 |
September
2000
TAA plans math
membership pitch
NEW ORLEANS,
Louisiana, September 1, 2000
-- Text and Academic Authors will have a recruiting booth at the Joint
Mathematics Meeting in New Orleans from January 10 to 13. Ron Pynn,
TAA's executive director, said the meeting is an opportunity for the
association to reinvigorate the math component of its membership, which
has slipped since the retirement of TAA founder Mike Keedy, a prominent
math author. About 5,000 mathematicians are expected at the meeting.
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TAA seeking new
office assistant
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 1, 2000
-- Text and Academic Authors will be advertising soon for an office
assistant to replace Margaret Painter, who is leaving to spend more
time with her custom jewelry business. The position will be filled locally,
said Ron Pynn, executive director. Painter will remain on board for
special projects, Pynn said.
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Feminist media
journal debuts in March
LONDON, September
1, 2000
-- A new journal, Feminist Media Studies, will issue its first
number in March, publisher Taylor & Francis announced. The editors are
Lisa McLaughlin of Miami University in Ohio and Cynthia Carter of Cardiff
University in Wales. The journal sees itself as a "transdisciplinary,
transnational forum for researchers pursuing feminist approaches. One
goal: "Bring together scholars and professionals to engage with feminist
issues and debates."
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TAA survives
USF office shake-up
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 1, 2000
-- Text and Academic Authors survived a major reshuffling of office
spaced at its host campus, the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg,
which is scrambling to accommodate huge enrollment growth. "Our address
remains the same," said Janet Tucker, TAA office manager. The association
lost a storeroom, and Ron Pynn, executive director, has moved down a
hall by one door.
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TAA plans District
of Columbia workshops
WASHINGTON, September
1, 1000
-- A textbook authoring workshop has been scheduled tentatively for
March 10 in the nation's capital. Paul Siegel of Gallaudet University,
a law author who is coordinating arrangements, said faculty from Washington
colleges will be invited. Plans call for sessions at a hotel.
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TAA calls for
Texty, McGuffey judges
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 1, 2000
-- Text and Academic Authors asked seasoned author-members to sign on
as judges for the association's annual Texty and McGuffey excellence
awards. Janet Tucker, awards project coordinator, said five judges will
be selected for college and el-hi entries in eight ranges of academic
disciplines:
- Math and stats.
- Communication,
education; performing and visual arts.
- Language and
lit.
- Computer science;
engineering.
- Physical sciences.
- Life sciences.
- Humanities;
social sciences.
- Accounting,
business, econ; management.
The Textys, to recognize
excellence in new works, and the McGuffeys, to recognize works of enduring
significance, will be presented June 9 at the TAA convention in San
Antonio.
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Textbook e-rates
not 30% anytime soon
CINCINNATI, Ohio,
September 1, 2000
-- Textbook authors will be frustrated if they go for 30 percent electronic
royalty rates in their contracts, at least right now, several authoring
contract experts said in interviews after the Brill's agreement with
the National Writers Union. Lawyers Steve Gillen and Michael Lennie
said textbooks are not the same as the magazine and newspaper articles
covered in the 30 percent Brill agreement. Former TAA President John
Vivian called 30 percent a benchmark for when textbook publishers begin
selling chunks of textbooks as web downloads.
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Advice: Don't
hold breath for 30% e-rates
CINCINNATI, Ohio,
September 1, 2000
-- Publishing lawyer Steve Gillen says textbook authors should not take
the National Writer's Union's successful negotiation for a 30 percent
royalty on contentville.com's use of author articles as a free ticket
to pursue a 30 percent royalty on their own contracts. The contentville.com,
operator by media entrepreneur Steve Brill, involves mostly freelanced
magazine and newspaper articles that are being sold over the web. "The
fact that contentville.com may offer contributors a 30 percent royalty
should not be taken as a sign that 30 percent is the going rate," he
said. "It works for them in their situation, but that situation is not
where most textbook authors want to be -- if it means missing out on
traditional sales."
Gillen said that
although textbook authors should still negotiate vigorously for the
best deal they can get on electronic rights, they aren't a big issue
at this time, and probably won't be, he said, for another 5 to 10 years.
"As of this point in time, textbook rights are the dog and electronic
rights are the tail and a book author would not be well served to cut
off the dog to save the tail."
