Contracts, Agents, and Editors, Oh My! Demystifying the Path to Publication

What is an advance contract? Do you need an agent? How do you know which editor to approach with your manuscript? Successfully following the path to academic publishing can be daunting for first-time authors. But it doesn’t have to be. Acquisitions editor Laura Devulis joins us to explain the hidden curriculum, including:

• How soon you can approach an academic press with your proposal.
• What it means when your editor offers you an advance contract.
• How much of your manuscript can be previously published.
• What happens when you miss a deadline.
• Some important things to communicate to your editor.

Our guest is: Laura Davulis, who is an acquisitions editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press, where she publishes academic and trade books in American history and current affairs. She lives in Baltimore. You can follow her on Twitter (@davulis) for musings on books and publishing, along with cat pictures and extended discussions of pizza-making techniques.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

• What Editors Do, by Peter Ginna
• Revise: The Scholar-Writer’s Essential Guide to Tweaking, Editing, and Perfecting Your Manuscript, by Pamela Haag
• Handbook for Academic Authors, by Beth Luey
• The Book Proposal Book, by Laura Portwood-Stacer
• Academic Life podcast on writing book proposals
• Academic Life podcast on revising your dissertation for publication with the editor of University of Wyoming Press
• A conversation about marketing scholarly books
• A conversation about the peer review process with acquisitions editor Rachael Levay
• Academic Life podcast about working with developmental editors
• ASK UP: Authors Seeking Knowledge from University Presses

Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life. 

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