Vincent Lloyd:
Okay. I think we'll get going. Hi, I'm Vincent Lloyd. I teach at Villanova University and I'm on the AAR publications committee. And I also edit one of the AAR's books series published collaboratively with Oxford University Press. The series I edit is called Reflection in Theory in the Study of Religion. And when AAR surveys its members, we often find that advice on navigating the publication process is one of the most desired things that AAR could offer. And so we thought putting together this panel with the help of Sarah from the AAR staff and the audience, would be a service for demystifying the process, a process that can sometimes seem scary or like it is with rules that are opaque. By choosing for editors from a diverse set of presses, who will each talk about a different aspect of the publication process, we thought we could make some of the practices and norms more transparent, and humanize what can seem like a frightening process.
Vincent Lloyd:
And while there are a number of topics that our four panelists will cover, there are some that we've bracketed and panelists are happy to talk about in the question and answer period. So, we'll be starting with Phillip Getz from Palgrave, who will be talking about pre-submission process, going to Rebecca Shillabeer from Routledge, who will talk about the different types of books that are published to by academic publishers, and then Elaine Meisner from University of North Carolina Press who will talk about the peer review process, and then Elizabeth Maselli from Rutgers who will talk about formats of books and contracts, so sort of ending before the final copy, editing and proofs and production and marketing phases. But I know colleagues who are happy to talk about that in the question and answer period.
Vincent Lloyd:
So we'll go through the four panelists. I may have a couple of questions for them as a group, and then we'll have plenty of time for group discussion and informal conversation as well. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Phil.
Phil Getz:
So should I do the whole thing right now or should we do introductions?
Vincent Lloyd:
Oh, sorry. Yes.
Phil Getz:
All right.
Vincent Lloyd:
Maybe we can introduce ourselves.
Phil Getz:
Okay. All right. So my name is Phil Getz. I'm a senior editor at Palgrave McMillan for religion and philosophy. Palgrave McMillan is primarily... we try to be a cutting edge press for research in social sciences and humanities. We also have divisions in economics, business and finance, and we are pretty much the social science and humanities imprint of the broader Springer Nature Company. A few years ago, our portion of McMillan merged with Springer, the large STEM publisher. And so that has changed our business model slightly in the sense that now all of our books are available on Springer link as part of their subject packages. And so a lot of our business model is focused on sales of large digital packages of books to libraries. We also do some crossover trade and academic titles, but our bread and butter is academic monographs and edited collections. We have a large handbook series on new and emerging fields, large major reference works, collections and things like that. I'm looking forward to the discussion today.
Elisabeth Maselli:
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Maselli. I'm the editor for religious studies at Rutgers University Press. I'm in my acquisitions right now, I'm really interested in contemporary Jewish studies, Christianity, Islam, new and alternative religious studies. And I'm really excited about books that are shifting paradigms, empowering people who aren't always heard in a conversation and books that are really asking questions of things we've assumed to be true or assumed to be a certain way. I think that's a commitment that's reflected across the Rutgers lists. My colleagues have a strong presence in film, sociology, anthropology, and higher ed. So adding religion to those topics is also something that I'm very interested in. Rutgers University Press publishes about 130 new books every year. These are a mix of more academic reference works and then more lay books. We do a few trade books as well. We generally do have an interest in social justice topics, sort of across the list. And I think when you look at our catalog, that's something that's really mirrored there.
Elisabeth Maselli:
So today I'm just really excited to get to talk more about the process and open up the black box of publishing that we can make [inaudible 00:05:22]. I'll turn it over.
Rebecca:
So I'm Rebecca Shillabeer, I'm the senior editor who oversees the global religion books lists that Routledge. So Routledge is a leading academic publisher across the humanities and social sciences. And we're part of Taylor and Francis so sometimes you see that on the sign and sometimes you see Routledge. I work alongside my colleague, Joshua Wells, and we commission very broadly across all major areas of both religious studies and theology. Right from very introductory basic textbooks or intros to key topics right up to cutting edge scholarly research volumes. So it's a huge range of types of titles. We consider ourselves to be a very forward thinking publisher and are continuously looking for kind of innovative new emerging topics, volumes that can be the go-to in those fields and always looking for ideas to inform our publishing.
Elaine Meisner:
I'm Elaine Meisner, executive editor at UNC Press and we're a broad-based university press. We publish now about 110 books a year, well known for our expertise in publishing U.S. History and a lot of books about social political and cultural justice. My baileywick is religious studies and also I do Latin American and Caribbean studies. And I also do books about the South for general readers. So on any given day, I could be working on a book about how to make corn bread to a book about the practice of devotions at a small church in Brazil. So I love the range and we're part of the Association of University Presses. And I'll talk more about that. When I come to that. Within the religious studies list, we have a very broad based list in American religion and the religion of the Americas, and also Islamic studies anywhere in the world.
Vincent Lloyd:
Great. Thanks for those introductions. And now we'll go through the publications process led by each of the panelists starting with Phil
Phil Getz:
So I'm going to start with a little bit of audience participation here. How many people here have written or have published a book before? Okay. And of the people who haven't, how many are recent PhD graduates for are currently AVD. Okay. All right. That's good to know who we're talking to. Well, I would say that the first step you've already done. You've already done the first step in seeking out a publisher, which is coming to this panel so well done. Congratulations to you all.
Phil Getz:
So the way that I like to think about it is that finding the right publisher is a lot like matchmaking, you know? And so I think that the panel is very aptly named in that regard. And there are several elements to that matchmaking. The first is the match to content of what you're working on, right? So whether the publisher specializes or has some kind of competency or attention to the field in which you work, and the other is the personality with the individual editor that you're going to be working with. So it's these two different elements of the right match. The first is in a certain sense, easier because the way that you figure out a match for the content is you just look at your bookshelf, right? What a press has been publishing in the fields that you read, who has been publishing your interlocutors. What kinds of presses are referenced in the citations of the literature that you've been reading.
Phil Getz:
Then once you identify a handful of presses that seem relevant to your work. So for instance, I'll just talk a little bit about us again. So we have a number of different series. We have a series in black religion, womanist theology. We have a series and new approaches to religion and power. We have series in post-colonialism and religions. We just started a Jewish thought and philosophy series. And so people who are reading these books are obviously going to be coming across a lot of our titles. And if you find that you're coming across a certain number of titles by the same publishers, those should be the publishers that you seek out and come up with a handful of those presses and reach out to them.
Phil Getz:
The best possible way of reaching out of course, is if you have a conference coming up, see whether you can meet with any of the editors at an upcoming meeting and to discuss your work and whether it might be a good fit for their list. If you don't have a conference coming up, every editor will be very happy to talk with you over email or via phone.
Phil Getz:
I'll give you a few tips on that opening email. One thing that I think that we all have in common is that we have very robust and full inboxes, right? I imagine that that's not specific to editorial work, but the fact of the matter is there's a lot of really good literature out there. There's a lot of good stuff being written. And so we get a tremendous amount of email correspondence about that work that's going on. And every editor pretty much has to get through that inbox and make sure they're not missing any really good projects, things that would be particularly relevant to them. And so you want your email to be written in a way that is very clear to the editor. Because I was just thinking about this recently, the amount of time that, that the editor is going to devote to your email at first is probably less than a minute to know whether they want to keep on reading it or not.
Phil Getz:
A few sentences at the beginning are very important toward hooking the editor into knowing what you're actually working on. So in the subject line, you should say, "book a proposal," so they know that that's what they're going to be opening up to read.
Phil Getz:
And in the first few sentences, just introduce yourself, where are you, what stage you are at in your career and a one to two paragraph description of your project - an elevator pitch for what the purpose of your book is. And it can be at any stage, really. You can say, I'm interested in thinking about this kind of topic. And I'd like to talk to you. If you've also already completed a proposal, you can attach that in the email as well. And most of the publishers that you'll be looking at, have a generic proposal form on their website. So you can go and look into that on their websites and try to complete it. And it's always a good exercise just for being able to articulate what your project is to go through that proposal form. It can actually help you formulate how you want to present it to an editor.
Phil Getz:
And so then the next step after you get in touch is setting up a time to meet either at a conference or talking over email or over the phone about your project and get a sense of whether this is a person you would want to work with. It's a very important stage in your career. It's a very important piece of your work. And you want to make sure that you're working with someone who you trust and who you feel as though you have a good positive rapport with. And so, anybody on this panel here, anybody on the floor, there are any number of editors you could be working with and just give yourself a feel of what it would be like to work with them.
