Book Publishing

[Bookworm]

This is called a "desk reject" and is quite common.  If I remember correctly, the majority of academic manuscripts get a desk reject somewhere along the line, because authors do not do very much due diligence in figuring out if the press they're submitting to is suitable for the work, and sometimes the author cannot guess the future directions of the press.  It's called a "desk reject" because the editor sits at her desk and writes you back without sending the MS or proposal out to reviewers, a step which would waste everybody's time.

If the book is not in the field or the angle they're publishing, they've saved everyone a lot of time by not reading your complete manuscript.  Just think of the scenario if they had.  They've altered direction to publish only on Basketweaving & Science, but your manuscript is on Basketweaving & Art History.  Nevertheless they take your manuscript, recruit two busy academics to read it, those two academics promise to have it back in 3 months but take 6, the press pays them each $200.  The first ignores the press direction and says that you should expand on chapter 1 and rewrite your conclusions, and that your footnotes are confusing.  The second abides by the press direction and says that to qualify for this series you need to take out all the Art History. The press then sends you a note that says, "Actually, we no longer publish in Basketweaving & Art History."  Now the press has paid $400 for pointless commentary and you get confusing feedback that is not relevant to the next press you want to send it to.

The advice I heard was to send the proposal out to 4 publishers at a time, or 2 if you're in a field with few publishers.  If they all reject it, get it looked at by someone senior you know, revise accordingly to advice, and send it to the next 4 or 2. 

As for how many publishers look at it before one accepts it, the first publisher might take it (probably a minority of cases, but not unknown), or it can be many.  I had six rejections once before I got good advice from someone and rewrote my proposal in a much different way.  I had then used up my six most preferred presses, so I went with a lesser press which nevertheless did things well.  My first book I think had three rejections.  Another book, the first press took it.

Thanks for your reply, and good to hear about your experience. I think it feels disheartening because I did think it was a good fit for X UP, and had a section on "Press Fit" in the proposal that showed how recently published books by the press demonstrated fit. :/  Ah well. I knew it was a desk reject, and a form letter, so I wasn't sure how to take the 'press fit' (do all rejected proposals get told the same thing, even if, say, the press isn't convinced that Professor P is the best person to write the book and that's really the basis for the decision?). Perhaps then it just means exactly that, and not necessarily that the interventions and methods of the manuscript weren't clear, etc.

[Hegemony]

I had assumed that your MS really wasn't a good fit for their direction. But if you mean you got the boilerplate language about "not right for the press at this time," then that would probably indicate that something was amiss with the proposal.  (I'm assuming you sent a proposal and not the complete MS?)  You might get a senior colleague who's published several books to look at the proposal and give you suggestions on how to make it stronger.  Writing a persuasive proposal is an art in itself, and since we read very few proposals, it's generally not something that comes naturally on the first try.  So if you just got the boilerplate rejection, rather than it being a genuine mismatch, the good news is that a proposal is fairly easy to revise and improve.

[Deacon_blues]

Feeling pretty bummed, and little bereft-- that's all the feedback you get if the full manuscript isn't requested? At least with articles I had a sense of whether to substantially rewrite or fix before sending to a new journal.

In my experience, yes, book editors often provide little feedback about proposals. The "fit" issue is a pretty standard one to cite, although I also received a couple of more tailored rejections about the marketability of my first book project (one Oxbridge press rather condescendingly suggested that I focus on writing articles rather than a book--bad advice that would have prevented me from earning tenure had I followed it).

It sounds to me as though you just ran into bad luck.  The new editor at X UP is taking things in a new direction, and there's no way that you could have known that based on their previous slate of publications and your friend's advice.

Regarding feedback from editors, I have found it very helpful to arrange meetings with editors at major conferences in my field.  For both my first and second book projects, I was able to secure an advance contract after a sit-down meeting with the acquisitions editor or series editor.  I could also easily tell which presses were less interested in the project, and that allowed me to focus on other presses instead.