Hello, Colleagues,
I have seen many RG questions about getting a publisher for a text that you have written or that you propose to write.
My experience may not be typical and I have but one edited text to my credit but I am eager to help others. My edited interdisciplinary collection of essay is titled _Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars_ (2012) for McFarland Publishers. They are the major popular culture publishing firm in the US.
I am inviting people in at the start of an invited proposal to a multinational educational publisher. I was invited to propose a companion text on LITERATURE AND CLASS because of a review I did of another text. This convinced the publisher that I could create a research text for them.
STEP ONE: do reviews of other people's texts. If you do a review, say you are available to do more.
I invite you to watch this journey from start to conclusion of a project to publish a reference text with a major publisher. This should be a good discussion that takes us beyond the "what if I had a publisher" stage with no specifics involved.
Dear colleague Agniezka,
Yes, yes, and yes.
1) I have my own project that I gave a sample solicitation letter to illustrate how to do this soliciting of colleagues for chapters. And I certainly welcome more essay writers.
2) I am trying to map the experience of dealing with a large academic house--Routledge.
2) I am inviting other to come on board and share their experiences, say if mine are atypical. "Share" is the key. Going through the Ph.D. in rhetoric, we learned to be less isolated as individuals and to **envision audience.** The ability to know how to persuade a specific audience is a key not given to most schlars. Some questions here show that this skill is one that many would like to strengthen.
(I may be "setting myself up for a fall" as they say in th US because there is no guarantee of contract at this stage, but the process is still of educational value.)
My actual call for participation or "CFP:" (SAMPLE) CALL FOR CHAPTERS
I was invited by Routledge to compile an "ideal List" of contributing writers. They make no promise to use this list. Standard stage in the process. They have a long series of "Companions to Literature" texts.
(Note that this is in the field of literature, rhetoric, cultural studies)
Routledge is doing a series of literature companions. I have been requested to build a proposal for a Literature and Social Class companion text.
GOAL: The Literature and Social Class project will produce a text using social class as a lens through which to view literature.
VISION FOR TEXT
SPECIFICS: Literature is taken broadly to mean any country’s literary fiction writers, as distinct from anonymous folk tales, which are handled in other companion texts. Our essays will be in English but may come from any country’s literary output. Analysis of plays, poetry, and short or book-length fiction are included. Contemporary and past writing are both welcome (writing in the future is more difficult to access.)
The idea of intersectionality is important because class is not formed alone but with other demographic markers, such as race, gender, and culture. A class emphasis in rhetorical analysis will be one major method of inquiry, but other methods are welcome so long as they treat literature via a primarily class-based lens.
STYLE GUIDELINES
DRAFTS and Abstracts: We invite essays up to 8,000 words. MLA style is the format we will follow. Routledge asks for no detailed Works Cited but prefers end notes after each chapter. Together with MLA in-text citation, these will identify source materials for the essays.
Please send your idea for a chapter, abstract, or an already existing chapter. Routledge asked for an ideal list of contributors at the proposal stage, not just those with a chapter already in hand.
Questions?
Many thanks, Gloria McMillan, Editor
Email for ideas, communications, and drafts [email protected]
Nobody ever has a deadline until they sign a contract. I am soliciting chapters and writing the proposal now. I have yet to send the proposal to Routledge. It than can take a few weeks to be decided and we will probably have up to 6 months to revise and copy edit the collection.
BIG ISSUES:
INDEX--allow them to make one? It might be machine made and full of errors. Some colleagues advice no allowing the INDEX w/o right to review it before the book gets printed. I did the Bradbury index myself but this has many more pages.
Dear Respected Colleague Anjay kumar Mishra ,
What is not transparent in this discussion? Please tell that and I will attempt to answer.
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