Phil Getz:
So I think that's pretty much the lay of the land with regard to the pre-submission process. I would also say, I think that there will probably be different kinds of standard amounts of material that each publisher will probably be interested in. But I would say most of the time, most editors would probably like to see some kind of proposal form at the very beginning of the process and some sample material, maybe a chapter or two of your book project that you think is pretty much relatively in the form that you can see that it being for the appearing in the book. So I'm sure there will be questions about this part of the process. Happy to answer them later on.
Rebecca:
Great. So I'm going to touch a little bit to follow on from Phil about the proposal process. And I'm also going to talk a little bit about types of books as well, which is something obviously that's very important to a proposal. As Phil said, I would say it's never too early to get in touch with a publisher. I'm always very happy to discuss concepts and ideas at an incredibly early stage. It may be that we don't feel we are the right publisher, but we can point you in the right direction or it's important for us and you, that your book is placed correctly. So as we've said, don't never be afraid to get in touch at a conference, to drop us an email. I end up having chats over Twitter quite a lot with people that are especially in early stages who just have little queries about the process and how to get in touch.
Rebecca:
So I think I can speak from everyone when we're really happy to hear from people and we don't want to be intimidating in any way. You know, we want people to be able to come and talk to us and ask questions because we rely on that to do the publishing that we do.
Rebecca:
So at Routledge, the first step is very much to get in touch with an email, as Phil said. And we always look for a book proposal. Now, at Routledge, which I think does differ slightly from some presses, we will offer contracts based on a book proposal. So I know for some research monographs, some publishers can require a full manuscript before a contract is offered. For us a book proposal, we can do that on a book proposal. The reason that book proposals are so important is that we see the review process, which I know Elaine is going to be talking through as really providing us valuable information that will go on to form what that book becomes and from an early stage, we're going to be making sure that that book is meeting the readership's needs and suitable for the market.
Rebecca:
So the sooner we can be involved, the better, as far as we see it. Now, every publisher has their own proposal guidelines. I'm sure they are very similar. You can find them on our website. We do have different types of proposals depending on the type of book that you're thinking of publishing, but in general, they will include obviously the title, subtitles, subject particulars. So, what is the book about, how you intend to structure it, what your book will offer the others [inaudible 00:00:18:05]? What are the competing titles that are out there? Don't never be afraid to advertise yourself within that proposal. We want to learn about you within that as well. Crucially, who is the readership and the market? Because even it may be that the book has been adapted from a PhD or it's your first book, but you need to really give thought to who's going to be picking up, who's going to be reading it? What changes may you need to make? I'm always thinking timescale. We know how busy everyone is. So be a realistic about when you'd like to work on this project.
Rebecca:
And then very practical elements, are you going to include images? Are they going to be extracts of other texts, that kind of thing. For me personally, the most important element of a proposal, other than the clear summary of content, is the readership and the market. So the review process will inevitably give us a good indication of this, but we want to make sure that all our authors have a good understanding of who they see reading their books. And that touches upon, I won't go into too many detail, too much detail about the types of books, but that's crucial when you're putting a proposal together. What is this book? Who's using it?
Rebecca:
One of the questions I get most regularly is my book going to be published in paperback straight away? Understand me, that's the question that comes up. And it's important to think about the fact that that is completely based on the market and who you see reading that book. So if you are, think obviously for scholarly monographs or some edited collections, based on scholarly research, we very much would see the main market as academic libraries and academics working in a very specific field. And in that instance, that's the books that you see publishing in hardback, initially, hardback and e-book. However, if there is a market for a book to be used by students or to be recommended, that's when we start looking at the publishing of the paperbacks. That very much changes who the market for a book is.
Rebecca:
So at Routledge, we have very a broad range of different types of books. I'm sure the other publishers, we may have different names for them, but we publish things like obviously the scholarly monographs. We have what we call our focus books, which are very similar to the Palgrave pivots. So the short, somewhere between a journal article and a monograph, hardback research volumes, we have our handbooks. Everyone must have seen the big handbooks that every publisher has, the bigger edited collections.
Rebecca:
We also have a range of introductory books. So I think the best example from Routledge is they're called The Basics. So they need no previous knowledge on a subject area and that would give you a quick insight into a core topic. And then you have variety of different types of textbooks. So textbooks for the big 101 courses, right through to textbooks for upper level new and emerging areas of study for students. I mean, this is not an exhausted list of list of types of books. We have a huge range, including source books, translations, classic texts, but it's just to give you an idea that there's no one type of book. When you're putting that proposal together, you need to give a lot of thought about who's going to be using it and picking it up.
Rebecca:
I think, yeah. So as Phil said, once we've got that proposal and we've assessed it, obviously the next stage would be the review process, which inevitably does give an indication of the market, but I'm sure Elaine will talk you through it.
Elaine Meisner:
Is that it?
Rebecca:
Yeah. Great.
Elaine Meisner:
So UNC Press is a member of American University Presses, which is aupresses.org. That's our professional association. There is over 140 members worldwide used to be called the Association of American University Presses, but then we expanded and got global. There are wonderful scholarly presses that are not part of the AU organization, but you're probably familiar with many university presses. So one of the requirements of being in the Association for University Presses is that there is some form of peer review put forth by the prentices for any project that they publish. And the academic publishing is part, and I think it'll be good if you have a bigger picture, is part of scholarly ecosystem. Our mission is to produce and make possible the consumption of knowledge, nothing less than new knowledge that we hope will be consequential and move the culture forward.
Elaine Meisner:
So there are very different ways to do that from the deep monograph to works that we call translational scholarship where it's written by a wonderful expert who can skillfully write it for a broader audience. We're interested in many, many different types of books and most presses are and they all have to be peer reviewed. I mean, even that book about making cornbread at UNC Press has to be peer reviewed. It's a trick. No. So, but we publish books that are of many types and they all have to be peer reviewed in an appropriate way. It's such a central process. So I think everything my colleagues have said so far is really on point to getting to the peer review process.
Elaine Meisner:
And I think it is good to work with an editor you sense is interested because they should help you get ready for the peer review process. You know, there are many things that an editor can do. If they want to take on your project, they can help you frame it. They can help you think about doing this or that, making sure it's ready. The most important thing is you need to know what your book is about. You need to know what's new about it, and what is important about it. What's your purpose? What are your findings? You can't just say I explore this or that. I don't like the word "explore." You need to say, "I am tracing the history of blah, blah, blah, from here to here. And then through this study, I'm connecting ideally to big questions that your colleagues are going to be interested in."
Elaine Meisner:
There's so many types of books with different kinds of audiences and we're very realistic. If we think there's a work of scholarship that's really important, but we know it's not going to somewhere in 300 copies, that's okay if it's important. But we have to balance that in the kind of books that we publish, the mix of books. This is true, I think for all presses.
Elaine Meisner:
So once your editor with you, feels like it's ready for going out to experts, there are many ways to determine at what stage it should be in turn sent out. And sometimes an editor might receive... I think it's ideal if you've thought through and you have a really clear vision of what your manuscript is and it's done, if you spent some time thinking about it, there are guidelines that can help you turn for you, if it's a dissertation to a book.
Elaine Meisner:
But this is really... Could you pass it out? I think useful to anyone writing a second, third book, ways to think about this is how to turn your dissertation into a book and some resources for that. So I'm not going to go into that, but you need to know what you've got in your hand. So we can also send a proposal out. We can send a proposal and a couple of chapters out. If the editor feels like this is [inaudible 00:26:42] interesting book that fits their list so beautifully and we can get reports on that or a full manuscript. In terms of ethics, it's really important that you are open with your editor about whether you're sending this out simultaneously and ideally...
Speaker 1:
Whether you're sending this out simultaneously. And ideally, you send out to a handful of your top choices. If you're lucky enough to get two presses seriously interested then... By seriously interested, what I mean is the editor says, "I'll send this out for review." Then you really need to let them know that another editor also has offered to send it out for review and you need to let them decide if they want to undertake a simultaneous review, because it takes a huge amount of time and also expense to review something formally. So in other words, we want to avoid a scenario where the editor goes through review process and say, "Oh, it's great. We're going to offer you a contract." And you say, "Oh, you know what? I've decided to go with this other publisher." That's just not ethical. But sometimes the editors will say, "Okay, I agree to sort of compete."
Speaker 1:
The whole idea for peer review is that it's constructive. It's going to make your work better. And if it's reached a stage where the editor feels like it's ready to go out for review, then you want to find an editor, to go back to my colleagues comments, who is really just about as invested in the work as you are. I mean that's a good editor. Someone who really cares and isn't going to waste time or money sending the project out for review. It's really important I think, we don't want to send that raw dissertations because most of the people who read books have their own graduate students they have to worry about. They don't want to read someone's dissertation. So that's why you need to have a good relationship with your editor to get it to the point where it feels ready, whatever stage that is, that the editor is willing to send it out.