Publishing lawyer
Michael Lennie agrees: "A textbook is not a news article. If textbook
authors try currently to hold out for 30 percent for electronic rights,
there will be a lot of frustrated authors out there." Lennie said the
current e-royalty rate, which authors have to negotiate to get, is for
the domestic royalty rate -- the highest rate in an agreement -- for
publisher electronic sales, and 50 percent for licensee's sales. "This
is not fair given the lower costs of electronic sales, but it is current
industry practice," he said. "Word on the street is that this may change
for the better within the next two years. I on occasion am able to negotiate
more, but regardless of what I end up with I will try to insert wording
that this royalty provision applies to this edition only thus allowing
renegotiation if there is a change in the industry practice."
Paul Rosenzweig
of Royalty Review Service said the implementation of the royalty rate
is only "half the battle." At the moment, he said, the audit trails
at virtually every electronic medium are almost non-existent. "Verifying
the royalty calculations is not in the cards yet," he said.
Maybe not yet, said
author John Vivian, a former president of Text and Academic Authors,
but he sees e-sales and revenue as easily tracked in the future -- once
textbook publishers start charging for electronic uses. There will be
a trail, most likely credit card charges, he said.
Vivian agrees with
Gillen and Lennie that contentville.com's 30 percent isn't on the immediate
landscape in textbook publishing, but production and distribution practices
on the verge of dramatic changes, he said. Publishers are developing
capabilities of selling chapters through downloads from a web site,
similar to contentville.com. "In effect, students could put together
their own coursepacks for $1 or $2 a chapter," he said. "Then the issue
becomes the same: How will authors share in the revenue stream?" Contentville.com's
30 percent is the best model available, he said.
For a number of
years, Vivian said, publishers have been using contract language that
allows them to distribute electronically with no additional compensation
to authors. In recent years, while some authors have negotiated as much
as a 15 percent royalty for electronic rights, he said, the same as
their print royalty. He urged authors to negotiate clauses in their
contracts for only one edition at a time, keeping in mind that contenville.com's
30 percent should be the target once publishers begin selling electronic
spin-offs of print works." In an ideal world, authors should get 50
percent of the publisher's net," he said. "But 30 percent is the precedent
for now."
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Text, academic
book sales jump in June
WASHINGTON, September
2, 2000
-- El-hi adoptions were super strong in the first half of 2000, up more
than a quarter from a year earlier, according to the latest extrapolations
from the Association of American Publishers.
TEXTBOOK
AND ACADEMIC BOOK SALES
THROUGH JUNE 2000
From Association of American Publishers compilations
|
| El-hi
adoptions |
27.4
percent |
| STM
and business |
17.3
percent |
| College |
7.0
percent |
| University
press (paperback) |
-3.4
percent |
| University
press (hardback) |
-5.7
percent |
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Why text quality
stagnant? TAA leader: Aftermarket
POWDER SPRINGS,
Georgia, September 2, 2000
-- The quality of textbooks is stagnant, said the vice president of
Text and Academic Authors, Paul Tippens. He blames the used-book business.
"The used book market has cut so deeply into the profits of authors
and publishers, that the price of books has sky-rocketed, the profits
to authors has plummeted, and the quality of textbooks has stagnated,"
Tippens said. "Unless the creator receives rewards, the creation stops
and quality decreases."
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Ask Tippens to
play word association game: Say "used books," he says "leeches"
POWDER SPRINGS,
Georgia, September 2, 2000
-- Used books remain the single most important problem facing authors
today, said Paul Tippens, a physics author and president-elect of the
Text and Academic Authors Association. The problem is not only detrimental
to authors but also to the creation and quality of future textbooks,
Tippens said. "Already, the used book market has cut so deeply into
the profits of authors and publishers, that the price of books has sky-rocketed,
the profits to authors has plummeted, and the quality of textbooks has
stagnated," Tippens said. "It's slowly reaching the point where I and
others are considering whether it is really worth the effort to produce
a textbook. Unless the creator receives rewards, the creation stops
and quality decreases. As an author, I feel sometimes as if my work
is covered with leeches that are slowly draining its life blood."
