If you’re looking for a publisher for your scholarly book, your goal is probably to get a contract. Yes, your ultimate goal is to produce a great book. But the contract — as a sign that your work will be published someday — can serve many practical purposes in the interim. A contract might help you land a tenure-track job or earn tenure and promotion. Since job-application seasons and tenure-clock schedules are fairly fixed, timing is everything. So you need to know: When will I get a contract? And you may worry, not least because you’ve probably heard it takes a long time and the process can be slow.
Words such as “long” and “slow” may speak to a particular author’s experience, but they don’t shed much light on the process itself. No scholarly book gets published without a contract. At the same time, you don’t automatically get offered one because an editor likes your work.
As an acquisitions editor for a university press, I’ll try to provide general information and guidance here on book contracts, but remember: When you get an offer can vary from press to press, editor to editor, and project to project. It’s imperative to talk to editors about exactly how and when their presses do things. You don’t want to put the cart before the horse by asking, “When will I get a contract?” before you’ve so much as pitched your project. But once an editor expresses interest, it’s important to talk frankly about your needs and timelines so you can determine — as I noted earlier in this series on writing and publishing — if the fit is mutual.
Friends often ask me questions that their own editor (or potential editor) is infinitely better poised to answer. I’m always glad to help and offer advice, but there’s a persistent need for better, more open communication on both sides. It’s common to say that publishing is a black box and publishers need to do more to illuminate it. But scholars also tend to play their cards close to the vest, which can create more stress and work for everyone down the line.
If an author tells me, “I go up for tenure in [X amount of time] and this is what I need [e.g., a contract or a book in press],” then I can clearly lay out the criteria and conditions to make that feasible and let them know what is — and isn’t — realistic. Editors can never make guarantees, but we also work with writers all the time to coordinate schedules, plan accordingly, and publish brilliant, beautiful books.
What’s a book contract? In this column and in my conversations with scholars, no question is ever too basic. A book contract is a legal agreement between the author and the press that covers many, many things: who owns the copyright, who holds subsidiary rights, what the royalty terms are, how many gratis copies you get, and much more.
It’s also a list of commitments: This is what you will do; this is what we will do. Most important for my purposes here, a contract commits a writer to submitting a manuscript and commits a press to publishing it, subject to various terms and conditions. In other words, publication depends on your book meeting certain stipulations, two of which are usually successful peer review and approval by the publisher’s editorial board.
What methods of review are required to get a contract? The foundation of everything in scholarly publishing — including contracts — is review. Typically, an acquiring editor handles the entire process, from the initial evaluation of your proposal through peer review of your manuscript to submission of the final version for production. Having a full picture of the review process will help you understand the different points at which you might be offered a contract.
There are, at base, three stages of review for every scholarly book project:
- Internal review of the proposal. This is done — with or without sample chapters, per the guidelines on the publisher’s website — by the acquiring editor, possibly in consultation with press colleagues. The editor may also share your materials with series editors to see if they’d like to consider your project for publication in their series. Series focus on particular subfields or topics. Series editors are faculty members who give feedback to the acquiring editors and typically work outside the press.
- Peer review of the manuscript by external experts. Some presses send out book proposals for peer review. Others, including the press where I work, only send out full manuscripts. If I think a project is a strong fit based on the writer’s book proposal and a sample chapter, I’ll request the full manuscript for peer review. Once I get the manuscript, we will secure (at least) two reader reports. With those in hand, I decide how to proceed (often in consultation with series editors if the book is being considered for a series). Next steps may include: bringing the project to the editorial board for review and, if all goes well, approving it for publication; asking the author to revise and resubmit for further peer review; or, if the reviews are too negative, rejecting the project. (In most cases, you will be expected to write a response to the reader reports.)
- Review by an editorial board. At university presses, the editorial board tends to consist of faculty members at the institution. How frequently the board meets to review projects and issue decisions varies from one press to the next. Ours meets every two months. Some boards review projects on a rolling basis. The board may simply approve the project without requiring further review; it may approve the project on condition that the revised manuscript be further reviewed by a reader or series editor. The board may also reject it, either outright or with an invitation to present it again later, after further review.
When, during this multi-step review process, will you get a contract? Again, it varies. Some editors will offer you a contract based on your book proposal, and some will want to see a full manuscript. Still others will want the project to go through peer review before sending you a contract, and some will wait to make you an offer until after the press editorial board has officially approved the project.
The good news is that many presses provide quite detailed, helpful information on this front. The website of the University of California Press, for example, maps the “life of a book.” According to its guidelines, UC Press makes a decision and issues a contract after peer review but before the project is approved by an “editorial committee.” Palgrave Macmillan’s website says it issues a contract after peer review of “your proposal and accompanying material” and board approval.
