some may come from a literary agent or legal counsel. Some of the information can be gained from the experience of peers.

Whatever the source of the "inside" information, it often takes the form of personal knowledge and is embedded in a story. More formal academic presentations (such as ones presenting market research or the results of author surveys) are welcome too, and papers will be considered for publication on the TAA web site.

This July will mark TAA's 19th annual convention. It will be my 10th convention, all but one since 1996. I have always gone away with information that later proved to be valuable in guiding my actions as a developing author and professional.

I invite you to join me in Orlando as we share our stories and learn from each other about text and academic authoring. Now is the time to think ahead to July.

John Wakefield

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September 2005
TAA to Google: Let negotiations begin

Google Inc. has contracted with five research libraries to digitize their entire collection of books so that users of Google's search engine can locate information and learn where it can be found and/or purchased. Google is supposed to receive increased advertising revenue, publishers of books in print are supposed to receive income from increased sales, and authors are supposed to receive increased royalties. But there's one giant problem with Google's plan: The company has not requested permission from copyright holders to digitally scan (or copy) their works for the project.

Opposition to the Google Print Library Project has come from the largest copyright holders: publishers. The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, the Association of American University Presses, and the Association of American Publishers have all now publicly expressed their opposition to the Project in its current form.

Publishers invited Google Inc. to discuss the issue of copyright.

Google's response was to postpone the digital scanning of copyrighted works until November to give publishers the opportunity to opt-out of the project. Publishers maintain that this is not a solution, but instead pose a new problem: they should not have to opt-out to protect their works from being copied.

TAA is standing alongside publishers on this issue. Last year, the U.S. Copyright Office registered 661,469 claims to copyright. Many of the registrants were not publishers but authors, photographers, illustrators, and other artists. Anyone who has sought permissions knows how difficult (and expensive) the process can be of contacting each copyright owner for permission to use material from their work.

Google is seeking to circumvent this process by claiming that its copying falls within fair use. It is clear that the company can't afford to ask permission of anyone because the gigantic scope of their Library Project makes it impractical and unaffordable to ask permission of everyone.

At this time, it is not clear whether the outcome of the issue will be litigation, negotiation, or legislation. Litigation seems to excite some reporters, but in reality, lawsuits are expensive and often take years to resolve. Further, recent court decisions on intellectual property issues do not favor the shallow-pocketed inventor or artist as they often did in the past. Legislation as an alternative implies updating copyright law to account for new technology. Works may need to be protected from unlicensed copying when copying is an intermediary stage un a process rather than an end product. Legislation may seem more desirable than litigation, but education the public is also expensive and takes a long time. Negotiation, which is the approach favored by the publishers and ourselves, begins with communication.

We have very recently been contacted by Google and look forward to developing a conversation that at least in part can be made public. In the dialog, we hope to examine whether or not making a digital copy of an entire work without permission and/or compensation is fair to the copyright owner. Under Google's interpretation of copyright law, why couldn't anyone make a digital copy of an entire work for any use other than direct sale? At what point does such unconstrained copying undermine the sale of the work to libraries? To researchers? To other individuals? What is the effect of such copying on copyright law?

This last question may cause us greatest pause. To uphold copyright law, and to protect our rights as copyright owners, unconstrained digital scanning of works in copyright may have to end. There are limits to what we can agree to in negotiaion, but let the negotiations begin.

John Wakefield

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July 2005
The widening horizons of TAA

Greetings from Las Vegas, where we have just held one of our best conventions ever. Our sessions were well attended, and panelists and individual speakers provided a "rich text" experience for all. Let me be the first to invite you to our next convention. It is scheduled for June 7-8. 2006 in New Orleans.

From having attended nine TAA conventions, I can say that our convention this yeat reflected a wider scope of author interests than ever before. For example, we included, for the first time, a joint session with a workshop on academic writing, and discussions of grant writing and product licensing. Historically, TAA has focused tightly on textbook authoring and publishing. Textbook authoring remains a target of professional activity for many of our members, but what I saw at the convention was a widening of our horizons as an association of authors.