Speaker 1:
Usually we get, I think most presses get two reviews at least initially. It's a one way blind system where the reader knows who you are, but you don't know who the readers are. On the forms you'll fill it out, there's places to put your suggested readers and we will add that to our pool. Doesn't mean we're going to limit ourselves to those readers, but we definitely want to know who you think would be the reader and that also gives us a sense of who you think the readership is.
Speaker 1:
Selecting the readers is a crucial moment. If you know, there's someone who has a grudge against you, for some reason, it's okay to mention that. Doesn't necessarily mean we won't use that reader, but it's very important for us to know because things happen personally and also if someone's just not going to agree with your approach and you know that, that's not very constructive so it's fine to mention that. I mean, it doesn't happen very often that we hear that, but I just wanted to mention that, I think. So two reviews. If your work touches different fields, you definitely want someone in your discipline if you're a historian or religious studies, ethnography, textual analysis. But for example, if I'm doing a book on religion in Brazil, I want someone who knows Brazil as well, or at least Latin America, as well as the particular religious tradition or process that we're looking at.
Speaker 1:
And it's hard to do this as long as there's just two readers. The other thing is that readers aren't always available and it's getting harder and harder sometimes. They're paid honorariums for their work. It's not a payment. It's more like a gesture, "Thank you for helping to shape the field of knowledge, our common endeavor." And it's good to have a list of five or six people in mind that you can offer to the editor. So the reports are used in preparation for at least at our press to take it to and I think most presses to take a project after the review process, we take it to our board for final approval, okay? And our board, our culture is that we want the manuscripts to be pretty much any major problems have been worked out.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes it can take even two rounds of reviews to get to that stage before the editor feels safe bringing it to our board because we don't want to take it to the board and have it get turned down at the board stage. They meet every two months at our press. Very rare that anything like that happens because the editors, we're so aware of what our board is looking for that we work toward that goal with you. So getting the reports back it's a mighty moment and you need to see them constructively. I hope you have an editor who works with you constructively. There's a real range of reports.
Speaker 1:
Ideally, the editor knows that if they send this manuscript out, it's worthy of publication, but there are times when you get very negative reports and they say, "I don't see how this can be improved. I don't see how this can be ready for publication." So my word there is persist, don't give up, it's individualistic these reports to some degree. But an editor may not be able to proceed further if you get reports like that. More often, it's very constructive reports, "This is wonderful. Hasn't thought this through yet." If you get a comment, like "The evidence doesn't support the argument." that's serious, but it doesn't mean you have to stop it. It means they'll usually give you ways to look further and help you work that out. I think it's really good to be willing to dismantle parts of the manuscript or the whole manuscript and rethink it if you have promising reports, but it's not there yet.
Speaker 1:
I go through every report with my authors point by point and I make sure they respond even... And on the other hand, I mean, this is their book. It's not the readers book. The reports are not the end all and be all of the system, of the process. Even if you don't agree, how can you use that response to better the book? There's always a way. And if someone sees a fault in it, it's likely that another reader after it's published will see the same fault. So you think of it as these are friends, even though it's hard. This is helpful, even if they're being snide. This is something that you need to use to incorporate into your thinking and then into the book itself. So that's the way we think about it. It can be very rigorous and that means that once it gets published, your colleagues know that this book has been through a really rigorous process.
Speaker 1:
Each press uses the reports in different ways I think in terms of the board approval or whatever process they have to make that final decision. And sometimes their reports are very promising and then you say, "Let's do an advanced contract as long as we see by your written response, that you're going to take care of all these issues." Then we send it back to either one or two readers, depending on the types of reports. And hopefully by that stage they'll say, "This was really well done. It's ready to be published, whatever." Sometimes if it's in a series and there're series editors, the series editors can also comment on the review process and help a board understand that even if there was a critique that the author has actually overcome that problem or has dealt with it appropriately. And so series editors can and should be allies, I think, for a positive review process. Okay. I think that's it for now.
Speaker 2:
Okay, fantastic. Then sort of picking up in the process. I'm going to speak about book contracts and I'll touch a little bit on book formats. So at this point you have gone through this process of pre-submission, submission, peer review successfully. You've responded to the peer reports and your editor says that they can move forward. So you've made this match, you're working together exclusively to put this book out. So what's next? What's at this stage? Ideally, a book contract. So like [Elaine 00:35:23] was saying, there are different ways of getting that contract. Often an editor will go to some sort of review meeting, if that's external stakeholders or internal decision makers, it's a little bit different everywhere. But once that meeting is tackled, often that's where the contract is issued.
Speaker 2:
So congratulations, it's exciting to have a book contract, but I understand that it can be really intimidating. You want your book published. And I think there's a very understandable tendency to take a contract, skim it, and then just sign it in the same way that you would agree to Apple terms of service. But fortunately by comparison, but contracts are pretty straight or very straightforward. The purpose of this contract is to set terms and clauses for the practical pieces of moving manuscript files into a physical bound item for sale.
Speaker 2:
So in my talk today, I want to identify a few fairly common elements to contracts that you might see when reading through the text of one for the first time. Things that can help you to navigate the text, make decisions and raise questions, or identify pain points at this early stage. So some common contract elements are the brands of rights. Literally, what is the title of the book? And you, the author grants me, the publisher the exclusive rate to print, package, distribute and sell this thing that you've created.
Speaker 2:
This grant usually includes a range of format. So that will talk about the cloth, paper and eBook. In addition to formats like first and second serial rights on excerpts before and after publication, audio, television, dramatic rights and foreign translation rights. After the granted rights, there's going to be some measure of production specs. So what is a workout, right? What is the image and table threshold? The editor at this point probably has some kind of forecast built. So some budget or profit and loss statement. There's a few different terms for it, but something that's used the workout that you've deposited as the point to think about the audience and the price around the book. So now is the time to ask for another 5,000 words if you're going to need that to respond to your reviewers. It's a time to ask for the additional five tables that you've realized you need to add to what you've got. And that way the contract can be written with those specs in mind.
Speaker 2:
The editor at this stage can still work on the budget and move on these if they can. The fear there is that if books come in over in these regards, that's going to impact the books budget and the schedule. If book needs more production work than anticipated, then it follows that it would take longer to print, produce, find and that can be very disruptive for the publisher and for the author.
Speaker 2:
In production specs in the contract. There's also likely to be language about a copy editing review and timeline and review of type set page proofs. So those will usually have deadlines in them, maybe two weeks to review your copy edits and three weeks to review the types sets. These are fake numbers. Everybody will have different numbers of weeks, but that is done with keeping an eye on schedule and prepping you to think about the next stages in the book's life.
Speaker 2:
Indexing would be often, I would think of as a production spec. Depending on the publisher, you may be to cover the cost of the index. Marketing specs lead into production elements. So things like cover design, cover copy, publicity, language about these items will be in the contract. The marketing of the press will launch a campaign for the book because they worked directly with book buyers around the world, and they are going to need that final say on design promotional copy. But usually these do have some input from the author. And I'll talk a little bit about that. When I talk about things that aren't explicitly in the contract.
Speaker 2:
Administrative clauses are pretty important. This covers intellectual property, royalty structure. Intellectual property, copyright, this is often pulled out into a clause. It can be in the author's name. It can be in the name of the publisher. In our case, we would copyright a single author book and the name of the author, and then an edited collection in the name of Rutgers the state university, because in that formulation, individual contributors can then choose to register their claims to their work in their name, if they want to. Royalties are going to follow... Well it's a few different ways that royalties are presented. Some publishers will pay a lump sum, others have a tiered structure based on the format.
Speaker 2:
So a tiered structure might look like X percent of net receipts on the hardback, X percent on paperback and X percent on the eBook. Subsidiary rights, royalty splits are covered in there. Those tend to be formulated much differently. They can be things like 50, 50, 65, 45 on those specific brands of audio rights, translation rights, and other subsidiary elements. Gratis copies. So any free copies that you are receiving, how many in different formats that will be covered in this area and your discount on additional copies beyond the number of free copies you're given. If you're working with an agent, they will likely insert a clause somewhere in the contract towards the end that specifies their commission on a net receipts of the book, and also specifies the gratis copies that they need.
Speaker 2:
So those are common clauses. I'm speaking at a pretty vague level because everyone's legalese is a little bit different, different legal bodies review, create and approve these contracts and different publishers have different house styles. And I think legal language can be daunting if you're not working with contracts all the time. I think as you're working on the contract and reading it, keep in mind that the ultimate purpose is that these are the clauses that are needed to turn the manuscript into an object and to get that into the market. If you have questions about the contract, ask your editor. If you have pain points, you can raise them now. Editors may not be able to move on everything. So royalties, you might not be able to move on, but they probably can do something for extra images or tables. They can interpret clauses where you have questions and generally assist.
