Last week I wrote about why you should say yes as often as you can when asked to review book proposals. This week, on the basis that if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well, I thought I’d write about what this actually involves, and how to be a model reviewer. As always, your mileage may vary with different publishers, but most of these points will be fairly universal.
As so often with my publishing advice, some of this will seem very obvious. I make no apology for this, I’ve read perhaps a thousand proposal reviews and these points are very much informed by that experience. Indeed, if that experience has taught me anything at all, it is that nothing is obvious to everyone.
Try to follow the review form as closely as you can
Depending on how used you are to filling in forms, publishers’ review templates can seem a little daunting. As far as you can though, it’s good to adhere to these so that you’re giving us as much information as you can about the proposal, which might well include things that don’t seem so important to you, but are useful to us.
Don’t be embarrassed to admit to not having an answer to a question, sometimes that can be a useful indicator in itself. Equally, if you try to answer questions you do have answers to as fully as you’re able, that is much appreciated. If you have a point that you feel really needs making, but can’t see what question it would respond to, then there should be room for any other business at the end of the form. If not, feel free to append it at the end, or write it in your email to the publisher.
But don’t worry about questions that clearly don’t apply
All of the above having been said, publishers’ forms do tend towards a one size fits all model, and there will sometimes be questions that do not apply. Some publishers might, for instance, ask about chapter contributors regardless of whether or not there are any. Please try to be patient with us on this sort of thing, sometimes it is in order to keep things standardized, sometimes the editor or assistant sending the forms out has forgotten to choose the correct (and usually only subtly different) form. On yet other occasions it might just be that this particular project is a bit unusual and so not all the normal questions apply.
In short, try your best to answer the questions asked, but if a question doesn’t make sense for this particular project, just move on.
Review the proposal on its own terms
We jump here to a thornier issue, and quite a common pitfall. However many questions our form might ask, we are fundamentally asking you to consider whether this project seems likely to achieve what it sets out to do; whether you think its objectives are worthy; and whether you can see any realistic way to improve it.
If you feel there might be an opportunity for an adjacent but fundamentally very different book, then we’d absolutely like to know that, especially if you’d be interested in writing it. What we don’t want is for you to review this proposal against the yardstick of the project you might like somebody to write. It very well may be that you think this project is misconceived, and your alternative project makes much more sense, in which case by all means say so. It may even be that the proposal author is somebody who could pursue this alternative idea, and again this is useful feedback. Ultimately, however, we still want your clear judgement on the project as it is proposed and why you believe it to be not worth pursuing.
Please stick to your deadline
This is really very important. We know that you have other things to do, and that proposal reviewing is not likely to be a high priority task, and we do appreciate that. At the same time, authors often place their work on hold (or else risk having to do it twice) while their proposal is under review, and the review stage is often a significant bottleneck in the process of bringing a book to print. Consequently, it’s frustrating when we think we have our reviewers lined-up, with a clear deadline for having them in, and then have to let our author down because reviewers haven’t managed to finish on time.
Sometimes this means you need to be realistic at the outset. We’d prefer a reviewer who can agree to our proposed deadline than someone who negotiates to deliver it later, but we’d far rather discuss this up-front than run into it weeks down the line when we’re expecting to read your review. Things come up, and occasionally that will make delivering on time impossible at short notice, in which case just let us know as early as you can. But from the beginning, please try to only commit to dates you’re comfortable you can stick to.
Be kind, but don’t hold back
This is almost as much about tone as content. It can be quite hard to deliver criticism in a measured way, balancing the need to communicate any negative elements fully, while remaining encouraging. I have to do it all the time and still find it difficult.
Part of this is about separating the author from the work, which is easier said than done, because an author’s work will feel personal to them. It’s reasonable to expect authors to be mature adults who can respond in a measured way to criticism, but if you have quite strong philosophical disagreements with a proposal then do try to express these as neutrally as you can. We try to treat all disagreements in good faith, and we would hope you would do the same.
On the other hand, while keeping a balanced tone is important, it is clearly vital not to hold back on substance. If you genuinely believe an author has committed an egregious breach of ethics, or that their proposal is totally hare-brained, or years behind the latest publications in this area, we do need to know that. In the most extreme cases you might want to bypass the review altogether and just write to us directly, substantiating your criticism if at all possible. Unless you feel that’s really necessary we would prefer that you provide your feedback in such a way that we can address it directly to the author and have them respond. We will, of course, exercise discretion where issues are clearly contentious.
Describe things in specific concrete terms if you can
It’s a simple rule of thumb that the easiest feedback to act on is that which is expressed clearly and hones in on the particular elements being criticised. Conversely, vague criticism is easier to misunderstand, or even wilfully misinterpret.
So, for example, it is less helpful to say that a conceptual framework is poorly expressed, than it is to describe whether you cannot understand it at all, or find it incoherent, or get the general idea of it but find it a bit vague or unsatisfactory. It is more helpful to say why you think the author’s dismissal of a related title is too cursory, or why you think their case study is insufficient.
Even if you actually feel that the concerns you have about a proposal are so cumulatively insurmountable that we should reject it outright, it’s helpful if you can enumerate these faults briefly but as thoroughly as you can. Authors have an understandable dislike for being told “there’s just too much wrong with this” or words to that effect, and it’s better to leave up to them and us to decide whether or not there is a way to address all of your criticisms.
If at all possible, try to suggest how problems could be addressed
Really this is the logical next step from the previous two points, but it’s crucial to underline it. Even more helpful than specific, concrete criticisms, are specific, concrete suggestions for changes. You’ll have to judge for yourself how much it’s worth investing your time in this. If you’ve already decided that the proposal is probably not viable, or you anticipate that the author is not likely to be willing or able to make the changes you think are necessary, then it may only be worth a brief outline. On the other hand, if you really do have a clear sense of how this proposal could be improved, it’s very valuable to us and out author to have this information.
Again, this comes down to being specific and concrete where possible. If you think other theorists should be taken into account, can you say which ones and where in the proposed book they would be relevant? If you think the author has underestimated the related titles, can you suggest books they should be looking at, or looking at more closely than they have? If you think some chapters are trying to cover too much, can you propose how you would advise splitting them.
To be really clear about this, it is not your job to fix everything you can see that could possibly be fixed with the proposal. However, the more precise the suggestions you do make are, the more likely we are to be able to act on them. For that matter, the more easily we — the publishers, and especially the commissioning editor — can ourselves understand what you are suggesting, the more easily we can advise our author and assess whether that advice has been followed.
That’s it for this week, and I very much hope after last week’s attempts to sell you on the idea of reviewing proposals, this week hasn’t put you off! We are very grateful to any reviewer who goes to the effort of reading through all the proposal materials, and really tries to help the author make the book the best it can be, or identifies for us where we might have overlooked something important.
As always, do feel free to get in touch at simon.bates@tbarnpress.com.