More than in the past, authors are joining TAA who have an interest in publishing journal articles and writing research grant proposals. Our Council has followed this development. Tara Gray's workshops on "Publish and Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar" are extremely popular, and demand for them is growing. The Council has responded with several initiatives, including increasing the budget to provide more academically-oriented workshops.

What can the membership expect in the future? First, TAA wil continue its commitment to meet the developmental needs of textbook authors. In one of our workshops, we offer to develop textbook authoring skills. We also assist developing and established textbook authors by providing services that link authors with publishers, legal counselors, royalty auditors, and mentors. At our conventions, we recognize and reward excellence in textbook authoring at both el-hi and college levels. Perhaps the most important service for all of our members who are textbook authors is informing them — through News Alerts, The Academic Author, the Web site and the convention — of developments in the textbook publishing industry. What is developing in TAA, however, is a wider arena of interest. Our newest members are often developing first as academic authors. Their accomplishments are documented on the Authors Coalition Survey that we administer each year to our membership. Having myself been a faculty member in a college of education for 24 years, and now with the administrative duty of assisting faculty members university-wide in the promotion process, I can well understand the needs of junior faculty in higher education. As TAA's membership broadens, so does the obligation of TAA to help meet a broader range of authoring needs.

Consequently, a second commitment is emerging — one that addresses the needs of our newest members. This commitment is to address the developmental needs of academic authors. One implication of this commitment is a closer look at academic authoring, and what junior faculty in colleges and universities need to be successful at it. This commitment was reflected in our convention program this year, but it needs to deepen in response to the needs of this segment of our membership.

Let me give you an example. Having just finished writing two Federal grant proposals, documenting them, and submitting them for review (receiving a rejection of the one, and a qualified approval of the other), I am well aware that grant writing has many similarities to writing for publication. It also has some differences, but for the principal investigator, it is unquestionably a form of academic authoring. Why have we not recognized this before?

The answer is simple — our membership has not until now required the leadership to do so. Grant writing is a common way for junior faculty to develop support for their scholarship, so your leadership will be searching for ways to develop the grant writing skills of TAA members.

It is important to understand that a widening of horizons for TAA does not imply diminished services for textbook authors. I don't know of anyone who complains that a wide-screen television diminishes the picture. The picture that you will see develop of our association in the next few years will be enhanced by new ideas that come from our membership, or new Council, the new officers, and our new executive director, to provide a more complete array of services for text and academic authors.

Having been closely associated with our retiring director, Ron Pynn, I know for a fact that TAA would not be the growing and developing association it is today, if it were not for him. Thank you, Ron. Have been a member on the search committee for a new executive driector,I am very excited about the experience and skills brought to TAA by Richard Hull.. I am looking forward to my two years as president, to our common committment to serve the association's membership, and to continue the development of TAA. I hope that you will feel free to contact us, and to share with us your ideas.

John Wakefield

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March 2005
Create a written policy on academic plagiarism

In recent columns, I have emphasized the importance of keeping current and proactive about authoring issues such as used books, textbook pricing, and copyright and fair use. As authors, we also need to be aware of the potential of plagiarism.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins of the word plagiarism derive from the Latin word plagiarius, which means "one who abducts the child or slave of another." Contemporary use of the term has come to refer to a broad range of actions that center on the use of another's work without proper acknowledgment.

The predominant issues are what constitutes plagiarism, who has the right to accuse, who adjudicates the issues, and what is the punishment. And, if one is found to have been falsely accused, how is the tarnish of the accusation removed?

There is the potential for plagiarism in both academic and textbook writing. In this column, I'll explore a few recent instances of academic plagiarism; in the next issue, I'll delve into the textbook side.

In the world of scholarly research and publishing, accusations of plagiarism present thorny issues. David Glenn, in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, "Judge or Judge Not?," (December 17, 2004, Vol. 51, Issue 17, p. A16) outlines several possible courses of action that need to be considered when academic plagiarism is at issue. The university or college has a responsibility to investigate accusations of plagiarism by its faculty. Professional associations and societies have a role to play in handling claims of plagiarism for academic writing in their discipline.

