Join us for the 2007 TAA Conference at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo in downtown Buffalo, NY, June 22-23

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Preliminary Conference Schedule now available
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Book Raffle
IIL Publishing, New York will raffle four books at the 2007 TAA Conference
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Coming to Buffalo? Put these two books on your reading list
City of Light by Lauren Belfer
Trip to Niagara Falls by Geronimo Stilton (Scholastic)
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Mentoring Sessions
Several veteran authors have agreed to serve as mentors at the conference. Attendees will be able to sign up at the conference registration desk for 15-minute sessions with a mentor. A list of mentors will be available soon.

Roundtable Discussions Luncheon
Saturday, June 23
12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Choose from 10 different moderated roundtable discussions related to textbook and academic authoring.
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Dinner at The Anchor Bar
Thursday, June 21, 6 p.m.
The restaurant where Buffalo-style wings were invented
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Buffalo, NY Waterfront Tour
Friday, June 22, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Take a guided tour of the Buffalo waterfront
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Karpeles Manuscript Musuem and Library Tour
Friday, June 22, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
View Walt Disney illustrations and documents, among others
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Social Networking Event: A Chartered 3-hour Dinner Cruise Aboard the Grand Lady
Friday, June 22, 6:45 p.m. to 10 p.m.
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Four-hour Guided Tour to Niagara Falls (American side)
Saturday, June 23, 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tour full.
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Free one-on-one sessions with an authoring attorney or literary agent
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Click here for information from the 2006 TAA Convention:

• Articles
• Convention Q&A
• Convention Materials
• Photo Gallery

Archive of past conventions

Getting to first base: How to pitch your textbook idea to publishers

Moderator:
Janet Belsky, Professor, Psychology, Middle Tennessee State University, and author of three psychology textbooks

You've got a great idea. You think your book is really needed. You know you can do a much better job than what's out there today. Now your job is to convince the publishers. In this roundtable we will look at that all important tool for conveying your message— the proposal. What background preparation needs to be made before writing your proposal? How can you best hone your message for maximum effect? Which publishers should you actually be sending your proposal to? What do publishers really want to see that will entice them to take that leap of faith and actually sign you on? These are among the topics that we will discuss in this session. I will be bringing copies of my most recent successful proposal. I'll be offering some proven tips for writing—and selling—yourself and your expertise. And if you already have a proposal "under construction", please do bring it along for a critique!

About the Moderator:

Janet Belsky, (Ph.D. Clinical Psychology, The University of Chicago) has been writing textbooks in developmental psychology for the past 25 years. For most of her writing career, Dr. Belsky's focus was adulthood and aging. She is the author of The Psychology of Aging: theory, research, and interventions (Wadsworth, l999), now in its third edition and The Adult Experience (Wadsworth, 1997). Along the way she also wrote a successful trade book, Here Tomorrow: making the most of life after 50 (Johns Hopkins, Press, l988; Ballantine, l990). Her capstone textbook covering the whole lifespan, Experiencing the lifespan (Worth Publishers, l997) was just published about 6 months ago. And now Dr. Belsky is immersed in writing yet another textbook— this time in child development. In addition to her textbook writing passion, Dr. Belsky's other life passion is teaching undergraduates—which she is happily doing, most recently as a Full Professor in the Psychology Department at Middle Tennessee State University.

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