Speaker 2:
When authors receive conflicting advice, there's a risk for confusion. So I think there can be a tendency to want to compare a contract to a peers or ask mentors for information. And I think what's safer is to ask your peers and networks what their experiences have been like. What sort of seems common to them, but keep in mind that every book has a different audience and a different set of specs. So a book published 11 years ago before the financial crisis, eReaders and the end of library acquisition budgets, that is going to just be a different expectation for sales and for contracts. And books published now, the specs of say an edited collection versus a monograph, those can look different. And so while it's good to be aware of these concepts, your editor is the person who can actually move towards solving your pain points, who can actually negotiate and move things in a way that works for the book's audience market and for you.
Speaker 2:
So there are several things that aren't going to be defined in a contract typically, or may not be. For example, is it an advanced or a full contract? That is often not spelled out in the agreement. If you have an advanced contract for your partial submission or for a strong manuscript that's still needs a final round of revisions and peer review, you can often sign that contract and that contract is the only contract you'll sign. There won't be another full contract issued to you at a later date. It'll just be understood that the publisher has accepted it for publication and it's moved now from advanced to full.
Speaker 2:
The price is something that can't be in a contract because the markets are changing and it needs to reflect the needs of the audience when the book comes out in press. Usually for us, a book publication timeline from final submission to publication data's about 10 to 12 months. And so things fluctuate and it just can't be known in advance. Formats of the book may or may not be in the contract. Some contracts will say, this we'll publish in paper, cloth and E simultaneously, others will be silent on it. And that tends to be a house style I would say. Like Rebecca was saying, there's a lot of thinking about your audience and at this point you would have been in conversation with your editor. You can definitely ask what formats are you thinking? How do you envision this book coming together? There is of course the cloth and eBook plan. There's also simultaneous cloth paperback and electronic publication plans. These tend to be more for sales, for books with high adoption market. And there's many good reasons for publishing a book in one way or another.
Speaker 3:
It's just worth saying with that [inaudible 00:45:02] our contracts will always include hardback, paperback and eBook because even if we are publishing initially and hard back and eBook, we nearly always publish a paperback usually about 18 months to two years down the line. So that contract will cover everything. It's also worth saying that for us, there's no kind of the advance or not. If you've got a contract, you've got a contract with us.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so they sort of have style differences in this process. And then the eBook is a format that I think gets a little bit neglected, but it's worth thinking about off the top because that at least for us, that is a sector that is growing. It's really quite exciting. Ebooks, they're pretty much guaranteed. Ebooks are often made in the production process. And so we have it. It's very, very standard at this time.
Speaker 2:
And publishers work with a range of different clients. So some publishers host their own eBooks and sell directly. They can also simultaneously sell via Amazon and other point of sale places and partner with groups or companies like EBSCO or ProQuest or nonprofits like J store and Muse to license content to academic libraries. And we see a very high library interest in eBook collections, more so than cloth formats. So when you're looking into your publisher and see who they partner with, it's nice to look at that kind of at this stage and anticipate the different platforms that your eBook will be on. If there's a platform that you know is important to you, you can see if the publisher is working with them now and see if that's a partnership that might be established at some point. That is my summary I think, of the common things in contracts. I'm happy to take, of course, any questions about it, but I think at this stage I will turn it back over to Vincent.
Vincent:
Wonderful, thank you so much. It's been really helpful to hear similarities and some distinctions for publishers. If I could just add very briefly as the editor of a book series, I think series have been alluded to a little bit in each publisher thinks of book series in different ways. The American Academy of Religion has five or so a book series that it works in relationship with Oxford University Press to publish because there are particular areas that they would like to see scholarship in religion advanced that would be a benefit to the field as a whole, if there was pretty great emphasis on these fields. And so the series that I edit is on, so second order questions in the study of religion around theories and methods and some new approaches it's covered reflection during the study of religion, but one of the benefits to both the AR series, and I think book series more generally is that series editors tend to be colleagues, right?
Vincent:
So I'm an expert in theories, the methods and the study of religion. I teach courses on this all the time. I'm a faculty member at at an institution like many authors. And I also don't do this all day. I don't have an email box full of book proposals. In fact, I think all of the AR series wished we were getting more proposals, so we can have a different sort of relationship. And I have a different sort of quantity of time that I can spend working and engaging with authors.
Vincent:
Of course, everything has to ultimately go through Oxford University Press in the series and the books are treated just like any other Oxford University Press book in terms of the peer review process, in terms of the production and marketing. But in this series in particular, and in any series you get the added benefit of being associated with a family of books, right? They have things in common. And in this case that have the American Academy of Religion improvement tour and some marketing capacity behind them. But just very briefly before opening to, I'm sure that many questions from the audience, I wonder if I could ask each panelist, if you could share two tips, a do and a don't that you'd like to see from prospective authors or in working with authors?
Speaker 3:
For me, a do is keeping touch with your editor because for us even if it's because there's a delay or there's an issue, we want to know what's going on. We want to have regular contact is important for us. We're not going to tell anyone off. We realize everyone's got lives and things happen. So do definitely keep in touch like that we want regular contact with our authors. And understand, I would say, do understand that it's in both of our interests for your books to be a success. So we want to do everything we can to make the processes simple and easy and build a good rapport with our authors. So we see it very much as obviously we're working together. So just keep in regular touch. I would say they're my tips.
Speaker 4:
I agree with that wholeheartedly. And if I didn't have to come up with a different one, [inaudible 00:50:24].
Speaker 3:
Got it there first.
Speaker 4:
Do's, this is one do that I was just thinking about it. A lot of proposal forms will ask for comparable titles for your project. This is requesting titles that are within the same discourse that have been published preferably in the not too distant past. This portion of the proposal form for most presses is I think often misunderstood. It's often assumed by the author that if there's too much competition than a publisher will not really be interested in publishing that book, which is not the case at all. The purpose of that section is to show, demonstrate that you are aware of the state of the discourse of your field and that you know who your interlocutors are and the nature of the conversation that's occurring within your field.
Speaker 4:
And so really a tell for any editor reading a proposal, if somebody either leaves that part blank or states titles that to our minds are way outside of the discourse that we imagine your book being. It's an indication of where the author is situated within in relation to that discourse. So do certainly think about who you're really engaging with, which thinkers you're really engaging with when you're producing that part of it. And don'ts, in terms of don't, this kind of dovetails off it, is to really don't be shy. We all went into this, I mean, I don't want to speak for everybody, but everybody went into this because they're interested in the field and they want to have conversations about the work that you're doing. And so don't be shy about talking to them about it because those conversations will only benefit the book in the long run.
Speaker 1:
I have two do's and one don't, sorry. Well, one is know that the editor you're dealing with is assessing your project in the context of a huge number of projects. And depending on if they do send it out for review, if it's sort of a mixed review, sometimes there are other projects that have to fill that slot and that can fill that slot at the moment. So there's kind of a lot of decision making going on by the editor and her peers, her team about which manuscripts to accept. And so there's a whole layer of decision making that goes on.
Speaker 1:
So if in the end, your project is declined, get up and send it out again, make sure you try to improve it if you've got peer reviews, but a lot of the times, the decision to decline is, even after review goes through, especially if it's a mixed review, don't be depressed. Don't stop, get it back out, okay? Because there are other publishers who are looking for just that kind of work.
Speaker 1:
Also press has changed their programs every once in a while. So don't have a stereotypical idea of what a press does. They're always developing new areas and new editors, so try to stay on top of that. Do develop your platform. That means get out there and market your book once it's out. You're the best marketer for your book, your press-
Speaker 1:
Your book once it's out. You're the best marketer for your book, your press ideally should be helping you and doing all the right things and expected things. But if you're not on Twitter, there are some fantastic scholarly communities around Twitter in religious studies, and get out there and make it known that your book-- give talks, tell your friends. Try to participate once the book comes out, don't just sigh and go to bed.
Speaker 1:
The don't would be don't be rude. I'm sure no one in this room would be rude, but you'd be amazed at people who are working very hard to try and get everything exactly right, and then no appreciation is shown in a way that is not going to endear you to anyone at the publisher. That doesn't mean you don't go for what you need and want at all. It's just that be appreciative too.