Implementing the above recommendations is a treacherous road to travel. Consider the following cases:

From the Associated Press, January 7, 2005, Boston. A professional organization's investigation of plagiarism claims against Rev. William Meissner found the Boston College theology professor failed to adequately credit passages lifted from another person's book. The yearlong review by the ethics committee of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society concluded Meissner committed a 'serious breach of professional and scholarly standards' and 'excessively paraphrased' the work of Earnest Wallwork.

Through a Boston College spokesperson, Meissner maintained the allegations were "baseless" and the college referred to Meissner as "one of the nation's most respected experts on psychoanalytic theory." The college plans to convene a committee of senior faculty to review the allegations and make a recommendation to a college dean.

From the Times Record, "Axed Instructor Allowed to Amend Suit." Diana Payne, a former accounting instructor at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith, was accused by two faculty members of committing "plagiarism for a work she submitted for promotion." A five-person ad hoc committee heard evidence at a four-day hearing and found there was adequate cause for Payne's dismissal, '"but an academic penalty of less than dismissal would be appropriate." UAFS Chancellor Joel Stubblefield exercised his authority to overrule the committee and fired Payne, citing as reasons that the university cannot uphold policies on academic honesty if faculty do not model professional integrity, that Payne's conduct brought discredit and dishonor to the faculty and the university, and that not dismissing Payne would set a precedent that would effectively prevent the university from punishing faculty or staff for plagiarism and call into question the university's ability to punish students for plagiarism. Payne, who had previously filed a civil rights lawsuit against the university, was allowed to amend that lawsuit to include a wrongful termination allegation.

TAA recommends that universities and professional organizations or societies have a written policy on academic plagiarism. The policy should identify the conditions that constitute plagiarism, the adjudication process, the penalty, and an appeal mechanism. Academic authors need to be aware of the policies governing plagiarism in their field.

Mike Sullivan

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December 2004
Stand up for copyright and fair use

As creators of intellectual property, text and academic authors need to raise their individual and collective awareness of what constitutes a legal reproduction of copyrighted material. We must be vigilant to safeguard creator rights and be unyielding in their defense. Noble statements! But hard to implement. Let's look at some of the facts.

Copyright law gives the copyright holder exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, make derivative works, and publicy display or perform the work. This exclusive right is limited by Section 107 of the law, the so-called "fair use statute": "...the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies... for purposes such as teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.) In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to consider shall include..."

The four factors: 1) purpose and character, 2) nature, 3) amount and substantiality, and 4) effect, became the foundation for two important court decisions: the Kinko's case in 1991 and the Texaco case in 1995. The Kinko's case involved coursepacks sold to students that consisted of copies of chapters of books. The court held that Kinko's infringed on copyright, citing:
1. Purpose The copying was for commercial, not educational, purpose.
2. Nature Most of the copied works were factual (from history, etc.), a factor that weighed in favor of fair use.
3. Amount The copying, consisting of between 5% and 25% of the full book, was excessive.
4. Effect The coursepacks competed with the potential sale of the original book as assigned reading. (2)

These four factors also formed the basis for the court ruling against Texaco, Inc., a case involving the copying of journal articles. It is clear that Congress wanted a flexible doctrine on fair use as the law provides no guidelines with regard to the scope of fair use or its meaning in certain situations. For classroom use, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Author's League of America (the parent association for the Authors Guild and Dramatists Guild) issued a set of guidelines for copying books and periodicals.

It provides, in part, for:
I. A single copy for a teacher's use of one chapter of a book or one article or one short story or one chart, graph, or diagram from a book.
II. Multiple copies for classroom use (one copy per student) that meets certain tests for brevity, spontaneity, and cumulative effect.
1. Brevity You can copy a complete poem if it is <250 words; You can copy a complete article if it is <2500 words; You can copy one graph, chart per book.
2. Spontaneity The decision to copy is so close to the time it will be used in class that obtaining permission in time is impossible.

While the guidelines are not law, they provide some answer to the scope of fair use, albeit an answer from publishers and authors.

Other constituencies see the issue differently.

