The AltaMira Guide to
PREPARING A BOOK PROSPECTUS

The prospectus should give us sufficient information to come to an informed publication decision based on the book's intellectual contribution, production complexities, and market potential. Because most publishers receive many book proposals each week, care in developing the book prospectus should improve your chances of getting published. Approach it as you would a grant proposal—after all, you are in effect asking us to spend thousands of dollars to produce and market your book. The prospectus should consist of several parts:

1. INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTION

Briefly (1-2 pages) describe the subject matter of the book and its importance to the field. Please comment on your methodological and theoretical approach (if relevant), the level of complexity of the ideas and writing, and the topics you plan to cover. Expect that the reader of the prospectus is not fully versed on the importance of your ideas, findings, and contribution to the intellectual debate, so some background information is essential.

In short, please answer these questions: What is this book about? Why does the world need it?

2. THE AUDIENCE

a. Principal audience. What is the main audience for the book? (Often, a publisher needs to justify publishing a book based on a single core audience; cross-over and peripheral markets help, but they rarely sway the decision.) What fields or disciplines will the book address most directly? Are there other audiences for the book?

b. Level. Is the book written at a level appropriate for your professional colleagues? Graduate students? Advanced undergraduates? Lower-division students or non-majors? Non-academic professionals? The general public?

c. Lists. Most academic publishers sell books through direct mail solicitation to interested groups of professionals. Where will the publisher find lists of people to whom it can promote the book? These can include divisions or interest groups in a major academic society, specialized research networks, subscribers to journals, magazines or newsletters in your area, personal mailing lists. If you know the approximate size of the list(s) and/or the name of a contact who has information about that list, please provide it.

d. Courses. If you feel your book will be useful for university instruction, some detail should be provided. In which courses, at what level, would the book be used? As a main text or supplemental text? At approximately how many universities around the country are these courses taught? How often? How many students do they typically enroll? If you teach such a course, please provide information from your own experience. Can you provide the names and affiliations of others who teach this course? Your professional association may have some of this information.

e. Special sales. Are there specific groups the publisher might be able to sell to in large quantities? Are there appropriate book clubs the publisher might approach? Do you have contacts overseas who might facilitate the sale of translation rights or who might arrange distribution?

3. COMPETITION

What distinguishes this book from others on the same or similar topics? Its data? Its approach? Its scope? What book published by the publisher, or another publisher, addresses the same audience that you are trying to reach? Is your book directly competing with some other book? In textbook publishing, it is expected that you will list major competing books and identify the "unique selling points" of your book in relation to them.

4. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE AUTHOR

What specific experience, background or other qualifications do you bring to the project that qualify you to undertake it? Please include a current CV, and please add any other information directly relevant to the book. If the book has contributors, include their current affiliations and, if possible, a brief description of their qualifications.

5. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF THE BOOK

The publisher will want to know some practical details in order to estimate publication costs and schedule:

• How long will the book be (in double-spaced, 12-point-font manuscript pages)?
• What is your schedule for completing a first draft? A final version? What is currently completed and available to show to the publisher?
• Are there any tables, figures, maps, photographs or other non-text material to be included? Approximately how many of each? Might any of this material pose special production problems for the publisher? Are they scanned and digitized or in hard copy form?
• Are there other technical problems the publisher should be aware of, for example, figures that won't reduce to the publisher's standard page size, permissions needed to reprint copyrighted material, restrictions placed upon you by granting agencies, your own non-negotiable contract demands.

6. OUTLINE AND WRITING SAMPLES

Please include an actual or provisional table of contents, along with brief abstracts of the chapters (this is obviously not necessary if you are submitting a complete manuscript). Please also include one or more sample chapters.

EDITORIAL DECISION MAKING

The editorial decision-making process generally entails several rounds of both internal and external review of the content and marketability of the manuscript. If the publisher is not interested, you will usually have a response in 2-4 weeks. If the publisher is reviewing the manuscript, you should receive an acknowledgment of that fact in about the same amount of time, but the review process may take 2-3 months, sometimes longer. Unlike journal publishing, simultaneous submission of a book prospectus to more than one publisher is usually acceptable. In fairness to the publisher, who may put in considerable effort in studying and securing reviews for your proposal, you should advise the publisher that you are also submitting the proposal elsewhere.

Remember that publishing is not a science. Our decision may have more to do with the fit with our list and our future plans than with the quality of the ideas or writing. So don't be discouraged if we, or any publisher, says no.

Please send to:

AltaMira Press
4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200
Lanham, MD 20706
(301) 459-3366
FAX (301) 429-5748
e-mail: Click here for contact information and a list of our editors by subject area.