Humanities & Social Sciences
Cambridge University Press is keen to evaluate proposals for books on subjects
in the humanities and social sciences. These notes are to help you to prepare
a proposal that can be fully, carefully and rapidly assessed.
About Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is an integral part of the University of Cambridge
and is constitutionally devoted to printing and publishing for 'the acquisition,
advancement, conservation and dissemination of knowledge in all subjects'. The
Press is governed by a University Syndicate, an official committee comprising
18 senior University academics from a wide variety of disciplines, which was
first established in the sixteenth century. The Press Syndicate meets every
two weeks during term time (and monthly during the vacations). At these meetings
the Press editors recommend proposals to the Syndicate for publication. When
a recommendation is accepted by the Syndicate, a contract is then offered to
the author(s) or editor(s).
Preparing your proposal
The function of the proposal is to convince the Press editor, referees and Press
Syndicate that the book you propose will be a valuable addition to the literature.
In essence, why should your book be published? Never simply assume the a priori
importance of what you intend to do. In general, the more you can tell us about
the book the better. We need to know the working title, your reasons for writing,
what the book will cover, the expected readership and information about you
and other authors or contributors.
Title
The choice of title is very important. The title defines the subject area, the
level at which you will write, and the relationship of this book to others in
this area. It will appear in catalogues and publicity listings, and in bibliographies
and reference lists and it may be the only indication of content, of crucial
importance to librarians, booksellers and other institutional customers. The
title should therefore be given careful thought and should be as informative
and descriptive as is compatible with a bold statement. If you are offered a
contract, your Press editor will expect to work with you on the final wording
for the title and subtitle.
Reasons for writing
It may be that we have asked you to write; it may be that the impetus has come
from your students or your colleagues; perhaps you yourself have felt the need
for a book on the subject for your own work; it may be that you teach a course
and want to produce a book to accompany it. You may have other reasons. Please
tell us why this is a good topic for you to write on at this time, and why you
feel motivated to write a book now.
Content
We need to know as much as possible about the proposed structure and contents
of the book. The subject area and the way you will present the topics should
be stated clearly. Any scheme you draw up at this stage will inevitably change
as writing proceeds and your book grows and develops, but the more detailed
your initial presentation, the better. As you prepare your outline, you may
find it useful to consider these questions:
- Why does a book need to be written on your proposed topic?
- What themes, concepts and ideas will you develop?
- How does your book differ from others in the area? What unique features or
focus does it have? What is the existing competition for your book? Please give
us details of the most relevant titles, indicating their relative strengths
and weaknesses.
- Is the book based on a course you teach? If so, please give details.
- How long, in words or printed pages, do you expect the finished book to be?
- Will the book be illustrated by line drawings, photographs, graphs or in any
other way? Will any of this material be in colour?
- Will it sit comfortably in one of the series of books on our list, or do you
consider it to be a stand-alone volume?
- If it is to be a textbook, please give details of the curricula to which it
relates, including course titles and level.
- Would your book compete with or complement others on similar subjects?
Please give a list of chapters and a paragraph or two about the content of each,
or at least detailed subsection headings. If you have already prepared one or
more sample chapters, we may ask to see these.
Readership
Please tell us about the readership you expect to reach with the book
Is the book primarily for
- academic specialists, practitioners or professionals in your field
- undergraduates, whether for course or reference usage
- advanced and/or graduate students
- a range of scholars or professionals in disciplines other than your own?
About the authors/editors
Please give a brief account of each author or editor's present academic interests
and position or professional affiliation, with a list of any recent publications
and any other information you think might help us. If the book is an edited
volume, please also provide the names and affiliations of each contributor,
together with an indication whether or not they have agreed to contribute to
the volume, at least in principle.
Level
The book you are going to write will most probably fit into one of the following
broad categories:
Monographs
Monographs are works of original scholarly research, engaging with other relevant
primary and secondary literature and pushing forward disciplines into new areas
of enquiry. Publication of the best and most important monographic work is central
to what Cambridge does as a University press. In selecting monographs we apply
extremely stringent criteria of ambition, significance and quality, and indeed
in many cases recommend to individual scholars (and particularly those who have
recently completed doctoral theses) that their research is more effectively
disseminated in article form in appropriate scholarly journals, rather than
as a book proper. We very rarely contract monographs on the basis of a proposal
alone: our referees need to see at least a substantial section of a completed
monographic typescript to make a considered evaluation.