A consortium of California State University (CSU), State University of New York (SUNY), and City University of New York (CUNY) have identified copying and intellectual property as central issues affecting the future of higher education. They write: "A series of court rulings threatens the application of fair use to such common pursuits as photocopying for research, teaching, learning, scholarship, and even quoting from historical manuscripts...More materials are farther from the reach of faculty, librarians, and students, and the availability of those materials increasingly will be subject to a license fee."

No doubt the potential for the payment of a license fee was central to their position.

Last September, four U.S. library associations, including the American Library Association, expressed concern about "a number of trends that have combined to limit access to knowledge" and endorsed a call for change in the agenda of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) saying "We urge WIPO to affirmatively seek to balance the rights of creators with the rights of users".

And the general public believes that anything on the airwaves or on the Internet should be able to be freely accessed and copied for personal use.

Why are intangible assets such as knowledge and creative expression treated differently than tangible assets such as a car or a TV? And how do we change this perception?

We want society to have simple and reasonable access to scientific and literary works. But we must keep separate the principle of 'free flow of information' from the idea of 'flow of free information'. Books and journals cost money to produce and generate income to creators. Creators must gain just rewards from their efforts or there will be no intellectual property created. Respect for copyright encourages creativity.

So, you and I need to be proactive. When issues involving intellectual property are being discussed, we need to educate and foster a respect for copyright and the rights of creators, a respect that stimulates and rewards creativity.

Mike Sullivan

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September 2004
Workshops a priority with TAA

The most popular service offered by TAA is its workshops. Seven to 10 workshops are given each year that reach approximately 300 faculty throughout the country. As we begin the 2004-05 academic year, this is a good time to schedule a workshop on your campus. What a wonderful faculty development experience for faculty to have one or more TAA workshops on your campus.

TAA has eight workshops led by individuals with national reputations and great experience in presenting workshops to faculty. All of the workshops are suitable for junior faculty as well as experienced writers. Here is a brief overview of the eight TAA workshops.

1) Scholarship, Tenure, and Promotion. This workshop looks at common problems with the faculty rewards system and how faculty can better document their work, including teaching effectiveness. The workshop is led by Robert Diamond, former Research Professor and Director of the Institute for Change in Higher Education at Syracuse University.

2) Software Tools for Authors. This workshop helps authors save time with software tools that define the rhetorical context of a document. This workshop is lead by Joe Moxley, Professor of English at the University of South Florida and author of 11 books and more than 50 articles.

3) Publish and Flourish: Write Well and Revise Rapidly. This workshop shows participants simple, specific steps to take to write well and revise rapidly, writing as little as 15 to 30 minutes daily. This is TAA's most sought after workshop. It is provided by Tara Gray who heads the Teaching Academy at New Mexico State University. She has given this workshop to more than 1,000 faculty.

4) Successful Academic Journal Writing. An editor of an academic journal shares insights on academic publishing, what kind of articles get published and how the peer review process works. Either Gerald Stone or Jay Black lead this workshop. Both were faculty members, journal editors, and prolific academic authors.

5) Authoring a Text or Professional Book. Taking an idea through the entire publishing process, this workshop provides information on all aspects of authoring so people can make informed choices about undertaking a writing project. As the author of four texts, I lead this workshop.

6) Self Publishing. Advances in technology and software make self publishing easier than ever before. Learn what it takes to publish your own book and to make it respectable. This workshop is provided by John Wakefield, Assistant Vice President at University of North Alabama and a self publisher of source books on the American Civil War.

7) Writing a Book Proposal. This workshop helps authors match their book idea with the right publisher. The workshop includes a survey of what acquisition editors look for in book proposals. I also present this workshop.

8) Negotiating a Contract. A workshop outlining book contract clauses and what can and cannot be negotiated in the contract. Also provided is strategy and favorable language for authors in helping them negotiate a more favorable contract. This workshop is led by authoring attorneys Michael Lennie or Stephen Gillen, both of whom have considerable experienced in publishing law and in representing authors.

Click here for more detailed information on these workshops, including workshop outlines and presenter biographies. Why not ask your provost or faculty development officer to look over this website? Then you or a college representative can contact TAA to schedule a workshop.