Speaker 6:
I would say this is sort of a proposal tip of, do name some titles on the publishers list that you're excited about, that you're in conversation with. It's helpful for us to know that you've looked at the list, that you do see yourself in conversation here, and that is just a nice tool for making your match. Don't go over your word count, because that is something that will have downstream implications. If anything, maybe suggest more words if you have to, but by the time you're revising this book, you give your most honest estimate and be able to cut words rather than going over.
Speaker 7:
Wonderful, thanks. That's lots of helpful advice, and we have plenty of time for questions.
Speaker 8:
[inaudible 00:55:50].
Speaker 7:
Oh?
Speaker 8:
In addition to the sheet that was just passed out with [Beth's 00:01:58] resources for publishing one's dissertation. Even though I imagine there was a lot out there in terms of how to publish a journals can you recommend any one source that would summarize and encapsulates where you [inaudible 00:02:15]. Whether it's a book, whether it's a website, whether it's a whatever?
Speaker 1:
I'm not sure how up to date that list is, but the book by... I can't remember. There are some really great books that encapsulate all of this.
Speaker 8:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I...
Speaker 13:
[crosstalk 00:56:37] but publishing. I think there's one called Insight Book publishing [crosstalk 00:56:43]. But I think the author has completely gone out of my head. Obviously we have a lot of our own guidelines specifically for us, like on our website-
Speaker 8:
Insight Publishing does.
Speaker 13:
Yeah.
Speaker 8:
Actually also-- I'm sorry go on.
Speaker 6:
Yeah, the recommendation would be also From dissertation to book by Bill Germano. I feel like the university of Chicago press should start paying it royalties. It's a great read. It talks about audience, it talks about bits, and it also talks about the nuts and bolts of pulling out a lit review and really foregrounding your own voice in your research.
Speaker 1:
That's the one,
Speaker 8:
would you do me a favor so I don't take up time. Would you please just write down the short cut of it, and I can move it up from there?
Speaker 6:
Sure. Yep. I can hand that to you after.
Speaker 1:
it's a book by Bill Germano.
Speaker 6:
It don't look fantastic-- dissertation.
Speaker 1:
That's the one.
Speaker 8:
I did not see that.
Speaker 6:
All good.
Speaker 8:
Insight Publishing, anybody else?
Speaker 1:
Talk to editors.
Speaker 8:
Okay, thank you. That's all I wanna know.
Speaker 7:
I think generally most of us probably recommend from dissertation to book on a regular basis.
Speaker 8:
Okay, Okay, thank you.
Speaker 9:
Is Insight Book publishing Angus Books?
Speaker 13:
Yes, it might be because yeah he runs the other masters in book publishing.
Speaker 17:
There's the question over here.
Speaker 12:
Yeah, I know it's common at my institution at many institutions for dissertations to need to be submitted, to Proquest for some kind of online database edifice. You talked about hurdles, advice about how to handle that process where it doesn't tanks what appeals to publishers and editors, yeah, [Inaudible 00:58:23]
Speaker 6:
it's very common. And I think that kind of repository is not so much of a hurdle because your final manuscript is going to be very different. You're going to be writing for a broader audience at this point. You're revising the dissertation so much that, well, maybe the research is there, you're, the authority answering your questions in a way that is not considering your committee. It's not considering these dissertation elements. So usually we're not too concerned about that. What is more anxiety provoking for me is when people publish articles in journals throughout, because that can risk taking the core insights, the core knowledge you've produced in your book and putting that into a journal format can then dilute the book's impact. So I think in general, that dissertation piece is pretty expected, but be cognizant of what your journal audience is versus your book audience.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we used to, when they first started warehousing the, the dissertations and ProQuest, we wondered what the impact would be, but now we're not really worried about it at all. You should, I think request the longest embargo they allow, which might be five years. But other than that, it has not been an issue, but exactly, as you said, you know, we don't want to publish raw dissertations. We want to publish things that have been thoroughly enlarged, revised, and we'll make a different kind of impact. And I also will tie my authors, not to the word, dissertation in their acknowledgements. Like I wanna thank my dissertation advisors-- practical reason. Actually there are library collection librarians who, if they look at the balance, they see the word dissertation. They may not order it for their library, and we're not trying to hide that. It was based on decisions.
Speaker 1:
I thank my mentors. Thank my teachers. You know, that's fine. But also psychologically, you are now moving into the world of your peers. You are no longer a graduate student. You shouldn't think of the project as a dissertation anymore, so.
Speaker 17:
Can I just ask you, if you all heard from changing the title of it? I remember they hear advice that they might not be the same.
Speaker 1:
It's never the same.
Speaker 13:
I don't know. Usually it's changed.
Speaker 17:
Great. Yes, in the front.
Speaker 14:
So, in my dissertation I've decided not to pursue publishing. Teaching and continued research have kinda gone in different directions. So there's kind of a gap there between dissertation and then what I'm putting together as a book proposal, is that something that could be considered an impediment,
Speaker 1:
not at all. There are a lot of dissertations that should never get published and in that you would be do well to start developing a new book idea if a no longer interests you.
Speaker 13:
Not all books need to be based on your dissertation.
Speaker 14:
I didn't know if there was some advantage from a publisher's perspective. Okay, this person's situation was really hot and now they're publishing something else and that's great. Or this person's dissertation was kind of
Speaker 1:
yeah. All of that, all of that as possible. There's no one way.
Speaker 14:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 14:
All right, that helps, thanks.
Speaker 17:
The second row.
Speaker 15:
Yeah, I just want to follow up on journal articles and how we address that in a prospectus. If we address that in prospectus, if we have a couple of pieces of the journal.
Speaker 1:
Yep, yep.
Speaker 15:
A couple of chapters that averge of it is in journal form.
Speaker 6:
Yeah these kinds of, I think, general guidelines that we've been alluding to on sites tend to have a line in there. That's is there any research being published elsewhere? And that's a great place to identify that. Usually I think for me, like if I see two journal articles, that's the max that I would expect to see, to know where they're published. That can be very helpful. I think in the proposal is a great time to also explain how they differ from the focus of your research. So you can say this is drawn from the same body of research that answers these questions. The book itself matters because it's addressing these separate questions. Yeah. I think that's where I would talk about that.
Speaker 15:
Can you just ask one quick follow up? Would you suggest the author getting the permission before the submission, the after script [ inaudible 01:02:54].
Speaker 13:
so is for like you're including journal articles within your manuscript, the chapters that previously yeah. It's something we actually advise against the republishin. If it's already been published elsewhere in the manuscript purely because obviously that content is out there and it's accessible, you know, in a way you're kind of selling it again, if that makes sense, not to say that it doesn't happen of cases, but really because we want that book to be a coherent whole is thinking about what can you add to that? How can you develop it and say, that the book is, but it's always good if you have got permission to make a note of that. Cause we need to be aware.
Speaker 17:
I personally like to see that there's an article or two that's already been published that is incorporated in the manuscript. Cause it demonstrates that some of the ideas in the book have already started getting some kind of traction.
Speaker 17:
But I think most publishers will have this book, but there is a policy of the limit to the amount of previously published material. So for us, it would be about 25% of the cumulative manuscript. But if it's anywhere below that, I don't ever say people look at it. I don't have any concerns about. If it's more than that, then you will have a conversation about how maybe to bring the percentage down or whether the, the concept of the book has to be retheorized, rethought. But in terms of your question about getting the permissions before, I generally suggest that you don't go to the trouble of getting the permission until you have a contract, but a few things that you should also keep in mind while you're doing all of this is that there are certain publishers that have become kind of strict about their permissions of previously published materials, particularly when it comes to electronic use.
Speaker 17:
So there are some different policies out there with regard to granting permission, to like for instance, on our platform, we allow chapter by chapter downloads and there are some concerns that certain publishers will not grant permission for publishers that use that kind of model. I think because that obviously it duplicates the work in a much more accessible way. So that's just something to keep in mind when you're considering which journals to publish with. And I'm sure there was something else that was gonna say with regard to this as well, but I don't remember what else, so.
Speaker 8:
Yeah, just a quick question. You've have in terms of words to use when designating and audience. I think of scholarly and general, periods and clause, but what other terms that are used these days that you're looking for when someones describing the audience [inaudible 01:06:13].
Speaker 9:
definitely an indication of within the subject areas where it is of use? So the readership if there's interdisciplinary appeal, if between different fields. So talk of that for us, if there's any potential students is a big one to mention if there is any use for courses that doesn't have to be an adopted textbook, but if there is going to be interest, you know, it might be on a further reading list or referred to or articles from it or contribution from it might be. So definitely, I mean, it's really difficult to general readership is so big, you know, it's very rare that a book is gonna have academic appeal ad a general appeal. So you need to be really realistic about who you see picking up. And using-
Speaker 8:
So, you'd say in general, it should be much more specific-
Speaker 9:
Yeah, it's trying to be more specific in who you see reading it. Because sometimes when we see general, we think more on the trade side of it. So a nonacademic reader with just a general interest, and as academic publishers, I know some, some publishers do some trade titles, but for us rightly our focus is that academic. So, it's just really important to try and be as precise as you can be. It often is with the review process that, you know, the market might change. We might be aware of a slightly different market, but it's really important for us to see who the author sees picking up in using that book.