Those leeches, said
Tippens, are the used book sellers, which sell used textbooks at a profit
only to themselves. The latest peddler of used textbooks is Barnes &
Noble.com, which on August 15, launched a new and used textbook sales
site on its existing book sales web site, offering up to 25 percent
off its "large selection of used textbooks." Although he is not surprised
that used books have reached the electronic marketplace, Text and Academic
Authors' executive director Ron Pynn, said: "Buyers beware: This may
be a more convenient way to make your purchases, but it does not make
it a better value. In fact, this strikes me as another way for Barnes
and Noble to make a larger profit, at the buyer's expense."
Twenty-five percent
off the retail price, said Pynn, is fairly standard for used books.
"Not much of a bargain for buyers, and certainly no bargain for the
author who receives nothing for the sale of his or her book! The Text
and Academic Authors Association wants to remind buyers of used books
and educational materials that authors receive no compensation for those
transactions. Used books are only a bargain to bookstores selling the
books."
Although copyright
laws have been modified to protect Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Quicken,
Photoshop, Adobe and other successful software packages from being bought
back from users after they installed them on their machines and then
resold at a profit which provides no compensation for the authors or
producers, said Tippens, and the same for the music industry, they have
not addressed problems with textbooks.
"Unfortunately,
there are not enough textbook authors and/or publishers with enough
clout to make changes in the law," Tippens said. "Therefore, the leeches
continue to drain our life blood and to erode the quality of our textbooks.
How far will the pendulum swing before it comes back, and how many of
us will still be around?"
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Projection: Text
sales to outpace industry
NEW YORK, September
6, 2000
-- College book sales in the United States this year will run 8.1 percent
ahead of a year earlier, the Book Industry Study Group reported. The
report attributed the increase in part to publishers' success in incorporating
technology into their products to attract students. These technology
initiatives have detracted from used-book sales, the report said. The
number of units sold will be up 4.3 percent, reflecting enrollment growth,
the report said. Full data:
|
UNIT
SALES |
DOLLAR
SALES |
| College
textbooks |
4.3% |
8.1%
|
|
| El-hi
school books |
2.0% |
5.6%
|
|
| Professional
books |
2.1% |
5.4% |
| University
press |
1.6% |
4.8% |
| Book
industry
Including
trade, reference
and
all other book categories
|
2.3% |
5.2% |
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TAA solicits
Fellows nominations
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 6, 2000
-- Nomination forms to the Council of Fellows of Text and Academic Authors
were mailed to TAA members. Nominations are due October 31 for inductees
at the TAA San Antonio national convention in June. Eligible are authors
whose textbooks or other instructional materials have established a
presence in the marketplace over time, who have been a pioneer in his/her
field, or who have been innovative in the presentation of material.
Fellows receive a special medallion struck to commemorate their induction.
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China objects
to Dalai Lama pictures
HONG KONG, September
7, 2000
-- Censors at a south China border halted shipments of three books,
including The Clinton Years by Robert McNeely, apparently because
of a photo inside of President Clinton with exiled Tibetan religious
leader the Dalai Lama. Authorities also stopped a book on Tibetan art
and a photo book that included two nudes. All were printed by Callaway
in Hong Kong and were en route back from a Shenzhen bindery. Callaway
said both printing and binding will be done in Hong Kong from now on.
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Lighter, more
powerful ebooks due
NEW YORK, September
7, 2000
-- Lighter ebook models with more capacity will available in October
to replace the current Rocket ebook and SoftBook, said Gemstar. They
will carry the RCA brand.
- REB 1100:
17 ounces, five less than Rocket eBook; 5-1/2 inch monochrome
LCD touch screen; 8 megabytes storage (enough for 20 novels), expandable
to 72.
- REB 1200:
33 ounces, 16 less than Rocket eBook; 8-1/2 inch color touch screen;
8 megabits storage, expandable to 308; Ethernet port for high-sped
network connections.
Pricing information
is expected a New York book fair September 20.
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Education publishers
balance sheets strong
NEW YORK, September
8, 2000
-- Most educational publishers all had 199 operating margins ahead of
a year earlier, the trade journal Publishers Weekly reported.