The cost of these workshops to any school is kept low to make them attractive as faculty development experiences. All speaker fees and travel costs are paid for by TAA, so the only cost for a school is the registration fee for the workshop.

What a great way to support TAA as well as to assist faculty on your campus with their publishing endeavors. If you make the initial contact, TAA will do all the work thereafter. To host one or more TAA workshops, contact TAA by calling (727) 563-0020 or e-mail TAA at text@tampaby.rr.com.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Ron Pynn
TAA Executive Director

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June 2004
Call for action on sale of complimentary copies

The high cost of textbooks is a hot topic in the news these days. Congress is initiating a probe into the cost of college textbooks; California and other states are proposing legislation aimed toward curbing the price of textbooks at both el-hi and college levels; and CALPIRG, the California arm of PIRG (Public Interest Research Group), gained nationall attention with its call for publishers to reduce the price of textbooks and to lengthen the time between revisions. While CALPIRG is blaming what they see as frequent and unnecessary revisions as the cause of high textbook prices, the real culprits behind the rising cost of textbooks are used books and examination copy sales.

The general public is unaware of this practice, mainly because those who profit from it don't want it to go away. Most college administrators do not want to discuss it; book vendors and college bookstores exploit it; and faculty who are doing it don't want to lose the money it generates.

I visited the website of a large book buyer that buys complimentary copies from faculty. They supply boxes and free UPS mailing labels. They pay within two days of receipt of the books. They then sell the books directly to students (at a different website they maintain). For two of my just-published texts, they pay faculty from $36.75 to $44.75 and then sell the book to students for $102.20! At Amazon.com, my just-published text, which will not be used in a classroom until this summer, is already for sale. The comment line in the Amazon ad reads: "Instructor's Edition, 7th. Same as student text except with ALL the answers." When the examination copy is, in fact, an Instructor's Edition, containing all the answers and perhaps annotations and sample tests and quizzes, the sale of that text back to the student compromises the integrity of the very course for which the course was written.

While publishers have made an effort to respond to critcisms by CALPIRG and others about the high cost of textbooks, including challenging statements made by CALPRIG in its report and announcing programs that will help reduce the cost of textbooks, both the AAP and publishers need to do far more to increase public awareness of the real reasons behind the cost of textbooks. But let's not forget our responsibility.

We authors continue to write our books, saying nothing of a practice that not only contributes to the high cost of textbooks, but that we all know is also morally and ethically reprehensible.

What should we do as members of TAA? I am asking every teaching member of TAA to take the following actions:

- Write a letter to your bookstore manager asking them what their position is on the resale of texts that are labeled as an Instructor's Edition, Annotated Version, Examination Copy, Free Copy, and Not For Resale. Copy TAA on the letter and the response you receive.

- Ask your Faculty Senate to discuss the practice of faculty selling textbooks they receive for examination purposes and to develop an Ethics Statement for faculty that condemns the practice.

For its part, TAA will be working with other interested associations to address this issue from the top down. Do your part by gathering information and starting dialogue from the bottom up.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Mike Sullivan,
TAA President

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February 2004
Bookstores' Pricing Hurts Authors

I want to thank the many members of TAA who responded to my last article on Instructor's Editions being sold to students. Many of you pointed out, correctly, that Amazon and other website vendors are not the only ones engaged in this practice; college bookstores also routinely sell Instructor's Editions as used (and sometimes as new) books. The effect of these practices on the price of textbooks was also noted by many respondents.

In this President's Message, I want to explore with you the pricing of textbooks at college and university bookstores. Twenty years ago, the landscape of publishing and selling textbooks changed dramatically. Prior to this time, most college bookstores were operated by the college or university or were privately owned and operated. Barnes & Noble and Follett's were mostly trade stores, dealing with non-fiction trade books and novels. Publishers set list prices for their books and sold them at a 20 percent discount to bookstores. Bookstores ordered a sufficient (enough to handle projected enrollments) number of new books from the publisher, marked up the price they paid 25 percent (to bring the price back to the publisher's list price) and sold them to students. Any used books on the shelf were there because of student buy-backs from that school, and these were offered to students at buy-back price plus 25 percent. Unsold copies could be returned to the publisher for full credit. The price students paid for their books was fair and reasonable, the publisher had a workable system of distribution for their books, bookstores made a reasonable profit for the university, and authors received fair compensation for their development of intellectual property.

