Links

This section provides a collection of links to author organizations, groups, and resources especially for textbook and academic authors.

Textbook & Academic Writing Blogs

The Textbook Author contains tips, tools, and notes on the practical side of being an academic text author.

Cassie Premo Steele's blog is dedicated to empowering women in the academy. It contains weekly tips and inspiration.

The Thesis Whisperer developed ‘Shut up and Write!’ which “turns writing from a solitary, to a social experience.” You can either start a group near you or find a group in your area using their interactive map.

patter. Pat Thomson covers everything from thesis writing to journal etiquette and rejections, to how to get started on the page.

PhD2Published. This blog is packed with tips, so many that we're not even sure where to start. You’ll just have to check it out for yourself.


Get a Life, PhD. Tanya Golash-Boza offers practical step-by-step advice for various aspects of the writing and publishing process.

Explorations of Style. Rachael Cayley is a wealth of knowledge for academic writing and productivity.

The Chronicle of Higher Education. The ‘Advice’ section offers academics advice for all facets of academia, but if you scroll almost to the bottom you’ll find the heading, ‘Page Proof.’ Focus is on academic writing and book proposals; all are written by Rachel Toor.

PhD Talk. Tips not only include those on writing and motivation, but also on surviving as a PhD student. Eva Lantsoght will draw you in with her down-to-earth personality and sound advice.

James Hayton, PhD. James Hayton has a vast archive of articles, many of which I'm sure you'll find to be practical, easy to follow, and, of course, helpful.

Author-Related Services

Academia.edu is a "tree of academics around the world" that helps academics keep track of new people and papers in their field.

Academic Coaching & Writing (ACW) is a group of professional academic coaches and consultants that provide research consulting and coaching for dissertation and academic writing, career and professional growth (including help with balancing the demands of research, teaching and service), and leadership development.

BookXtra is a free service for authors. Add your book cover and your book's accompanying & unique content to sell your book from their website.

Copyright Clearance Center helps authors, creators, individual copyright holders and their representatives license the use of their copyrighted material and gain a deeper knowledge of the business of writing.

Enago specializes in providing scientific and academic editing services to researchers and helps them to get published in high-impact factor journals globally.

Enago Academy's Book Review Section provides the perfect platform for publishers and authors to showcase their books along with reviews written by distinguished experts in their fields.

StudentMentor.org pairs professionals with college students in a mentor/mentee relationship.

Thought Clearing provides dissertation coaching and academic editing services.

Global English Editing is an online-only professional editing company that provides specialist academic editing services to academics and PhD students seeking publication.

The Expert Editor recently published a list of the top 50 apps and resources for writers.

Open Colleges: 5 Handy Tips to Improve Your Writing Skills - Professional editor, Lisa Lepki, explains 5 ways to edit your writing to get your point across much more clearly.

Software for Textbook & Academic Authors

Goodsync synchronizes and backs up files such as photos, financial documents, MP3s and emails between desktops, laptops, servers and external drives.

Bulk Rename Utility. This free file renaming software for Windows allows you to easily rename files and entire folders based upon extremely flexible criteria.

Evernote provides one workspace that lives across your phone, tablet, and computer.

Instapaper allows you to save and store articles, videos and other information you find while browsing and read it across all of your devices.

Fences desktop organizer helps you organize your PC by automatically placing your shortcuts and icons into resizable shaded areas on your desktop called fences.

Roboform password organizer. This password management software allows you to use only one master password to access all of your password-protected sites.

Citeulike is a free service to help you to store, organize and share the scholarly papers you are reading. When you see a paper on the web that interests you, you can click one button and have it added to your personal library. Citeulike automatically extracts the citation details, so there's no need to type them in yourself. It all works from within your web browser so there's no need to install any software. Because your library is stored on the server, you can access it from any computer with an Internet connection.

The Lens serves global patent and scholarly knowledge as a public good to inform science- and technology-enabled problem solving.

The Enago Open Access Journal Finder enables you to find quality open access journals that are pre-vetted to protect you from predatory publishers. This free journal finder solves common issues on predatory journals, journal authenticity, and article processing fees by utilizing a validated journal index provided by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Author-Related Websites

24 Tips for Teaching Writing The 24 essays in this collection will prompt teachers to help their students grasp changes in what is acceptable language, explore the mysteries of word usage, and learn strategies to improve their writing. The essays are drawn from Lingua Franca, The Chronicle’s free blog about language in academe. 

A Comprehensive Guide to APA Citations and Format provides you with an overview of APA format. Included is information about referencing, various citation formats with examples for each source type, and other helpful information.

B.C. Campus Open Education: Open Textbook Self-Publishing Guide is a practical reference/development tool for individuals or groups wanting to write and publish an open textbook. This guide provides details on the preparation, planning, writing, and publication of an open textbook as well as the importance of editing and proofreading, Copyright, open copyright licenses, and the differences between citation and attribution are discussed.

