Fall 2019 Webinar Series

TAA webinars are one-hour live, interactive sessions that connect you to experts discussing a variety of topics designed especially for textbook and academic authors. Members can also access 250+ presentations on demand.

How to register for an upcoming webinar:

Members: You can participate in as many sessions as you'd like for free. To sign up, click the Register button below. Read Frequently Asked Questions About TAA Webinars

Non-Members: Join TAA today and receive access to all of TAA's live webinars and 250+ presentations on demand for one full year.

A Second Bite at the Apple: Getting Rights in Your Book Back

Date: Thursday, October 17, 1-2 pm ET

Non-members: Join TAA

Presenter: Brenda Ulrich, Partner, Archstone Law Group PC

Most publishing contracts are for the life of the copyright, so how could an author ever get their rights back? Brenda will discuss the role of reversion clauses in a publishing contracts, which allow rights in a book to revert to their authors under certain circumstances. Questions covered will include:

• What is a rights reversion?
• In what circumstances could/should an author seek a reversion of rights?
• The reversion of rights clause - what is it, how to see if you have any rights per your contract
• What are the benefits to seeking a reversion of rights? What can you do once you have your rights back?
• How do you go about seeking a reversion of rights

Writing Your First Book: Developing Your Dissertation Into a Manuscript

Date: Thursday, November 7, 10-11 am ET

Presenter: Margaret Puskar-Pasewicz, MargaretEdits

Publishing your first book is imperative for many early-career scholars, but turning your dissertation into a book can be a confusing and difficult process. Margaret Puskar-Pasewicz of MargaretEdits will discuss practical strategies and tips for bridging the gap between completing your dissertation and writing a compelling book manuscript. Along the way, she will discuss some of the most common mistakes that she’s encountered in her years as an academic editor and writing coach.  

Among other issues, she will focus on the importance of staking a claim that you can defend consistently throughout your book as well as developing your scholarly voice. She looks forward to having a wide-ranging and honest discussion about the challenges of academic writing for early-career researchers and how to overcome them. Learn more

Responding to Reviewers’ Comments

Date: Tuesday, November 19, 1-2 pm ET



Non-members: Join TAA

Presenter: Mark Pedretti, Director of the Center for Writing and Rhetoric, Claremont Graduate University

Whether submitting journal articles or book manuscripts, academic authors can expect their work to be anonymously reviewed by expert peers. Sometimes helpful, sometimes infuriating, reviewers’ comments can make or break a publication; a negative review can bring your piece to a screeching halt. This webinar will discuss strategies for engaging with reviewer’s comments — both positive and negative. We will explore ways to figure out the importance placed upon comments in a given publishing context, the relationship between editor and reviewer, and whether comments are in fact “make or break.” We will talk about strategies for documenting responses to suggestions, and how to politely decline to make changes that are off base. Our goal will be to equip webinar participants with a set of tools for navigating the unspoken rules of the review process. Learn more

Practical Strategies for Collaborating With Peers

Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2-3 pm ET

Non-members: Join TAA

Presenter: Janet Salmons, Author of Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn

Sometimes collaboration comes naturally. We can communicate honestly to determine shared goals and complete a project. It can be exhilarating to see what can be accomplished when we pool ideas and expertise. Other times, collaboration seems time-consuming and frankly aggravating. Perhaps we thought we were on the same page with our partner(s), only to discover that their sense of time, criteria for quality, or willingness to address problems are not as we expected.

The issues can compound when the number of collaborative partners expands, and when we have less common ground to build upon. For example, when we collaborate with peers from our own institution or organization, we understand the lingo, norms, and work culture. When we collaborate with peers from our own discipline or professional, we understand theoretical frameworks and seminal literature that informs our field. We might share similar outlooks with peers from our region, country, or culture. When we expand the collaboration to include peers from outside these familiar groups, attention is needed to the ways we will work together.