This has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Today, the vast majority of college bookstores are operated by Barnes & Noble or Follett's. Missouri Books' and Nebraska Books' freelancers sneak around campus with carts in hand and cash in pocket engaging in the sleezy practice of offering cash to professors for clearing their shelves of books. And what has happened to textbook prices? Well, the publisher now sets a net price at which they sell textbooks to the bookstore. But the net price the publisher sets today is equivalent to the discounted price they charged bookstores in the past. However, bookstores today mark up the price they pay the publisher by 35 percent (remember, it used to be 25 percent), and they order the books first from the used book vendors and mark up that price by 50 percent or more.

Who are the winners in this new pricing structure? Bookstores, universities and used book dealers. Bookstores' margins are higher due to the 35 percent markup on new books and 50 percent markup on use books so they are getting more. Universities receive 15 to 20 percent of the bookstore revenue for the exclusive right to operate the bookstore. Used book dealers buy books from professors for very little, sell them to bookstores at a much higher price, and the bookstore marks that price up 50 percent or more for the student.

Who are the losers? Students, publishers and authors. Students used to pay net plus 25 percent for a new book and the buy-back price plus 25 percent for a used book. Now they pay net plus 35 percent for a new book and buy-back plus 75 percent for a used book. It is not uncommon for adoptions of several hundred textbooks to result in no revenue to the publisher and no royalties to the author.

Are there solutions? Possibly. Publishers could cut back on the number of "complementary copies" they routinely send out to professors. Or better, publishers should retain ownership of these copies so they cannot be legally sold. Stamp something like "This book is the property of XYZ Publisher and may not be sold without the express written permission of the publisher. You may retain this book as long as you please. If you wish, it may be returned in the enclosed postage-free mailer." Now we know the cover might get ripped off and the book sold anyway, so let's place electronic markers in it so we can track its progress through the selling chain.

Publishers could also go back to list pricing and offer an alternative web-based distribution system for their product at prices to the student that are lower than currently available through bookstores.

Universities could take back control of the bookstores and return to earlier textbook pricing practices.

What are your thoughts?

Mike Sullivan,
TAA President

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December 2003
Resale of Instructor's Edition copies just plain wrong

As president of the Text and Academic Authors Association and a textbook author, I am concerned about the way complimentary copies are contributing to the used book problem. I am particularly concerned about the Instructor Edition copies that are finding their way into students' hands. I recently paid a visit to the Amazon website and asked about purchasing my textbook. I found that after advertising the new book for sale, Amazon encouraged me to look at the list of new/used books for sale.

About 10 sites offered the Instructor's Edition of my textbook for sale at one-third the cost of the new book. Moreover, the ads emphasized that this book had all the answers in the back, unlike the Student Edition, which only has the odd-numbered ones. It went on to point out that the Instructor's Resource CD was also included.

This selling of the Instructor's Edition of textbooks not only loses revenue for the publisher and royalties for the author, but compromises the integrity of the book.

TAA has a responsibility to its members and to the educational community to do what it can to stop this practice. First, we need to gather facts. Are your books being compromised in this way? Visit the Amazon web site and find out if the Instructor's Editions of your textbooks are being sold. Pass on your findings to us.

Also, is your bookstore selling Instructor's Editions? Find out and let us know the books and who operates the bookstore.

I have asked the Author Relations Committee to take on this issue and report back by the April 2004 TAA Convention. We are also preparing a position paper on the ethics of professors selling Instructor's Editions. Through the Publisher Relations Committee, I am articulating this issue with publishers. You can help by sharing information with us.