This is operating income as a percentage of revenue:
|
1998
MARGINS |
1999
MARGINS |
| McGraw-Hill |
12.5% |
15.7%
|
|
| John
Wiley |
12.5% |
15.0%
|
|
| Pearson
Education |
12.0% |
13.9%
|
|
| Harcourt |
11.5% |
13.0% |
| Houghton
Mifflin |
11.8% |
12.2% |
| Tribune
Education |
13.1% |
10.2% |
The double-digit
margins were attributed healthy state school funding and the growing
college market.
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Report: 12 companies
bidding for Harcourt
NEW YORK, September
8, 2000
-- Bids have arrived from 12 companies interested in buying Harcourt,
financial sources said. The investment banker Goldman, Sachs is handling
the sale.
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Colorado State
sociologist joins JTAA editorial board
CARBONDALE, Illinois,
September 9, 2000
-- A leading sociologist, retired Colorado State University professor
Stan Eitzen, was named to the editorial board of the forthcoming Journal
of Text and Academic Authoring, editor Donna Besser announced. Eitzen
has been author or editor of 17 books and more than 150 scholarly articles
and chapters. His textbooks include In Conflict and Order: Understanding
Society, in its ninth edition. He is a former editor of the Social
Science Journal.
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PROFIT LOSS
Harcourt:
El-hi sales rose 47.5 percent to $388.3 million in the third quarter,
compared to a year earlier.
Harcourt:
College revenue rose 7.0 percent to $128.8 million in the third quarter,
compared to a year earlier.
Harcourt:
STM sales rose 7.9 percent to $194.3 million in the third quarter, compared
to a year earlier.
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New television
journal due soon
THOUSAND OAKS,
California, September 11, 2000
-- A new journal, Television & New Media, was announced by Sage
Publications. The quarterly will be edited by Toby Miller of New York
University. Sage described the thrust as ethnographic audience studies,
textual analysis, political economy, policy advocacy, and cultural history.
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Pynn: Boston
Globe violating copyright tenet
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 11, 2000
-- Text and Academic Authors executive director Ron Pynn said the Boston
Globe has violated a fundamental tenet of intellectual property
rights recognized around the globe: Creators of intellectual property
must have some control over their work. "For the Boston Globe
to violate this tenet shows their utter disregard for the principles
of intellectual property and its creators," said Pynn. "Creators of
intellectual property are entitled to just compensation for their work,
for as long as that work has life and value. The music industry gets
the point, so why can't the Boston Globe?
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Schar Pynn hurt
in Belize fall
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 11, 2000
-- The wife of Text and Academic Authors' executive director, Schar
Pynn, underwent successful hip surgery after being air-evacuated from
Belize after a fall. Several weeks of rehab are ahead, Ron Pynn said.
Schar is known to many TAA people as a regular at association meetings
since 1986. The Pynns, who live in St. Petersburg, were at St. Matthews
Medical School. Ron is the med school's dean.
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Conglomeration
exposé rattles book industry
NEW YORK, September
12, 2000
-- A former executive at Pantheon, the trade publisher, shook the book
industry with an insider's view in a new book, The Business of Books.
André Schiffrin blames global conglomerates for a profit focus that
is displacing a sense of cultural responsibility in U.S. publishing.
He cites his own departure from Pantheon in 1990 over disagreements
on profit goals with his bosses at Random House, the parent company.
Schiffrin now is president of the Free Press, a foundation-supported
independent house.
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Attorney: Text
libel suit unnecessary
WASHINGTON, Sept.
13, 2000
-- A First Amendment attorney for the Society of Professional Journalists,
Bruce Sanford, called a textbook libel suit unnecessary. Said Sanford:
"SPJ and the authors had already recognized and apologized for the errors
of fact occurring in the case study. Anyone can make a mistake, and
the society and the authors have corrected their mistake." Even so,
he said, "We are glad the matter is concluded." Apologies will appear
in the society's magazine Quill, on the web sites of the society
and publisher Allyn & Bacon. Also an errata sheet will be distributed,
and the case study to which Snyder objected will be removed from any
future editions.