Co-authorship in the Humanities and Social Sciences is a white paper exploring the experiences of co-authorship by researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).

Copyright Clearance Center's Beyond the Book explores issues facing the information content industry and helps creative professionals realize the full potential of their works, while encouraging respect for intellectual property and the principles of copyright.

Editorial Freelancers Association offers resources to scholarly and textbook editors, indexers, and other editorial professionals.

Enago Academy offers comprehensive and up-to-date resources for researchers, publishers, editors, and students to learn and share their experience about research and publishing. Enago Academy also conducts workshops primarily for ESL authors, early-stage researchers, and graduate students.

IBPA Hybrid Publisher Criteria. In February 2018, the IBPA Advocacy Committee published a list of nine criteria defining what it means to be a professional hybrid publisher.

Image Description Guidelines. These image description guidelines were developed by the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH (NCAM) in conjunction with the DIAGRAM Center (Digital Image And Graphic Resources for Accessible Materials) at Benetech.

Navigate the sea of scholarly communications This Open Access series of modules is designed to help you - scholars and aspiring scholars - navigate the world of scholarly communications and publishing. Take this opportunity to draw on the knowledge of our expert presenters and gain insight into the capabilities you need for success in publishing.

Office Hours Rebus Community & Open Textbook Network bring you "Office Hours". A regular video chat with special guest on topics around all things Open Textbooks.

Publish, Not Perish, The Art & Craft of Publishing in Scholarly Journals is an online library research course offered by the University of Colorado.

Scholars' Retreat is a for-profit retreat designed to provide the opportunity for intensive, focused, non-distracting, supervised writing time so that you may make significant progress toward the completion of your dissertation, thesis, or writing project.

Scribendi offers professional editing and proofreading and contains articles about front matter, how to conquer writer’s block, tips to stay awake when writing, how to use proper punctuation, and common mistakes to avoid in writing.

The Complete Guide to MLA & Citations provides an in-depth overview of MLA format. It includes information related to MLA citations, plagiarism, proper formatting for in-text and regular citations, and examples of citations for many different types of sources.

Author Organizations

American Society of Journalists and Authors. ASJA, based in New York, represents mostly freelance contributors to magazines and newspapers.

American Society of Indexers. ASI's mission is to promote excellence in indexing and to increase awareness of the value of well-written, well-designed indexes.

Artists Rights Society. The Artists Rights Society, based in New York, is the preeminent copyright, licensing and monitoring organization for visual articles in the U.S.

Association of American Publishers. The AAP is the principal trade association of the book publishing industry.

Authors Coalition. The Authors Coalition represents several major U.S. author organizations, including the Text and Academic Authors Association, as a recipient of repatriated reprographic monies for its member organizations.

Authors Guild. The Authors Guild predominantly represents trade book authors.

Dramatists Guild. The Dramatists Guild is the professional association of playwrights, composers, lyricists & librettists.

Garden Writers Association of America. The Garden Writers Association provides leadership and opportunities for education, recognition, career development and a forum for diverse interactions for professionals in the field of gardening communications.

The International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media (IARTEM). Nonprofit professional membership association whose mission is to promote research on, and an understanding of, textbooks and educational media; establish contact between all parties interested in educational media and textbook issues; and strengthen the focus on educational media and textbook issues in teacher education and teacher training.

Kopinor. The Norwegian reproduction rights organization.

Mystery Writers of America. Mystery Writers of America is the premier organization for mystery writers, professionals allied to the crime writing field, aspiring crime writers, and those who are devoted to the genre.

National Association of Science Writers. NASW fights for the free flow of science news.

National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity. NCFDD is an independent professional development, training, and mentoring community of over 25,000 graduate students, post-docs and faculty members

National Writers Union. The National Writers Union, formed in 1981, is affiliated with the United Auto Workers union and the AFL-CIO.

Novelists, Inc. Novelists Inc. is based in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan. Ninc is the only writers organization devoted exclusively to the needs of multi-published novelists.

Romance Writers of America. Romance Writers is based in Houston, Texas.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers. SFWA is a professional organization for authors of science fiction, fantasy and related genres.

Sisters in Crime. Sisters in Crime promotes the professional development and advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry.

Sisters of the Academy. Founded in 2001, the mission of Sisters of the Academy (SOTA) Institute is to facilitate the success of Black women in the Academy.

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Based in Los Angeles, SCBWA is the only professional organization specifically for those individuals writing and illustrating for children and young adults in the fields of children’s literature, magazines, film, television, and multimedia.

The above directory is being built as members give us information about other author organizations and author resources. We will do our best to build a comprehensive list and to keep the list up-to-date. But because there are so many author organizations, and because some are short-lived, you may find some information is dated. Please help us keep the list current. Email us at Info@TAAonline.net

While TAA may provide information about certain providers, the inclusion of such information is solely for your convenience and should not be interpreted in any way as an endorsement of the provider.