Book Proposal Guidelines
- Author’s personal information
- Name
- Institutional affiliation
- Email address
- Mailing address
- Include a biographical note (200 words maximum)
- Tentative title of book
- Brief project description
- Describe the proposed work in one paragraph (100 words maximum)
- Detailed project description (1,000 words maximum)
- The description should explain the book’s purpose and how it will be achieved.
- Highlight the work’s outstanding, distinctive, and unique contributions.
- Include the main themes, arguments, contributions to Puerto Rican studies, and place in the literature (how is it similar and different from other similar books on the same topic?).
- Describe your intended audience.
- Is this manuscript a revised version of your dissertation? Note: we do not publish dissertations that have not been revised and turned into a book
- Has the manuscript, or any part of your manuscript, been previously published or distributed?
- If so, do you hold copyright for the previously published material?
- If not, who holds the copyright for these materials?
- Where have parts of the manuscript been published?
- Proposed book outline and chapter descriptions
- Include a detailed outline of the book with paragraph-length description of each chapter.
- If available, submit a sample chapter.
- Approximate manuscript word count
- Estimate the total word count of the book—including the main text, endnotes, bibliography, and appendices.
- Approximately how many photographs and/or charts, graphs, diagrams, etc. do you plan to include?
- Comparable and competitive volumes
- Describe existing books in this field and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.
- Spell out how your coverage expands on existing coverage and differs from other books.
- Discuss each book in a separate paragraph—providing the publisher and date of publication.
- For works with a primarily scholarly audience, discuss your project’s place in the current scholarship and its distinctive contribution.
- If no other books address your particular topic, explain how exploring that topic advances current scholarly discussions.
- Market and audience
- Who is the intended audience for the book?
- If scholars: specify field(s)—both specific specialty as well as larger fields.
- If students: is it for classroom use? Specify level and specific courses.
- If your work is intended for use in the classroom, have you or other instructors assigned your materials to students?
- If the general public: How will the topic’s relevance and currency appeal to readers without specialized knowledge in the field?
- Tentative date of manuscript submission
- What portion of the material is now complete?
- When do you expect to have a complete manuscript?
- Do you plan to include material requiring permission (text, music, lyrics, illustrations)?
- To what extent?
- Have you started the permissions request process?
- Reviewers
- Please name three scholars working in your field who are competent to read your manuscript.
- Indicate if any of these scholars has already read the work.
- Please include email and affiliation of anyone listed.
- We will seek to use some of these, along with reviewers of our own selection.