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"TAA should support
Boston freelancers"
POWDER SPRINGS,
Georgia, September 13, 2000
-- Text and Academic Authors president-elect Paul Tippens said TAA should
continue to oppose efforts by the Boston Globe to profit from
the works of freelance writers "without commensurate compensation to
the authors." "I believe the greatest challenge to creators and to the
very process of creation in the near future is to hold our ground by
demanding appropriate compensation," he said. With the advent of e-publishing
and the possibilities of easily and inexpensively distributing authors'
works, he said, "we must be more careful than ever to hold on to our
rights." The freelance writers are correct to vigorously oppose the
Boston Globe, he said: "Not just for selfish reasons, but also
to protect the very process of creation. I encourage all authors to
refuse to accept contracts that unilaterally exclude them from future
compensation for their work. In the long run, no one, not even the publishers,
benefit from such practices."
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TAA president:
Law suits were avoidable
TWIN FALLS, Idaho,
September 14, 2000
-- Database publishers have themselves to blame for the rash of author
lawsuits over electronic rights, said Peggy Stanfield, president of
Text and Academic Authors. "It is too bad that our appeals to publishers
to be fair to authors fell on deaf ears," Stanfield said. Early fair
agreements would have avoided "costly and time-consuming litigation
and allowed authors and publishers to become allies," she said. Stanfield
applauded the recent Authors Guild e-rights suit and the National Writers
Union success with reasonable e-royalties at Brill's contentville.com.
Stanfield decried a publishers' tendency to slight authors: "Putting
the squeeze on authors means more money for publishers and their shareholders,
and less and less for the authors who create the material that fuels
the publishers' coffers."
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Vital dental
program adds Harcourt
RALEIGH, North
Carolina, September 14, 2000
-- Digital publisher Vital Source has acquired a license for the Harcourt
Health Science program for five dental schools. The deal means Vital
Source will add Harcourt content to its Mosby, Saunders and Churchill
Livingstone textbook program.
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Tippens resigns
as TAA vice president
POWDER SPRINGS,
Georgia, September 15, 2000
-- The vice president of Text and Academic Authors, Paul Tippens, resigned
because of a family medical situation. "It is with deep regret and with
considerable embarrassment that I find it necessary to resign," Tippens
said. "I cannot ever remember backing out on a professional commitment,
and I hope you know and understand, that I have no options available
to me that would also allow me to take pride in my work." As vice president,
Tippens, a retired physics professor, was in line to succeed Peggy Stanfield
as president in June 2002. He said: "TAA is by far the most beneficial
and meaningful organization I've been a part of and I will continue
to be as active a member as long as possible. I still value the friendship
and counsel of the many friends I've made as a member of the council
and as a program chair for the 1999 convention."
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Pearson Canada
gears up for online sales
TORONTO, September
16, 2000
-- Pearson Education Canada has chosen Electronic Publishing Clearing
Service, which goes by "ePCS," to digitize its professional trade and
reference, school and higher-ed books. The ePCS-digitized material can
be bought online and downloaded.
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Resigning TAA
exec praised for loyalty
TWIN FALLS, Idaho,
September 17, 2000
-- The contributions of Paul Tippens to Text and Academic Authors were
praised by association President Peggy Stanfield, who said she accepted
his resignation as vice president with regret. "Paul has been a valued
member of TAA. Paul's intelligence, integrity, service, and total loyalty
to our organization will be sorely missed, and we sincerely hope he
will be able to return to us in the future." Tippens, who was elected
vice president in January, resigned to take care of ailing mother, who
has a long-term disability that requires continuing attention.
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New censored
list: Gotta protect the kids
WASHINGTON, September
18, 2000
-- The best-selling Harry Potter books are No. 48 on a new American
Library Association list of the 100 most-removed books from libraries
in the 1990s. Other books on the censored list are perennials: John
Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.
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TAA Council winter
session rescheduled
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 18, 2000
-- The TAA Council mid-year meeting will be January 19 in St. Petersburg
Beach so three members can staff a recruiting booth at a national math
convention the preceding weekend. Originally the meeting was set for
the earlier weekend. Treasurer Mike Sullivan, who makes association
meeting arrangements, negotiated discount arrangements at the Holiday
Inn at 5250 Gulf Boulevard.
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Pearson buys
Heinle high-school titles
NEW YORK, September
19, 2000
-- British-owned Pearson, which is the largest U.S. textbook publisher,
bought the Heinle & Heinle high-school foreign language list from Thomson.
Terms were not announced. The sale includes 13 French and Spanish titles.
The sale clears the way for Heinle & Heinle to concentrate on its other
specialties -- English-as-a-second language, higher-ed foreign languages,
and global English language teaching.