Author and coach Janet Salmons will show how the approaches described in Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn apply to peer collaboration for writing, editing, or other projects.Join this webinar to learn practical strategies you can use when planning and participating in complex collaborations, including creating workable agreements, selecting technology tools, and dealing with setbacks. Learn more

2019 Spring Webinars - Watch On Demand

Your Royalties: The Devil is in the Details

Presenter: Juli Saitz, CPA, Senior Managing Director, Ankura Consulting Group

After a brief overview of key clauses in publishing agreements, Juli shares specific contract clauses that affect royalty calculations and payments. She examines the same clause with slightly different language for two hypothetical contracts and then presents how the royalties differ under each scenario. Watch

Creative Scheduling For Those Who Have "All of the Time in the World" and "No Time At All"

Presenter: Dr. Katy Peplin, Coach, Editor, Thrive PhD

Whether you feel over-scheduled or are desperate for a little structure in your day, a more intentional approach to managing time can be a writer's secret weapon. However, it can seem impossible to add time into an already packed schedule, or restrict flexibility when that feels integral to the writing process. This session provides a collection of tools to think about time, how you spend it, and how that does or does not align with your life writ large. Learn how to diagnose common time management patterns; introduce a wide range of strategies for scheduling, planning, and structuring time; and work through “hot spots” in any schedule (start of day, end of day, transition time). Watch

Beyond the Blank Page: 9 Proven Strategies to Help You Stop Procrastinating and Write Your Manuscript

Presenter: Mary Beth Averill, PhD, MSW, Academic Coach and author of How to Become an Academic Coach

For some people, staring at that first blank page is the hardest part of the writing task. Others have good start up energy and ideas but struggle to maintain momentum. Finally, are those who wrestle with completing a manuscript and sending it out. Mary Beth Averill, PhD, presents nine strategies to help you with organization, motivation, time management, and editing from start to finish whether you are writing an academic book, journal article, or dissertation. Watch

Show Me! The Art of Using Visual Elements to Enhance a Manuscript

Presenter: Eric Schmieder, author of Web, Database, and Programming: A foundational approach to data-driven application development using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, MySQL, and PHP

Visual elements, such as tables and figures, can improve the readability and overall quality of a manuscript when used properly. After all, a picture speaks a thousand words, right? But poorly developed images can be more distracting than helpful. In this webinar, Eric Schmieder highlights ways to effectively incorporate visual elements into your journal articles and textbooks. He also shares some important tips for maintaining accessibility guidelines in the process. Watch

How Trello Can Transform Your Life as an Academic

Presenters: Angelique M. Davis, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Global African Studies, Seattle University; and Rose Ernst, Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science, Seattle University

Do you juggle multiple teaching, scholarship and service projects and worry about ‘dropping the ball’? Do you wish you had one place to easily organize your life as an academic? Then Trello might be for you. In the first half of the webinar, Angelique M. Davis and Rose Ernst provide an overview of the magic and logic of Trello. They will show you how to use it to masterfully manage multiple projects in one place—without having to switch between paper and multiple digital programs! In the second half of the webinar, they show you how to use Trello to move your scholarly projects forward. This includes a demonstration and template of a Trello board based on Erin Furtak’s publishing pipeline. You will leave this webinar with a plan to set up your Trello account so you can become a master juggler and calmly manage your academic life. Watch

Mentor, Coach, Supervisor: Collaborative Ways to Work with Writers

Presenter: Dr. Janet Salmons, author of Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn: Practical Guidance for Online and Classroom Instruction, and Jim McCleskey, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, North American University and a Course Instructor in the Graduate Management Program, Western Governors University

Writing is deeply personal. But unless we are writing research memos or journal entries, we will have to cooperate with reviewers, editors, and others to get our work published. As faculty supervising students, writing program staff, trainers or consultants, we have the opportunity to help aspiring writers to work more collaboratively. Using the term collaboration to describe "an interactive process that engages two or more participants who work together to achieve outcomes they could not accomplish independently" (Salmons, in press), Dr. Janet Salmons and her dissertation supervisee Jim McClesky explore ways to develop skills valuable to writers. They look at ways to use review exchanges, writing circles, support teams and other approaches to improve writing while learning to work collaboratively. Practical strategies are offered for classroom, committee, or informal learning settings. Watch

How to Secure More Media For Your Book and Brand

Presenter: Brian Feinblum, Chief Marketing Officer, SVP, Finn Partners

Learn from a veteran of over 1,000 book publicity campaigns -- the mistakes to avoid, the myths to debunk, and the proven strategies to execute. Understand what book publicity in 2019 consists of – it is not all about social media, but it cannot be ignored either. In this one hour webinar, you will come to understand how to see yourself as a brand, how to market yourself, and how to recognize where you need support. Watch