That’s how it worked when I published my own monograph with Oxford University Press. The editor sent out my proposal and two sample chapters for review; once she received the two reports, I wrote a response; she then brought the project to the board, which approved it for publication on the condition that the full manuscript be sent back to one of the readers upon completion. After the board’s approval, I was offered a contract. I then spent about 14 months completing the manuscript for final review. I had predicted that it would take me six months, but as often happens with authors, I needed more time to finish, which wasn’t a problem for my publisher. I just let my editor know. That’s usually all we editors ask — that you keep us posted about your progress so we can plan accordingly.
What about advance contracts? This is when you’re offered a book contract before you’ve finished writing, or, at my press, anytime before the editorial board has formally approved the project. Advance contracts are often issued at the discretion of the editor, though a press may have other approval processes in place, too.
I’ll sometimes offer a writer an advance contract after reviewing their initial proposal. Since my press only sends out completed manuscripts for peer review, and there’s often a gap between when I receive a proposal and when the full manuscript is ready, advance contracts are a way to show my enthusiasm in the interim and reinforce my — and our — commitment to working with an author, especially if they’ve submitted their proposal to multiple presses. Simultaneous submission of proposals is common and, unless a press website says otherwise, totally acceptable. Advance contracts can sometimes help win over a highly sought-after author.
Our advance contract clearly stipulates that the manuscript will be peer reviewed and ultimately must be approved by the editorial board for publication. Every scholarly book we publish goes through the same review process, whether it was secured under an advance contract or put under contract after editorial-board approval.
I’m also mindful of how an advance contract can help scholars in various ways — say, when you’re applying for faculty jobs, for release time from teaching, or for grants and fellowships. I’ll sometimes ask an author, “Would it help you to have an advance contract?”
Some authors desperately want an advance contract, and others are indifferent. Some worry that an advance contract won’t “count” for tenure. It may not. If you’re going up for tenure or promotion, it’s imperative to talk to your mentors and administrators about exactly what you are expected to have. In my experience, an advance contract, helpful though it may be in other ways, seldom suffices. Authors need proof of the editorial board’s approval. Without it, the tenure committee may worry that an author won’t actually finish the book or that the press won’t actually publish it.
Will I get a new contract to replace the advance contract? This is a common misconception. At my press, if you have an advance contract, you will not receive a second contract once the project is approved by the editorial board. Rather, at that point, I email a letter to the writer that serves as an amendment to the initial agreement, affirming the board’s approval and providing a new delivery date for the final manuscript. My sense from talking to other editors is that this is standard procedure (though of course there may be exceptions), and you will generally only ever receive one contract. The advance contract is your contract — it just gets amended down the road.
One of the reasons all of this can be so confusing is because many people use the term “contract” as shorthand for “board approval for publication.” Departments tell tenure-track faculty members, for example, that they “need a contract for tenure.” And they may! But again, an advance contract won’t always cut it, which is why so many academics with advance contracts mistakenly believe they will get a second, “real” contract from the press after the editorial board’s approval.
From a publisher’s perspective, all contracts are real. That doesn’t mean we’re going to take you to court if you never submit a manuscript, though it does prevent you from publishing the book elsewhere unless the contract is formally terminated. We take the commitment seriously and expect you will, too, though we also understand that sometimes things change. Above all, we ask that you keep us in the loop and talk to us if an issue emerges. This business hinges heavily on trust, and we desperately need better communication and more good faith on both sides.
Seriously, though, how long will it take to get a contract? It depends. An advance contract may only require internal review and may be issued fairly quickly. A contract issued after peer review and board approval will take longer. It will depend on when the press conducts peer review. Will it send out your book proposal and partial manuscript for peer review, or will it require a full manuscript?
I typically ask writers to allow about four to six months for the peer-review process. If the stars align — if we find peer reviewers in a timely manner; if their reports are punctual and positive; if you write a strong letter of response to their critiques; if the editorial board approves the manuscript — you could get a “board-approved” contract (as my press calls it) within six to eight months of submitting a full manuscript, and possibly sooner.
Again, I cannot stress enough the importance of spending time reading your publisher’s website, talking with your editor about the timeline, sharing your schedule in turn, and asking questions.
As I noted in an earlier column, the process of publishing a scholarly book, from soliciting publishers to holding the printed object, tends to take a couple of years. That may seem like a long time, but it’s pretty fast considering the various stages of review and the volume of people — press staff, scholars, freelancers — who help shape and produce each book. Even solo-authored monographs are profoundly collaborative amalgams of all kinds of expert feedback and labor.
The duration of scholarly publishing is by design. It’s a feature — and a good one — not a bug. The process may feel slow, and the stress is understandable given the high stakes for your career. The tethering of job security to publications means that scholars’ livelihoods are often on the line. Every editor I know gets that. And, while we’re technically never able to make guarantees, we also work closely with academics all the time to make sure you have what you need in time.