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iUniverse loses
400 titles due to e-glitch
NEW YORK, September
20, 2000
-- Print-on-demand publisher iUniverse lost 400 titles into a digital
black hole in switching to a new software system. Spokesperson Rebecca
Lieb called the loss "calamitous" but said the lost titles were restored
manually. The loss occurred in May, and some titles were unavailable
for as long as six weeks, Lieb said. All tolled, the company has about
70,000 titles available.
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University presses
hurting in July
WASHINGTON, September
20, 2000
-- The university presses had a horrible July, according to the latest
data from the Association of American Publishers. University press paperback
sales were off 12.0 percent from a year earlier, hardback sales off
8.9 percent. For the year, university press sales are off between 5
and 6 percent. Meanwhile, professional and scientific, technical and
medical sales boomed in July, up 22.8 percent.
TEXTBOOK
AND ACADEMIC BOOK SALES
THROUGH JULY 2000
Association of American Publishers compilations from 81
publishers
|
| STM
and business |
22.8
percent |
| College |
5.2
percent |
| El-hi
adoptions |
1.4
percent |
| University
press (hardback) |
-8.9
percent |
| University
press (paperback) |
-12.0
percent |
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Houghton, Sylvan
in new K-12 venture
BOSTON, Massachusetts,
September 21, 2000
-- A new web company designed to sell materials for K-12 teaching, Classwell
Learning Group, was created by Houghton Mifflin and Sylvan Ventures.
Classwell will license materials from Houghton for on--line delivery,
said Houghton chairman Nader Darehshori. This includes teacher training
materials available through site licenses. E-sales are planned to teachers
and eventually to parents too, Darehshori said.
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B&N buys Fatbrain.com
for $64 million
NEW YORK, September
21, 2000
-- The online book retailer Fatbrain.com, which specializes in technical
and professional titles and business-to-business communication, was
purchased by Barnes & Noble. The price: $64 million in B&N stock and
cash. If approved at all levels, Fatbrain.com will operate as a B&N.com
subsidiary.
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Bertelsmann's
new lingua franca: English
GÜTERSLOH, Germany,
September 21, 2000
-- Global media giant Bertelsmann, based in this small German city,
announced that English will be its new corporate language for in-house
communication. The announcement coincides with a new expansion program.
Almost all of a $150 million acquisition budget is earmarked for expansion
into U.S. markets. Bertelsmann's U.S. brands already include Random
House, a magazine group and BMG (formerly RCA).
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Study: E-books
soon to be 26% of market
NEW YORK, September
21, 2000
-- E-books not only are here to stay but will become more prominent,
according to a study by the PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting firm.
The study forecast that 26 percent of book sales, measured by units,
will be electronic by the year 2004. Over the period, p-book sales will
fall 13.7 percent, but e-books will pick up the slack, the study concluded.
Overall, though, book industry revenue growth will tape off because
e-books be priced lower than their p-counterparts. Publisher profit
margins should not be much affected because of economies in producing
e-products are cheaper to produce.
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Pearson: We're
not seeking Harcourt
LONDON, September
22, 2000
-- The chief executive of Pearson, a major U.S. textbook player, said
the company is not among bidders for rival Harcourt. Marjorie Scardino
said the overlap of Pearson and Harcourt products would pose too many
anti-trust challenges from the U.S. government to be worth pursuing.
In New York, the grapevine has it that Thomson and Reed Elsevier are
among a dozen bidders for Harcourt.
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Mexico school
book market may be opening
MEXICO CITY,
September 23, 2000
-- The commitment of Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox Quesada, to
education bodes well for the school book business, according to a national
roundup on Mexico by the U.S. trade journal Publishers Weekly.
Books from major publishers, including Pearson, Wiley and McGraw, are
expected to make gradual inroads against the poor-quality el-hi books
from government agencies that dominate public education. PW international
correspondent Sally Taylor, who wrote the roundup, quoted Pearson's
Spanish-language president, Fred Perkins, that change will not come
quickly. Per capita income in Mexico is about US$4,000, the same in
relative terms, Perkins said, as 40 years when he got into the book
business in Mexico.
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California system
joins Wiley e-journals
SACRAMENTO, California,
September 24, 2000
-- The California State University system joined the Wiley InterScience
online service, which offers more than 300 journals with 145,000 articles.