Speaker 15:
I have a question also about audience [ inaudible 01:07:48]. When considering a proposal, do the publishers commit it taking into consideration how many books they sold and what is the cut off? You would get a proposal let's say oh, you might not be running 500 books sold with this title, so this is not a project that is financially feasible for me. So is there a cut off where you look at your manuscript and say this probably isn't going to be financially convenient for us?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the print run and the title budget are all always thought about, but most publishers have, because our mission is to publish groundbreaking scholarship in fields that we're invested in. If there's a wonderful book that we know, we'll probably only sell five or 600 copies in its lifetime. We, we have with our eyes open, we will take on, but each kind of book has its own yes, we consider it in, within its own sphere. You know what I mean? You can't generalize about it, but that we do consider how many books we wanna publish in which area, how many copies we think they'll sell, you know, and how we can make it all balance out correctly.
Speaker 15:
Can I ask a follow up? So, what's a number that would make you feel comfortable-
Speaker 1:
Can't generalize about that
Speaker 13:
Every type of book will have different expectations.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 13:
That's why we have different publishing models, there's no one model that fits all. With every single book, we're thinking about that book what are we, what are our expectations from that individual project? It may have similarities to others, but there is definitely no model that kind of fits exactly.
Speaker 1:
The more narrow book is usually a smaller the audience is and we always have to keep those kinds of things in mind and balancing the list to be able to continue publishing books. But it's really important for authors to expectations, to match, you know, to understand, to talk with your editor and your publisher about the expectations are. If you're publishing a monograph on, let's see a certain kind of say, black evangelical developments right after the civil war. Know who your audience is, who's gonna be interested in that book. And, and also publishers are much more interested in books, again, that you may be focused as you are in a dissertation on some wonderful original research, but do be aware of engaging the bigger questions and theoretical considerations that are current in that field, and expand your book to be bold in that regard. And then it'll probably sell to more people and you're at your editors and publishers they know how to look for that kind of thing. That's what they'll be looking for.
Speaker 17:
Yes sir.
Speaker 16:
Yeah, you mentioned groundbreaking scholarship when people describe their projects or their significance to you in the emails, should they err on the side of humility or Roboto?
Speaker 1:
That's such a great question.
Speaker 6:
Yeah. Don't be humble. This is your moment. This is you're the author. And you have the authority. I think you lead into that, especially yeah. With the credentials you've earned in the PhD. And the more hyped you are about the book, the more the authors or the editors gonna pick up on that and be able to convey that internally, so
Speaker 7:
I have two things to say one also the previous question as well. We'll go with that afterwards. The bravado, I think is fine. I agree. But, but to a point, there's like-
Speaker 16:
The best Harry Potter idea.
Speaker 7:
that exactly...
Speaker 6:
There's a level that's ridiculous-
Speaker 7:
yeah, being conscious of the solipsm like how, large the audience for academic monographs tend to be.
Speaker 7:
The next Harry Potter is something of a red flag, when, when you read something like that on a proposal, but certainly don't be too humble. With regard to the question on threshold of sales, I think you might have a slightly different answer than other presses do because of the business model is so heavily focused on digital package sales, the pressure on each individual title to sell a certain number of copies is a lot less than it used to be.
Speaker 7:
And so for us, as long as the book and the title adds value to the package in a content sense, it adds a certain dimension of disciplinary coverage to the package. Then it will still be a value to the press. And so the question of whether it will sell 200, 300, 400 copies is not quite as important as whether it's a valuable high quality piece of scholarship. And this, I think is a very significant shift in the publishing industry. It used to be that everybody in this room, if they were producing a proposal, they would be asked to make it as general as possible. Used to be the case because it would need to appeal to as broad an audience of researches as it could. And I don't think it's as much the case now because of this kind of modeling.
Speaker 7:
So it allows your work to live and exist in the way that it was initially intended. Now, that's not to say that if it's, could be an interest to other disciplines and to a broader audience than you've imagined. Say when you're writing your dissertation, you should certainly expand in that direction. It's not to say that it's bad, but it's not as much of a feature of a proposal as it used to be.
Speaker 17:
Oh, yes [Louise 01:14:40].
Speaker 15:
You've been speaking about feels and locating your research, and I was hoping you might have some advice for people advice for people with interdisciplinary projects with interlocutors and diverse fields, methodologies, and objects. [ inaudible 00:20:55]
Speaker 7:
I was just talking, I have an answer to that, but I was just talking. So I want to have other people.
Speaker 13:
I'd say we're always very keen to hear about interdisciplinary areas. I think in general, religious studies is very interdisciplinary. So it's the nature of the subject area and being the publisher of the size of [Newsfix 01:15:19] and its a power group, and we're publishing across such a range of topics. We see it as an advantage to have those interdisciplinary projects where we can make sure that we are using those contacts that we have in marketing in different fields. So it's important to say, books that sit with me within religion, we're not ignoring where else they may appeal and where else where we should be sending them, but it is sometimes the question is, well, where does it sit?
Speaker 13:
So who do I approach initially? And they'll say, well, it's not mine. And then the next day they'll say, well, it doesn't sit with me, but actually often there is a natural place and editors will within a company talk with each other, see where it fits with what else we publish and, and kind of work together. So it's not kind of we are very much working as a whole to make sure that those projects reach the different fields. So I don't want anyone to think it's a disadvantage if their projects are interdisciplinary in nature
Speaker 1:
I feel the same way we approach it the same way. sometimes it can, it does need a place to sit at home. And often we'll go by you were trained in and who you hang out with. That tells us a little bit about where it should sit, but we like books that will appeal to say people interested in Brazilian studies and religious studies. And also the editors contribute to each other's lists in a lot of ways. You want to go with a publisher, who's going to recognize that and get the word out to the various audiences that your book needs to go to.
Speaker 13:
And sometimes that decision will also be made on the review process. Cause we'll try and get scholars from the different fields obviously to review. And then sometimes that will give an indication in that feedback. I'll actually naturally we think the readership will be great in this field; therefore, we want to make sure it that on that list there. T.
speaker 1:
That's really your responsibility to think through what you mean by interdisciplinary. You know, you can't just say, Oh, this is an interdisciplinary work. What does that mean?
Speaker 13:
As I say, cause most titles have some intense-
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 13:
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 17:
Yes.
Speaker 18:
I'm wondering about image thresholds. As one who works with visual culture, I just wonder if certain process work for images or if images might be a factor in not taking up time?
Speaker 6:
I think that depends a lot on the list. I think what we've been saying about looking at your bookshelf and seeing what's there, if you are doing art books, there's art publishers who will be doing that. And if so, say you're an art historian and you want heavy stock paper and really full bleeds of your art. There are specific publishers who do that, and that is a smaller group. So if I were to get an proposal for an exhibit catalog or something, I would send it to someone who does art history professionally because they have the production team and investment to support that kind of project for black and white images in a monograph that tends to be not as beautiful, but just as useful in a research monograph. And that is more within our wheel house to include. But even with that, I know we do not do many books with inserted galleries. It's just not really in our wheelhouse. So I like to say, look at your shelf and see who's publishing the books that you were drawn to, that you would like to emulate.
Speaker 1:
We, we think of visual evidence as evidence and you don't want pictures just because you happen to have a couple of pictures and be nice. They should work for your argument. Ideally I don't want to be too strict about it, but they do cost and they take a paper. So they do add to the overall costs and do not underestimate the time it's going to take you to get the right re reproduction quality scan and permission. So some books are like, we're doing a material religion book about Jewish crafting. It's going to be in. Obviously you need pictures so we allowed, I guess, 30 black and white pictures for that book. Visual evidence isn't really so crucial, maybe five black and white, maybe one per chapter, just to sort of open the chapter and set the scene, or maybe it doesn't need any pictures at all. So it's kind of by book, but if it really is a heavily illustrated book that needs a lot of illustrations, there might be a need for a subvention to help with that depending, especially at color illustrations. Right.
Speaker 17:
Can you all say more about subventions? Sometimes the question is about whether you should say you have some subvention available when you approach an editor or if you should wait for the editor to ask?
Speaker 13:
I would like to hear, I usually told more than I would ask if that makes sense. I find most of my authors will tell me if there's the potential for subvention in quite an early stage.
