Book proposal: latest ms submission date to specify?

[Deskman]

I will be sending out a book proposal and would like others' thoughts about what could be the latest submission date to specify. In the past, I have proposed 1 or 1.5 years and then gone well beyond those deadlines. Nonetheless, the books (in the humanities) were still published. I'm concerned that if I propose submitting the manuscript 2 or 3 years down the road, a publishing company will not be interested in signing me that far in advance. 

[Ruralguy]

I guess the glaring question to ask is why you wouldn't just go with what has worked in the past?  If its for a significant reason, such as an expected "life event" during that period, then you might want to go a little longer or just submit the proposal later. Its probably not a good idea to start beyond 2 years.
I have personally gone 5 from initial "hey, are you interested?" letter to final copy. But I think I proposed 2, submitted after 4, but then they wanted more but didn't tell me to take a hike, so I re-submitted 2 years later, and it was published more or less a week later!

[Parasaurolophus]

Two or less seems reasonable to me. Beyond that, it seems like maybe the prospective author should wait a while to submit the proposal.

[jerseyjay]

Do you have tenure? (You mention having published "books" which would imply that you might have tenure.)  If you do, I might suggest waiting till you have most or all of a manuscript before submitting to a press. If you have tenure, then there probably is not an immediate need for a contract in hand. In this case, submitting most or all of a manuscript would lessen the time from submission to completion.

If you do not have tenure, than having an advance contract could help with your pre-tenure reviews. (Just having an advance contract without a book will probably not get you tenure.)

[Sun_Worshiper]

Do you have tenure? (You mention having published "books" which would imply that you might have tenure.)  If you do, I might suggest waiting till you have most or all of a manuscript before submitting to a press. If you have tenure, then there probably is not an immediate need for a contract in hand. In this case, submitting most or all of a manuscript would lessen the time from submission to completion.

If you do not have tenure, than having an advance contract could help with your pre-tenure reviews. (Just having an advance contract without a book will probably not get you tenure.)

What if you write the book and then can't find an interested publisher? Or the reviewers demand extensive changes - wouldn't it be easier to deal with that at the proposal stage? (I'm asking because I have written a book proposal and I'm trying to decide when to start approaching publishers and if I should write some or all of the manuscript first.)

[jerseyjay]

What if you write the book and then can't find an interested publisher? Or the reviewers demand extensive changes - wouldn't it be easier to deal with that at the proposal stage? (I'm asking because I have written a book proposal and I'm trying to decide when to start approaching publishers and if I should write some or all of the manuscript first.)

These are real questions. If you do not need a book by a certain deadline, it takes some pressure off. (If you need to publish a book by 2024 for tenure, you cannot really afford to wait till 2025 or 2026 to publish a book, but if you already have tenure, this is not so important, although of course everybody wants to publish a book as soon as possible.)

And having an advance contract does not mean that the press will ultimately accept the final product, or demand extensive changes to the manuscript. It does mean they are less likely to reject out of hand the project, but an advance contract does not guarantee that the publisher will publish the book, much less publish it as received. It still has to go through peer review.

If you send your (completed or almost completed) manuscript to a batch of publishers and they reject it, you send it to the next batch of publishers. Similarly, if a peer reviewer wants extensive reviews, you can take it to another publisher if you do not think they are warranted. It may take some time, but assuming that your book has merit, your manuscript will most likely find some publisher.

To get back to the OP: my practical advice is to wait till you have enough written to be able to say with some level of confidence that it will take only X amount of time to finish.

[Boomvang]

I think that two years should be the maximum time proposed.