The University of California joined InterScience in 1999. With the state
university system now on board, 700,000 California faculty, students
and staff have InterScience access.
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Are audio textbooks
coming?
BLOOMINGTON,
Indiana, September 25, 2000
-- E-book publisher 1st Books Library announced a program for authors
to self-publish their works in audio format. Users download from 1st
Books for replay on CD players, computers or tape decks in their cars.
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New assistant
joins TAA headquarters
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 25, 2000
-- A new office assistant joined Text and Academic Authors at association
headquarters. Barbara Dandro holds a master's degree in business and
has operated an advertising agency. In addition to working with TAA,
she offers mini-seminars on effective communication and time management.
Dandro takes up some duties of Margaret Painter, who is focusing on
special projects.
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Pasewark clan
into textbook dynasty status
LUBBOCK, Texas,
September 26, 2000
-- Authoring has had lots of family teams -- husband-wife, father-son,
mother-daughter, and the like. But nothing beats the seven Pasewark
co-authors on the cover of the new Microsoft Works 2000 Basics.
Progenitor Bill Sr., a veteran TAA member, has had fun putting together
"Family Feud" panels for promotional panels. Here they are:
- William
R. Pasewark Sr., professor emeritus, Texas Tech.
- William
R. Pasewark Jr., University of Houston.
- Carolyn
Pasewark Denny, Counseling; certified elementary teacher; national
reading and math consultant.
- Scott G.
Pasewark, occupational education; computer technology.
- Jan A. Pasewark
Stogner, financial planner.
- Frank M.
Stogner, international business management.
- Beth Pasewark
Wadsworth, graphic design.
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Harcourt University
wins Massachusetts OK
BOSTON, September
26, 2000
-- The Massachusetts Board of Education approved the online university
that textbook publisher Harcourt has been putting together. The approval,
from the state board's Higher Education Division, is for a four-year
degree in health and two-year and four-year degrees in business and
information technologies. Courses begin in November, Harcourt said.
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Questia signs
up Stanford Press
HOUSTON, September
28, 2000
-- Questia Media, which is preparing a hyperlinked collection of scholarly
resources, announced that Stanford University Press has become its 100th
publisher. Questia is digitizing more than 1,000 Stanford titles. The
Questia site goes live in January with 50,000 scholarly books and journals.
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Morton proposes
TAA publishing alliance
ST. PETERSBURG,
Florida, September 28, 2000
-- The executive editor at Colorado-based Morton Publishing, Wes Burnham,
initiated exploratory talks about a publishing partnership with Text
and Academic Authors. After a meeting at TAA headquarters, the association's
executive director, Ron Pynn, alerted members of the TAA Council that
Burnham would be developing a proposal. Pynn said he encouraged Burnham
to make a presentation at the Council's January meeting. Pynn said Burnham
is aware of two failed publishing partnerships in the past, one with
Copley in Massachusetts and one with Alliance in Texas. After those
experiences, neither of which left the ground, several Council members
have been cool moving into publishing. Pynn said, however, that he's
open: "The idea of a author publishing company was good when (TAA founder)
Mike Keedy first proposed it. It was good when (former TAA President)
Gerald Stone tried to develop it in Chicago. Jon Hughes' proposal (from
Alliance) was good as well. So let the discussion begin."
Details:
Morton Publishing site
MORTON IN BRIEF
- College publisher.
- Founded 1977.
- Publishes in
graphics, health, journalism, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, sexuality,
speech.
- Takes pride
in affordable texts.
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Primis database
hits 230,000 pages
NEW YORK, September
29, 2000
-- The Primis database for custom-made college textbooks now contains
230,000 pages, McGraw-Hill announced. Primis allows instructors to pick
and choose material from various McGraw-Hill sources to create textbooks
tailored to their classes.
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Reporter: Napster-like
threat facing books
NEW YORK, September
30, 2000 --
Peer-file sharing will hit books next and siphon off publishing revenues
of $1.5 billion by 2005, according to a report from Forrester Research.
Eric Scheirer, main author of the report, said the Napster-like copies
will be of poor copy -- but good enough for many readers. Scheier said
publishers will need to emphasize quality of benefits of buying -- like
access to the author for trade books.
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