Over the past few weeks we’ve talked about how the proposal review process sits at the core of academic book publishing. The entire process depends upon academics giving up their time to enter into good faith criticism of book proposals.
This week I wanted to talk a little about why reviewing is a good thing to do, what editors are hoping to see from their reviewers, and answer some common questions I’ve been asked about this over the years.
Why you should say yes to review requests
If you’re an academic working in just about any field, certainly within the range of mostly social science humanities and arts disciplines where book-writing is an expected part of the job, sooner or later you’re likely to be asked to review book proposals.
No doubt these can be a bit of a nuisance. Academic life is busy and there are always articles to be written, papers to be marked, meetings to attend, admin to be done and, if there’s still some time left, research to be undertaken. But, while I am by no means a neutral observer in this, I’d propose there are a number of good reasons why you should seriously consider it.
It’s a vital part of maintaining a robust academic discourse
This is not unique to book proposal reviewing, but applies as much here as it does for journal article reviewing. Publishers cannot realistically have the expertise in-house to do what we ask reviewers to do, and even if we did, that would imply a very small number of people would be making all the decisions about which books were published, and what (if any) changes were proposed beyond the authors’ original plans.
It follows, then, that if you believe that rigour is achieved in academic publishing through a process of review, debate, and consultation, and you want that to continue, the implication that you should get involved is hard to avoid. It’s not all about civic responsibility though, and there are a number of ways it can be beneficial for you more directly.
It will help you think about how to write your own book
If writing a book is something you’re going to need to do at some point in order to obtain promotion or tenure, or it’s just something you want to do one day, then seeing somebody else’s work at an early stage can help you think about how to start yours. It can be really helpful to read other people’s book proposals and reflect on how you would write your own, even if you’ve written them before. You might pick up some good ideas, or see some pitfalls to avoid.
Going through the review itself will help you think about what you need to do for your own projects. For example, helping you focus on who you think your readers will be, or what related titles you would want to talk about. Similarly, writing feedback on sample chapters, or suggestions for substantive improvements will exercise the kinds of critical faculties you’d want to be able to bring to bear on your own work.
It will give you insight into publishing and help you make connections with publishers
This is similar to the previous point, but it applies more broadly. The more you work with publishers, their systems and processes, the less intimidating they will seem. Whatever your own aspirations might be, it’s likely to be helpful to have some insight into how our part of the ecosystem works. Obviously this is even more true if you have book plans on the horizon, because recent familiarity with the process from a different perspective will help you to judge your own work more objectively.
Beyond the systems and processes, there are also the people. All publishers, whether big bureaucracies or small independents like us, are ultimately run by people. Often people with a surprising amount of discretion in practical matters, and who are driven by their own personal curiosities as much as by the incentives built into the system. As such getting to know some of these individuals can often be worthwhile and helpful to you in a range of ways later on. Some of us are quite nice too.
It allows you to exert influence on your field
If enlightened self-interest and the soft power of network-building aren’t enough to persuade you, there’s always the direct exercise of power and influence to consider. Reviewers have an enormously influential impact both on which books get commissioned, and helping to shape the ones that do.
Of course it’s important to keep things in perspective, publishers rarely take the word of a single reviewer as gospel and authors have fairly wide latitude to respond as they see fit. Even so, we do listen to what reviewers say, and I’ve known many projects to be significantly helped and changed in response to meaningful feedback we received from reviewers. Authors might occasionally chafe at very critical reviews, but most of the time they are thrilled to have the engagement of other scholars in their work and will bend over backwards to incorporate this feedback if they can.
One day you might need someone to do it for you
My last reason comes back to enlightened self-interest. Sooner or later you’re likely to need someone to do this for you, especially if we’re considering the bigger picture of reviewing in general. Think of it as “paying it forward” in advance. Or just regular paying it forward, if you’ve had people review your work before.
And a few other things to be aware of
As so often, some of this might seem obvious, some of it might be surprising. I find people’s expectations vary enormously, especially because I’ve spent much of my career working with authors and reviewers from a very diverse range of countries. So, I thought as well as doing my best at being persuasive, I’d cover a couple of baseline expectations for the review process from the reviewer’s perspective. I think they’re particularly important to mention, because they differ from the norms for journal article reviewing.
Proposal reviewing is usually single-blind
Specifically, it is normal that you, the reviewer, will know the name of the book proposal’s author or editor, and any other planned contributors. Indeed, you will often not only know their name and current affiliation but also have access to a potted CV as part of the submission. They, however, will not normally be told who you are.
Not all publishers do this the same way, so your mileage may vary, but to the best of my knowledge this is the standard configuration when reviewing book proposals. Here’s why:
When reviewing journal articles it is — at least in principle — all about the scientific process. Everyone is treated equally and the journal is looking for objective feedback on the material itself with ideally no allowance at all for who the author is. This makes sense because the journal is not selling itself on the basis of who it publishes, but on the basis that it is a scholarly resource containing research undertaken to a consistently high standard. The journal’s brand is what sells, usually on an annual subscription basis, not any individual article or author.
Books are different. They are sold on a title-by-title basis, with every book having to make its own case for why it should be bought and read. It is vanishingly rare to sell books on a subscription basis, even within a strong established series. One of the things that will have a bearing on this is the author’s name and reputation. Whether or not a reviewer is familiar with the author’s work is thus relevant and significant information to the publisher. If you are familiar, then your sense of their reputation will also matter. As with anything else a single reviewer tells us, it probably won’t be decisive to our publication decision on its own, but it will inform it and may be important.
On the other hand, reviewers are usually anonymous by default. That is to say, we will not reveal your name to the author without your express permission, nor would we ask to unless the author specifically expresses a desire to know for a particular reason. Of course, if you want to offer to help the author in some way, then you’re free to volunteer this information and we’ll pass your contact details on to them. Again, this is a bit softer and more porous than journal article reviewing, because what matters to us is making the book as good as it can be, rather than maintaining a rigid process.
You’ll probably get paid
While journal article reviewing is virtually always expected to be done purely out of a sense of professional and moral responsibility, book publishers typically offer some kind of payment for undertaking a proposal review. When I worked for Routledge our standard offer was cash (by direct bank transfer) or books to around twice the cash value. Publishers’ preferences tend to swing backward and forward between these options, with cash being pushed during 2020 and early 2021 due to supply chain challenges during the worst of the COVID-19 disruption, and then a strong push for books once logistics returned to normal service.
I’m not going to pretend for a minute that reviewing book proposals is especially lucrative, but rather than thinking about it in terms of an hourly wage equivalent, I think it’s best to look at it as a little treat in return for doing something you would have considered doing anyway. It’s a token of respect from us that demonstrates that we do appreciate the value of your time.
I hope this week’s update has inspired you to be enthusiastic in participating in the book proposal review process. Next week I’ll be following up by writing about how to be a really excellent reviewer, so do look out for that too. In the meantime, do feel free to get in touch on simon.bates@tbarnpress.com if you would like us to consider you as a reviewer on future proposals, or as always, if you have a proposal of your own that you would like to discuss.
