"When I was a managing editor at a publishing firm, I wanted the authors that I selected to be treated fairly. TAA was the only organization that I knew of that would stand up for author's rights. I always asked these authors to join TAA. This paid off when one group of authors was caught up in a corporate take over and had their project cancelled right as their work was going into film. When they contacted TAA, they were given assistance and won an out of court settlement. When I left publishing and entered academia I joined TAA then became an author. I decided to run for TAA Council because I am one of the few if not only person that has experience from both the publishing and authorship sides."
— Don Collins, TAA Vice President/President Elect, author of several high school math textbooks, and former textbook editor

"I know of no other association that offers so many benefits for its annual dues: a monthly print newsletter, free teleconferences, publication grants, up-to-date information on academic publications, and a reasonable priced annual conference."
— Frank L. Christ, Emeritus, CSU Long Beach, former Adjunct Professor Grambling State University, former Visiting Scholar University of Arizona, and co-author of 100 Things Every Online Student Ought to Know, 2/e, published by Cambridge Publising, and Online Student Skills & Strategies Handbook, published by Pearson/Longman, 2006.

"New authors are easily taken advantage of by publishers and their boilerplate contracts. TAA levels the playing field, so an inexperienced author can get a fair contract."
— Barbara Clouse, author of The Student Writer: Editor and Critic, 8/e; Patterns for a Purpose: A Rhetorical Reader, 5/e; A Troubleshooting Guide for Writers, 6/e (Fall 09), published by McGraw-Hill, and Progressions: From Paragraph to Esssay, 7/e, published by Longman.

"TAA offers a culture of support needed for a fledging author. The most valuable benefit of belonging to TAA is the opportunity to spend time with experienced authors. Just seeing that they are real people who survived and perhaps thrived as authors; talking to them about what works for them or doesn't; and hearing how they juggle paid work and all its entailments, family, and authoring, is the real value of joining TAA before tackling a major writing project."
— Kathleen Miranda, co-author of the Student's (Instructor's) Solution Manual for Finite Mathematics: An Applied Approach, 9th and 10th eds., published by John Wiley.

"Attending Dr. Gray's [Tara Gray's "Publish & Flourish: Become A Prolific Scholar"] workshop earlier this year was a great experience, and her suggestions have helped not only my work but the work of my students. Just this semester in my nonfiction writing class, a student shared her angst over not finding time for what she really wants to do: write! The class rallied with suggestions, and I was able to relate how faculty members experience similar dilemmas with time management. It was a great moment to introduce the tips and scholarship of Tara Gray, Robert Boice, and others. I shared how the 15-30-minute writing approach has worked well for me in my own creative nonfiction work and new forays into screenwriting. That approach also kept the momentum going during a multimedia grant project I worked on over the summer.

The information TAA provides about authors' rights is important and needed, as a colleague of mine and I experienced when we proposed multimedia work to a publisher earlier this year. Through my TAA membership, I definitely hope to gain even more insight into this area."
— Jill Heney, a faculty member in the English Department at Boise State University

"Networking among TAA members is invaluable to new and established authors."
— Marilyn Takahashi Fordney, author of Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office, 11/e., and Fordney's Medical Insurance Dictionary for Billers and Coders, 1/e., published by WB Saunders/Elsevier.

"I am deeply grateful for all the tips, encouragement, and advice that I received [from my fellow TAA members] over the years."
— Paul A. Krieger, author of A Visual Guide to Human Anatomy.

"I've come to find TAA invaluable in my work and I feel a great sense of advocacy and support." . . .

. . . "Thanks again for shedding valuable light on textbook authoring and related topics. I've come to find TAA invaluable in my work and I feel a great sense of advocacy and support (and thus was happy to renew my membership!)."

— Rebecca F. Plante, Associate Professor of Sociology, Ithaca College, author of Sexualities in Context: A Social Perspective.

"The program of teleconferences that TAA recently launched is, in my opinion, the most significant and valuable new membership benefit TAA has offered since the introduction of its annual conferences many years ago. The conference calls are unparalleled opportunities for members to get advice on almost every conceivable topic of interest to authors, from an introduction to the challenges of writing a first textbook or first academic article to how to market a book after publication and how to negotiate contracts and decipher royalty statements. The presenters are all experts, and every teleconference gives the participants the opportunity to ask questions. For me, these teleconferences epitomize the community spirit of TAA, because the presenters are all giving their time and sharing their expertise gratis, and the participants often share their own experiences and contribute their own insights to the discussion. On my score sheet, the TAA conferences have a 4.0 GPA!"
— Fred S. Kleiner, Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Chair, Art History Department, Boston University

"Robert, thanks for the time and obvious effort that you put into presenting your teleconference to us last week. You are a very creative and hardworking author with a lot of good (and hard won) experience. I appreciate your sharing of what you have learned!

You mentioned that we should use the inside covers and I mentioned that I had indeed used it before. Interestingly, the next day after the teleconference, my editor called me and said that since the inside back cover material from the last edition of a title we are now revising has been moved elsewhere, we now need something useful for the inside back cover. I couldn’t believe it! It had taken a long time to get them to let me put anything there . . . and now they don’t want an empty space! Well, I do have a great editor (he’s great because he thinks like me!).

So as I sit here tweaking some material to put inside the back cover, I thought I’d take a break to write a note to thank you for confirming the value of this strategy. . . and to thank you for all the other new ideas that you gave me!

(FYI, we decided to put inside the back cover a list of “top ten study tips” including a couple of breakout boxes delving more deeply into two of them.)"
— Kevin Patton, Professor of Life Science at St. Charles Community College, and author of several textbooks including Anatomy & Physiology (6th Edition), on his participation in geography textbook author Robert Christopherson's TAA Teleconference, "Tips & Strategies for Successfully Marketing Your Textbook"

Fortunately at that point I discovered TAA and between the contract advice on the website and the advice from a labor law friend, I was able to make an informed decision regarding the contract I was sent (no, I didn't sign it, and the publisher was most uncooperative regarding negotiating the offending clauses). I hope to self-publish through TAA, after all, my main reason for going through all this was to provide better resources for my students. But I also hope to gain inspiration through TAA to publish my research, just can't quite seem to get around to finishing those journal articles since it's not an employment requirement.

Thanks for being there!"

— Jan Lyons, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Engineering Management, Information & Systems, Southern Methodist University

"I am a member of TAA because I think there is a need for an organization that provides information and services for academic authors. I want to do what I can to help support other authors. Plus TAA is a source I can go to when I need insight into certain business aspects of contracts and publishing. I believe that the more authors share information about contract negotiations, the stronger authors become as a group. The publishers do try to hold all the cards when it comes to contracts. I also like getting bits of information about the publishing industry -- and ideas about where publishing might be going in the next twenty years. TAA, in these things and many others, provides a real service for authors."
— Betty Azar, author of the bestselling Azar Grammar Series