Speaker 6:
We can support grant proposals. And if there's internal applications, it depends on the context of course, but do let people know because it's going to impact the book at some point anyway it's not going, but nobody is making the decision to publish based on a subvention.
Speaker 1:
That's the key, yeah.
Speaker 6:
So he's not hurting you to.
Speaker 8:
Define the term subvention, please?
Speaker 1:
Money awarded from maybe your department or institution or a granting body to support publication of a book.
Speaker 20:
...Or a granting body to support publication of a book.
Speaker 21:
So it could be used for, say, an index, a cover image, [crosstalk 01:21:09].
Speaker 20:
Their party permissions to republish.
Speaker 21:
Open access is another one.
Speaker 22:
Production.
Speaker 23:
This is probably a good time to talk about open access a little bit. Yeah. Subventions... The amount that people usually will have for a subvention doesn't usually support open access, but there are different versions of subvention funding: some that will go toward the purchase of permission, some that will go toward the actual cost of the production of the books, some intended to buy a certain number of books post-publication. I think anybody is willing to have that information upfront, but just with the recognition that the book will be evaluated on the same standards, regardless of whether a subvention is available or not.
Speaker 23:
So you can mention it from the beginning that you have the funding available, but it will still have to go through the same rigorous peer review process. And the conversation about that kind of payment will only happen after that peer review process is complete, in order to just support and honor the integrity of the review process as well. Open access is something that I'm sure a number of us have been moving toward. The idea about open access essentially is that it allows your work to be available freely through online platforms. And it's based on a certain amount of funding that will probably depend on which press you go with, what they request for making the book open-access, or even potentially a chapter of the book. And the idea of the cost is really to compensate for the lack of sales that the publisher will have from not selling your book. Usually the open access books will be available for free online, and then they'll also print a number that will be available to purchase at usually a low price.
Speaker 23:
But it's just to cover the cost of the production. Open-access very rarely covers the cost of production of physical books and the cost for a general size monograph, say Palgrave, is $17,000 and the amount for an individual chapter, or say a journal article is closer to $2,500. There are various funding bodies that are very interested in providing funding like this, particularly in Europe, if you have access to European funding bodies, there're also movements by some funding bodies to make all of the research that they support to be open access. And so you should look into it through your department or through various foundations that are related to the work that you do to see whether there is any kind of funding available.
Speaker 22:
Yeah, that's a good topic. There are experiments going on at various publishers. I think it's much more common in Europe and the U.K., A lot of movement for... Knowledge wants to be free. And it's really great. And just so you know, it doesn't have anything to do with the review and acceptance process. Your book is just reviewed exactly the same, just think of it more as a platform and a way to get the word out. But the ongoing problem is how to pay for that, the subvention, and that's something that Mellon Foundation is helping with various experiments right now in the U.S. But it's not solved yet.
Audience Member:
Thanks for this. So the one question about little requests and how annoying they are, and then another legal question. So, [inaudible 01:25:11] asking for footnotes to be footnotes rather than end notes, is that kind of a big ask? And then asking, say, for pictures to be on the text pages rather than added together in five pages of pictures, how annoying are these kinds of questions and requests?
Speaker 21:
They're not annoying. It's just the often we will have a model that we have to stick to. And there's a very good reason. We've moved away from footnotes and that's for the formatting for things like eBooks, we have to go with end notes. So often when we're doing things there're very practical reasons that may not be obvious for why we're doing them. And it is to make sure content is as usable as possible in multiple formats.
Speaker 21:
So there is never any harm in asking, we're always going to explain that. And The same goes for how images appear, there will often be a reason for things to be done in a certain way, but we obviously always want you to understand that and understand why we have the certain approach that we have. So I would say, just always ask, we get a lot of emails. So obviously if you've got queries, putting them together into one email is always appreciated so things can be dealt with together as opposed to multiple. But yeah, I would say just always keep in touch.
Audience Member:
The legal thing [inaudible 01:26:32] so I'm trying to write something that will have lots of copyright problems, maybe because of manuscripts and multiple people [inaudible 01:26:41] to publish this have... In house, where do I need to get legal advice from? Will the publisher have a lawyer and tell me, or do I need to come already, knowing what I need to do?
Speaker 22:
I think generally your publisher will give you a very good idea of what you need to do for permissions. They can't provide legal advice per se...
Speaker 23:
Well, they'll be able to tell you about their policies are, what kinds of permissions they require. There will be certain kinds of licenses depending on who you're getting the permissions from. And each publisher will have a policy on which kinds of permissions and licenses they'll accept. And so they'll be able to tell you that there might be cases where there's a little bit of ambiguity, but the publisher will oftentimes have some kind of rights expert at their, at the company who the editor can turn to if your situation is a little bit ambiguous.
Speaker 20:
It is rare for that rights manager to be a lawyer. Usually they have a lot of experience in it, but if there's a recommendation to go to legal counsel, your publisher will advise that you find someone who is an expert in that and work with that person.
Speaker 21:
And we do actually have informers of our big umbrella company lawyers that we can go to for particularly sensitive issues. We can seek legal advice.
Speaker 23:
We do as well. And I should say though, there are different levels of usage of that consulting, for instance, the major concern in most cases for publishing or any kind of media is issues of defamation and libel. And so if there are concerns about whether you're depicting something that would fall into the category of potential defamation, you should let the editor know immediately because they will, depending on the situation, they might require a legal read of the manuscript to see whether it opened them up to any kind of litigation. Frequently, a publisher will almost always side with the author if an author is accused of some kind of defamation. And so the publisher really wants to make sure that they're not going to be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees.
Speaker 20:
For sure.
Speaker 22:
But we can give you legal advice. We can draw on our university council for advice, but there may be a point where you have to spin off and get your own advice to help us.
Speaker 21:
I mean, if it's more around like permissions and things like that, we've got so much experience in dealing with those issues. We should be able to answer any queries that you've got. I'm sure that's the same across the board.
Audience Member:
Thank you all for this. I have two reaching out questions. So one is, if you're not quite ready to put together a book proposal, is it still okay to reach out to someone and say will I see you do this I'm generally in that same area, just sort of a probing question?
Speaker 21:
Absolutely.
Audience Member:
Okay, great.
Speaker 22:
Absolutely.
Speaker 21:
Definitely.
Audience Member:
And then if you are interested in a series that has academic series editors, do you reach out to those people? How do you choose which person, or do you still reach out to the editor [inaudible 01:30:06] ?
Speaker 21:
I would say that you can do either, obviously with series editors, if it comes to us, we're more than likely to pass it to the actual series that is initially first anyway, but either way it will get to that series and be assessed for it. So there's no harm in either approach, really, I would say.
Speaker 22:
And if you know the series editor or the scholar who's in charge, you should talk with them. But I think it can't hurt to send it to both the in house editor on the series editor, because we have conversations all the time. And that gives it a better chance of being discussed.
Audience Member:
Thanks for this. I was wondering if you could say any more about marketing or marketing support, obviously depending on the kind of book, but as you're in that matchmaking process for your editor, like what are the good questions to ask your editor who's [inaudible 00:10:01]?
Speaker 20:
So we will usually have marketing materials on the website to look at. So if the publisher has a catalog, you can usually download the PDF version of that, just at the outset, when you're doing research to see, do you like this material? Do you like how it's put together on the page when you're at conferences like this, it's a good time to see what the display might look like, who's there at the display. I'm trying to think of common places where things are marketed, right? It's a very robust piece of the puzzle and it looks a little bit different for everyone. And it's changing a lot in the digital era. So publicity... books go out to journals, they go out for reviews. If you're looking at a journal that you love, see if the books are getting reviewed, but there's a lot of case by case in there.
Speaker 21:
Yeah. Always worth asking, who do you send book... Are there journals that we automatically send books to? If you were to give a list, for example, how many would we be willing to send out for review copies completely depends on the type of book. Ask about the kind of support you would get if you're attending a conference, doing a talk, can we send flyers? Would we be able to promote on social media? I'd say authors are the best people to promote their books, as we've already said, but we want to be able to support that. So if you know you're attending something, let us know. We have a lot of books that we're taking care of. So, unfortunately, sometimes things get missed, but we want to hear from you. We want to know what we can be doing. So I think... Definitely worth asking, when you're talking to publishers, What can you do to help support me, promote my book? Do you do things like author interviews and that kind of thing?
Speaker 21:
Well, it's right to say that marketing is changing. It's changed so much in publishing constantly. Also worth finding out not obvious marketing. So for example, the marketing we do to libraries may not be... Our network may not be obvious from the outside, but, it's important to learn what are we doing to get your books into libraries? So any kind of questions like that, will give you an indication of what the publisher can offer.
