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The Scholarly Edition

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | AUG 29 2016

For this final entry, we consider the edited book experience from a contributing author’s point of view…What follows is advice from Stephen Brown, a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa. Publishing a book chapter with a university press is generally seen as less prestigious than a peer-reviewed journal article, but it can be […]

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | AUG 10 2016

Bringing together 10-20 people for any given task can be a challenge. When those people are academics – who you are asking to produce quality essays on a fairly rigid deadline – that challenge can be overwhelming. In the academic world, authors contribute to book projects as volunteers, so you can’t threaten to cut their […]

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | AUG 04 2016

When we started our careers, professors didn’t have to think about raising money to publish a book with an academic press. If your manuscript was peer-reviewed positively, then the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program (ASPP) would inevitably provide your publisher with the necessary subsidy (now $8,000) to allow the press to break even on its […]

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | JUL 25 2016

Having written about working with different publishers in our last post, we thought it might be helpful to hear from a university press editor directly. What follows is advice from Emily Andrew, a former senior editor at UBC Press and current senior editor at Cornell University Press. When approaching a publisher with a proposal for […]

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | JUL 19 2016

In the academic world, the process for choosing a publisher for your first manuscript is clear: seek out the presses with the best reputation in your field and find a good fit. As strange as it sounds to those outside the Ivory Tower, your primary goal is neither to sell a lot of copies, nor […]

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | JUL 13 2016

Open calls for papers have their benefits. But to us, soliciting authors directly makes more sense.

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | JUN 27 2016

Our last post discussed the benefits and drawbacks of working with a co-editor. If, or once, you have decided to go that route, you will face a series of new challenges: approaching the right person, establishing an effective working relationship, and dealing with potential conflicts. We suggest that while not all of these challenges can […]

BY ADAM CHAPNICK | MAY 26 2016

As a recovering control freak, I edited my first collection of essays on my own. The project took significantly longer than expected, and was much more challenging than I had anticipated, but it was successful in the end. Looking back, the benefits of working alone were straightforward: complete editorial control; the opportunity to ensure that […]

BY ADAM CHAPNICK AND CHRISTOPHER KUKUCHA | MAY 10 2016

The professional risks are too great for a junior scholar, but for more senior scholars it can be a worthwhile experience.

BY ADAM CHAPNICK | APR 13 2016

A little more than two years ago, I attended a conference on Canada and its place in the world.  When I got back, I had an idea.  By the time of the next federal election in the fall of 2015, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government would have been in power in Canada for close to 10 […]

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