The tenor of rejection

Posted on | May 8, 2009 | 9 Comments

1.
From the proposal you sent, this looks like a thorough and thoughtful study of a phenomenon that is quietly changing the lives of many of us. That said, I’m afraid that we are unlikely to be able to sell your book in sufficient quantities for publication to be commercially viable… The book would indeed be used by students as you indicate, but it is unlikely to be a required text and they are more likely to access it through the library or as a chapter in a photocopied reader. Our experience is that we generally aren’t able to find a significant readership for academic studies of this kind among general readers, even where the topic is an issue related to their lives.

2.
Thank you very much for your email and attached proposal. It looks like it will make a very interesting book, but I am afraid it doesn’t fit with my current plans for commissioning on the media list. I am sorry about this and I wish you every success with placing the book with another publisher.

3.
Many thanks for writing with this outline. I think it’s an interesting project but for us to be even able to consider it, I’d have to ask you to really play down the Australian-based empirical material, and I suspect that this would rather change the nature of the project. I’d need you to synopsize other material from other global contexts to provide balance and to think of the book as more of an overview. I do think the project works fine as it is; it just wouldn’t fit with our series and I would worry that the focus on the Australian material would significantly reduce the market.

We don’t yet have a volume on social networking in our digital media series. I’m keen to commission one which lays out the key concepts and equips students to think critically about social networking as a facet of digital culture, drawing together the research which has been done on this so far into a readable narrative. I wondered, given the material on this in your outline, whether this might be a project that would be of interest? There would be scope to position yourself in relation to the topic of course, but the volume would also have to function as something of a primer (albeit at the upper levels of undergraduate study). Anyway, let me know if this might be of interest and we can talk further.

4.
First of all, sincere apologies for the long time it has taken me to get back to you on your proposal. I’ve now had a chance to consider your project: while this is an interesting approach, I’m afraid I do not think the market would be large enough to justify a paperback publication…

5.
Our priority is to publish textbooks that will be prescribed for specific courses. Unless we can identify a strong market and specific courses for which the book can be prescribed as a core text, it falls outside my publishing program. I believe your proposal is not a prescribed textbook, therefore, I am unable to pursue your proposal further.

6.
I enjoyed reading the outline, and agree that it looks like an interesting project. However, we feel that the the material would need to be expanded to include other countries – and the US in particular – to make this a viable project for us. If you are able to make these changes (and we appreciate this is a big ask), and place the US at the heart of the book, we would encourage you to submit a revised book proposal.

Category: Academia

Comments

9 Responses to “The tenor of rejection”

  1. anna Hickey-Moody
    May 8th, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

    I can’t empathize enough. In January of this year an A ranked Australian journal told me if they were going to publish a special issue edited by myself and 2 other Aus E.C academics then we needed to include the work of at least 2 professors from the U.S or U.K. Then, when I made a case for ‘Southern Voices and Storylines’ — after R. Connell’s work on Southern Theory, they told me my theoretical rationale was weak. But they accepted the issue once we had the international professors on board. How kind.

  2. Ellie
    May 8th, 2009 @ 3:46 pm

    At least they didn’t tell you that online self-publishing is your only option…

    I got this one a couple of days ago:

    ‘Thank you for sending your proposal which I have now been able to look
    through. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to say no; you’re a good lively
    writer and the story is interesting but the combination of the narrow focus
    and the length means that I’m not confident that we’d find an audience for
    this book… Perhaps its
    home should be digital?’

    The crap thing is that I think they are probably right!

  3. Gil
    May 9th, 2009 @ 1:39 am

    Grrr. The fools. The mad, mad fools.

    Mind you, I’m not at all surprised by the US-centric bias. I’m not happy about it, of course, but it’s a bad trend that’s been getting worse for a long time now.

  4. glen
    May 10th, 2009 @ 8:29 pm

    oh well

    I have been working on my book proposal, too, since it got knocked back last year by a publisher.

  5. barry
    May 11th, 2009 @ 4:07 pm

    put it up on eprints – after a few days you’ll get Indian textbook publishers wanting to publish it ASAP.

  6. Jeremy hunsinger
    May 12th, 2009 @ 10:01 am

    Did you try Kate Hayles and Mark Poster’s Series, Steve Jones’ Series… there are a few other acquisition editors i might send you to, but rejections happen.

  7. barry
    May 12th, 2009 @ 5:17 pm

    just out of curiosity, what is the benefit in publishing books? From what I understand no-one makes money out of it except the publisher – is it simply for career progression? If so, is it the quality of the publisher, whether it’s peer reviewed…

    I’m just wondering because it seems like there’s a space in here for an open-access, peer reviewed, academic e-book / on demand publishing house…. I know on demand publishing gets no respect, but surely a peer reviewed academic imprint would compensate for that.

  8. Jeremy hunsinger
    May 13th, 2009 @ 1:05 pm

    There already are several open access peer reviewed academic publishing houses. The problem there… is usually one of reputation.

  9. Academic publishing, e-books and open access « barrysaunders.com
    July 8th, 2009 @ 10:49 pm

    [...] Gregg has a great post up about the difficulties of publishing as an Australian academic interested in Australian [...]

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