Textbooks
A textbook is best defined as a book written for a college or university student.
It will be used to explain and expand the content of a particular lecture course
or series of courses which students are expected to attend. A textbook must
be an essential adjunct to a course and students will be strongly recommended
to buy it. Its coverage may be truly comprehensive or relatively specialised,
depending on the type of student to whom it will be directed. It should be sufficiently
wide in its appeal (and broad in its exemplification) to be suitable for courses
other than your own.
In your proposal, please indicate the courses for which your book may be appropriate.
Is the book for first year undergraduates, or for graduate students, for example?
What would typical courses for this readership be called?
It is particularly important to consider how your book relates to the competition.
How is your book superior to, or more up-to-date than existing texts? You may
wish to devote a special section to the strengths and weaknesses of the established
textbooks.
Multi-author or edited works
Edited works should be thorough and structured reviews of a major subject,
in which both the chapter topics and the contributors have been carefully selected
by the volume editor(s) to ensure that the resulting book is as comprehensive,
coherent and integrated a treatment of that subject as possible. Cambridge does
not publish conference proceedings per se, and if you are proposing to edit
a book based on an academic meeting or workshop, then it is essential that the
chapters are written expressly for the book and are not transcriptions of presentations,
that you have selected only the best contributions from the meeting, and have,
if necessary, supplemented these with specially commissioned chapters to ensure
that the book is fully rounded and cohesive.
For all edited works, please give us the contributors’ names and affiliations,
chapter titles and short abstracts of each chapter in the order in which they
will appear in the book. Have all the contributors been approached and/or agreed
at least in principle that they will contribute? Tell us how and why you have
selected the topics and contributors for the chapters and how they fit together.
How will you as editor ensure that the resulting chapters are of a consistent
standard and level? Please also indicate a timetable for contributors to submit
first drafts to you, and an estimate of when you think the volume will be in
final form and ready to send to the Press.
The above notwithstanding, the Press Syndicate is committed as general policy
to taking on fewer unsolicited edited volumes of the kind described, and in
such cases we now often recommend to potential editors that they consider dissemination
of their proposed articles as a special issue of an appropriate journal, rather
than as a book proper.
Reference books
This type of book collects together and summarises all the information available
in one area. That area may be wide or narrow, but it is important that it is
covered comprehensively. Currently there is a good demand for specialist dictionaries
and reference handbooks and manuals in most areas of the humanities and social
sciences.There has always been a demand for dictionaries, and as the boundaries
between traditional subjects become less well defined, the usefulness of specialist
encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, practical guides and other works of
reference becomes ever greater. Such books may be organised thematically, or
alphabetically. A proposal for this type of book should include a provisional
list of topics to be included and, if possible, some specimen pages. Please
also provide information on how you see the intended readership using the book.
What we don’t publish!
We do not publish new fiction, poetry or other forms of creative writing. We
do not publish autobiography or memoir. We do not publish overtly devotional
or religious tracts (except for the Bible), or political polemic. We do not
publish cookbooks, car handbooks or D-I-Y manuals. We do not publish highly
illustrated books for the general reader. Everything we publish must have some
educational and/or scholarly value.
Procedure
Your proposal and any supporting material will be read by the appropriate Cambridge
editor, who will discuss it with colleagues: we strongly advise you to show
your outline before we see it to any immediate collaborators, students (if it
is a text) and other professional colleagues, and that you consider their opinions
carefully. This will speed up our assessment process and will almost certainly
help you to write a well-balanced proposal. At this stage we may take external
reports from referees, with a view to a formal commitment to publish, or we
may simply ask you to prepare a more substantial draft (without any commitment
to publish on either side): much will depend on the nature and level of the
intended book, as described above. Or we may simply decline to pursue your proposal,
as inappropriate in level or intention for Cambridge University Press.
Summary
The amount and type of information you give, overall, should be the amount and
type you yourself would need if you were asked to assess a proposal from another
authority in your field. Your initial proposal should include:
- Title
- Reasons for writing, proposed length and amount of illustration
- Intended completion date
- General overall account of content of book, list of chapters and indication
of content of each chapter
- Brief credentials of author(s)
- Level of presentation
- The readership and market for the book
- Comparison with competing books.
Principal Editorial Contacts
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