Speaker 22:
Yeah, does the publisher come to this meeting, for example? If you're talking about scholarly books, other kinds of books, that are a whole different kind of picture, but not a whole different picture, but they have other stuff involved, but are they at the meeting? Do they do program ads, and then yeah, ask the editor what's the basic suite of marketing services that you should expect to receive, including submitting for prizes in your field, getting review copies to like 10 main journals in the field. We have a very extensive marketing questionnaire that goes to the authors after the board meeting. And I always have to say, finish your manuscript first before you do the marketing questionnaire, even though they want it back in two minutes. But then we really take those ideas seriously, what you had on there. It's really extensive. Yeah. And talk to people that have published with various publishers and see how they... Although people will usually complain.
Speaker 21:
And it is about being realistic about that marketing as well. You have to think all of us are publishing so many titles. So obviously your book is incredibly important to you and we want to be able to support that. But there's only so much that can be done. And so actually us helping you promote is probably is the most productive thing that we can do.
Speaker 20:
You just mentioned how marketing is changing. One example that I thought is kind of fun to think about from even the outside is things like metadata are... Earlier, we're pushing out new metadata for preorders because we know that Amazon has algorithms that they run that are going to trigger purchases based on keywords, things like that. So you don't see that from the outside, but that is going on for publishing today. And as marketing moves into these digital platforms, it's always helpful just to ask where are you with digital marketing? What do those campaigns look like? That moment that you're sending in your material.
Speaker 21:
Probably hear a lot about discoverability, I feel like that's the key word.
Audience Member:
How does an edited volume proposal differ from a monograph proposal and what is an appropriate timeline for reaching out prior to the collective volume being together?
Speaker 21:
We always say, same as for an authored book, as soon as possible for us to hear from people. The only thing that really differs in the proposal is obviously information on who's involved and who's contributing. So if they're already kind of confirmed and for the volume for a little bit about those that contributed, it's really the only difference to the core elements of the proposal...
Speaker 20:
Supporting material. Like personally, I would love to get chapters at least very strong drafts from everyone, because that way they all do get peer review and attention a little bit. Sometimes it also cuts down on awkwardness. So if a reviewer can read all the chapters at once, they can say this idea for chapter really isn't working early on and you can have that conversation with the contributor about cutting it or revising it, or how you're going to handle that before the book is put under an advanced contract and before it get scheduled.
Speaker 23:
And oftentimes volume editors considering an edited volume have a kind of Catch 22 problem because they want to get people signed onto the project, but sometimes people won't sign on until they know that the project has been accepted. So for that reason, I actually would suggest you get in touch with an editor, and a potentially interested press earlier on in the process so that they can say to you whether it be of interest to them, whether it be in principle open to reviewing it when it came in, so that when you go and do a call for chapters, you can share that, that you have this kind of preliminary interest from a particular publisher and it'll, grant some more have to request.
Speaker 23:
We will also send out a proposal for review for edited collections to send out a proposal, as long as a significant amount of the table of contents is relatively certain, in principle committed to. And we always prefer to have abstracts at the time, but we'll definitely review a proposal and potentially even grant a contract on the basis of a proposal and a sense of what the typical contents will be. And then we review the entire manuscript before we proceed with publication.
Speaker 21:
I would say we are the same. So we will review on a proposal and all contributions don't have to be formally agreed for us to offer a contract.
Speaker 22:
And we do only a few edited volumes. And we prefer to talk with you early on so we can help you think about it as a book that isn't just a collection of essays. So there has to be a guiding vision for why this project can be done in this way and take advantage of the fact that there's many minds at work in it. You know what I mean? Rather than just, Oh, this collection of papers we happen to have from a conference or something. So although they can be chunked now, sold one by one. So it's a little better than it used to be, the chapters. [inaudible 01:39:25]
Audience Member:
A related question for a full author [inaudible 01:39:28] Is there anything that we should know that might not be obvious?
Speaker 22:
You mean with two full authors who will sign the contract? Yeah. Well no, not really. For us, there needs to be a reason why you're co-authoring it. And hopefully you'll get along until the very end, because we've all probably seen coauthored books where the people aren't even talking between them. And that's a problem.
Speaker 20:
I was going to say, trust your partner.
Speaker 22:
Yeah.
Audience Member:
I've heard stories about certain publishers taking longer than others to complete the review process, and then [inaudible 01:40:08] so, is there a resource available where we can check to see publishers that are... We're not going to get blown off and take several years to publish, is there, other than anecdotally, stories? Because sometimes you can check to see which publishers do the project in a reasonable amount of time and where if you submit you won't [inaudible 01:40:36] get stuck for 2 years and...?
Speaker 21:
I would say talk, just get in touch with the publishers to ask them. I would hope they wouldn't be stuck for several years. I don't know where you go, but I can say from Routledge point of view, if we're talking about the production process, our books take around six months, there are variations on that. And we're very lucky in that we don't... Although our books go through an approval editorial board process, that that is a weekly process. We're not waiting for set times for that. So we're quite a fluid, we've got quite a fluid process of things, kind of constantly rolling. Presses each are very different. So I'm not sure, but I can only give an indication of Routledge is like, and I'd say that I would hope that it wouldn't happen. If you haven't heard from us, I always say give us a nudge after a period of time, because it may be just in the mass of emails that we've got, but we would hope not to hold up.
Speaker 22:
Yeah. I think, I think even though we're swamped, you need to expect professional... There is no source for that information. No. If somebody wants to do an ethnography on it, that would be interesting. Ask your friends. But you should expect professional responses and yes. Give a nudge if you haven't heard you certainly shouldn't be waiting two years. That's crazy.
Speaker 21:
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 20:
But also I think there are some things that may not be told in anecdotal stories, did the person hold it up in copy edits for a month and not move it back to the types that get to the editor? Did the author refuse to move on the cover? So there's two sides of things in these stories. So if that gives you any comfort, I guess. I can't think of a project that's been held up for like a three to five year... That seems terrible. I'm sure people can share those stories and that's not...
Speaker 23:
Horror stories will very rarely be representative of a press's mode of operation. It'll usually be some kind of very significant exception because the presses that don't do this very well will probably go out of business. Frankly, there's so much pressure in this industry to produce good research and to produce good books quickly in order to have a reliable volume and lists. So there's every incentive for them to do good work. I should also say that there are various phases to the whole process as we've been talking about. And so it can be held up or be, or be very efficient at any stage of that. Right?
Speaker 23:
So let's say from the moment you send in your proposal one element of the response time from the editor will be whether it's during conferences and how much they're dealing with at that moment, there are various busy times. Oftentimes at the end of the year, editors are dealing with their final year contracts. So sometimes they can't get to new proposals in as timely a manner as they otherwise would. So that's the first phase, what your response time from the editor is.
Speaker 23:
The other is the review process, which tends to be the largest range, because it really is dependent on the schedule and the efficiency of the peer reviewers. So typically when we send out a book for review, we asked for the peer review to be turned in around four to six weeks. Sometimes that turns into six to eight weeks and sometimes a reviewer ends up punting it after that six week mark is over and so it can be extended or shortened depending on, on the efficiency of the reviewer.
Speaker 23:
And then of course there's the revision period. And that depends on the author's ability to do those revisions. In some ways, what's interesting about this is a production schedule, oftentimes for these large commercial presses the production schedule is the most reliable because it's so streamlined. And at that point, most of the downstream issues will have been flagged or dealt with earlier on in the process. So that time period before the delivery of the final manuscript is really where the variables are most important. So to give you a range of what's typical, I've seen books be published... Our production schedule is very similar to Routledge's, five to six months, except also our pivots I mentioned it's very similar [crosstalk 01:45:33] for these smaller books, it's usually a lot faster for us it's three months.
Speaker 21:
Yeah, same for us.
Speaker 23:
So I would say that usually the review process is completed in two to three months, that first review process and the first decision, and then the production schedule is usually five to six months. So you're at least dealing with seven to eight months, I've seen books be published within seven or eight months of actually receiving a proposal and some sample material. I've seen it also take two or three years, sometimes even longer, depending on the type of project, if it's a big handbook project, it can sometimes take a lot longer because there are a lot more contributions. And so I would say the average is usually about a year, all things simply done from initial contact to the publication of the book. It might be different at different presses.
Speaker 21:
It really depends on the type of book.
Speaker 24:
Well, after a rich discussion and a variety of pieces of advice, one piece of advice stands out to me: don't be shy. So I want to make sure we have a few minutes for informal discussions as well, but before that, please join me in thanking our four panel members.