In other business:

The TAA Convention will be held for the first time in April, rather than June, in response to suggestions from TAA members. The convention will be held in St. Petersburg, Florida, April 2-3 at the Heritage Holiday Inn Hotel. The TAA Council meeting will be held March 31 and April 1. On the morning of April 1, TAA committees will meet to discuss policy that will be recommended to the Council for action. I encourage you, if you want to help shape the future of TAA, plan to attend.
The TAA Foundation received tax-exempt status from the IRS. The Foundation needs only $6,000 to reach its start-up goal. If you have not yet pledged or if you are able to increase your existing pledge, please contact TAA headquarters. The start-up funds will be used to launch the Foundation's fundraising efforts, including the securing of grants and other sources of funding, to improve member services.
TAA is preparing to conduct a member royalty/contract survey. If you have any issues or questions you want included in the survey, please send them to me m_sullivan@att.net The results of the royalty survey will be available on the TAA website. The contract questions will be used by the Author Relations Committee to draft a revised model contract for authors.

As always, I welcome any suggestions you may have for improving your organization.

Sincerely,

Mike Sullivan
TAA President

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August 2003
Convention business and pleasure

TAA President Mike Sullivan outlines his initiatives for the coming year.

If you didn't attend this year's TAA convention in Richmond, Virginia, you missed one of the finest TAA conventions ever. Everyone who attended raved about the program and the events.

And it was a great program, beginning with the insights of Richard Leftwich and his long and successful writing career in economics. Robert Christopherson, in his now-famous geo-primer, told us all about the geography of Richmond and the city's role in history.

Important presentations for authors and would-be authors outside of the usual issues of writing and research ranged from royalty issues, contract negotiations, and mergers and acquisitions in the publishing industry. An informative look at electronic publishing was provided by Doug Matthews of Learning Point, Dan Jones of Atomic Dog Publishing, and Frank Silverman, a speech pathology author who published his latest book with Atomic Dog.

As an alternative to the usual way to publish a book, John Webber and Tim Larson took us through the economics of self-publishing. Jay Black led an open dialogue on the ethics involved with writing, and for information on traditional publishing, Chris Harris, Charles Holland, and Jay Black shared their experiences with publishing on the academic side, while myself, Ida Flynn, Bill Pasewark, and Robert Christopherson shared some secrets about textbook publishing.

I would like to extend special thanks to this year's Convention Chair Tara Gray for putting this excellent program together.

But the convention wasn't all business. Old friends caught up on recent events and new friendships were struck. The hospitality suite overflowed every night before groups broke out for dinner.

Some of my intiatives in the coming year include:

Increasing membership. While membership in TAA remains in excess of 1,100, more needs to be done. Some very good ideas were generated at the closing session of the convention by Mary Ellen Lepionka, Pat McKeown, and Elza Tiner. In fact, they have, since then, begun to meet via email, and develop strategies for promoting TAA. Thank you. Please continue to formulate plans that we can begin to implement.

Increasing pledges to the TAA Foundation. We await IRS approval for tax-exempt status. Once that is received we will call in the pledges received. If you have not yet pledged, please consider doing so. A TAA Foundation pledge envelope has been inserted in the latest issue of The Academic Author for your convenience in making a pledge.

Increasing participation on TAA committees. TAA, in order to involve more of its members in decision-making, has developed a committee structure. If you are interested in working on a committee, contact the chair.

Investigating the current state of used books. I have asked the Authors Relations Committee and the Publisher Relations Committee to investigate the current state of affairs regarding used books and to report their findings. Any information you have that the committee would find helpful would be appreciated.

Conducting a royalty/contract survey. We will be doing a royalty/contract survey this year. If you have questions you think would be useful to include, please let Ron Pynn, TAA's executive director, or me, know. RonÕs new e-mail is rpynn@tampabay.rr.com and his new phone number is (727) 865-0045.

Creating TAA position papers. I will be asking for volunteers to write position papers on matters of interest to TAA and its membership. If you have any suggestions for issues on which TAA should have a position, please contact me at m_sullivan@att.net

Revising the TAA by-laws. Please contact me if you have any by-law changes you wish the special Ad-hoc Committee to consider.

Sincerely,

Mike Sullivan
TAA President

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