Eric W. Sager
I didn’t count on to publish a ebook in the direction of the tip of the eighth decade of my life. And in the event you had requested me, ten years in the past, whether or not I might write a ebook concerning the that means of historical past, I might have declared such a factor to be unimaginable. In retirement, nonetheless, I discovered myself decided to attempt to reply primary questions concerning the scholarly self-discipline that has absorbed my life. The mission was at first completely for my very own edification. As I proceeded, I used to be persuaded that there is perhaps one thing of curiosity to others, and so I made a decision to hunt a writer, and to stick with the search regardless of rejections. The story of what follows says one thing about rewards for persistence, and maybe additionally one thing about our relationship with publishers – a relationship by which we historians could have extra affect than we could understand.
Learn extra: Rethinking Publishers
In April, 2024 I despatched my ebook proposal to the editor of English-language Historical past books at De Gruyter. I used to be not optimistic. I had beforehand despatched the proposal to a number of publishers, together with two in Canada, three in the USA, and two in the UK. Responses different however have been at all times unfavourable. One Canadian press didn’t reply in any respect. One other Canadian press declared that they noticed no marketplace for the ebook: a response that puzzled me, since nearly each Historical past Division gives programs within the areas of historiography or “historical past and idea”, and my proposed ebook was directed explicitly to college students in such programs. One non-Canadian writer despatched the manuscript to readers. The three assessments got here again after a delay of 4 months (the manuscript was not lengthy – round 70,000 phrases). The evaluations can finest be described as perfunctory and insulting. One assessor checked a couple of bins on the evaluation kind however wrote nothing in any respect – the shape was clean. The opposite two evaluations have been no extra helpful than the primary. I might say one thing about issues with peer reviewing, however that’s one other topic. From these reactions I concluded that there was one thing significantly off-putting about each the proposal and the manuscript.
Nonetheless, on 15th April 2024 I despatched my seven-page proposal to De Gruyter. Please bear with me – the dates are a key a part of my story. Just a few days later the senior Historical past editor requested me to ship the whole manuscript. How unusual: usually one waits weeks or months for any response to a ebook proposal (an enormous trove of details about publishing timelines is out there on-line). I despatched the unrevised manuscript instantly, and two days later I had a completely surprising response from this editor: we’re “all” studying it now and “I completely adore it”! You’ve acquired to be kidding me, I stated to myself. However no – the manuscript was off to the editors of a sequence – the Politics of Historic Considering – who reacted, I used to be informed, with related enthusiasm. Already by April 26th the senior editor was speaking about publishing The Considering Historian as a paperback with a low value, and getting it into college bookstores and onto the desks of lecturers in a number of nations. All of this earlier than I had seen peer evaluations!
I quickly realized one thing that I had not realized, given my expertise with different publishers: the ebook had already gone via a preliminary peer evaluation. The editors within the Berlin places of work have been themselves certified reviewers: they’d doctorates in Historical past. The sequence editors have been senior students in fields that included historiography. The manuscript was despatched instantly to different assessors – and the studies got here to me inside six weeks! By no means in my profession have I seen peer assessments performed at such pace. Regardless of the pace, the evaluations have been rigorous and difficult. It took three months of intense work to revise the ebook.
The remainder of my story is about effectivity and even higher pace. On October 1st I acquired a 14-point schedule of manufacturing for the ebook. The primary proof, following copy enhancing, would come to me on October thirtieth. There adopted deadlines for completion of, amongst different issues, first proof corrections, preparation and submission of the index, implementation of final revisions and index corrections, supply of writer’s permission to print, begin of the printing course of (December 20th), and anticipated publication date (February 3rd). The writer missed each certainly one of their said deadlines. They weren’t late – they have been early! The pace had nothing to do with the tempo at which I accomplished my duties: it was completely the results of pace on the writer’s finish. The printing course of began three weeks previous to the scheduled date. The ebook appeared in print at the least two weeks earlier than 3rd February. Your entire time between submission of the unrevised manuscript and look of the printed ebook was eight months and three weeks. My earlier file was fifteen months.
Even this isn’t the tip of the story. Advertising the ebook, it seems, is an engaged collaboration. I acquired a listing of “Ideas and Methods for E-book Promotion”. On the identical time the senior Historical past editor was on the American Historic Affiliation Annual Assembly in New York, flogging my ebook, and in some way discovering time to report back to me on reactions. Potential reviewers, I used to be informed, can get free copies via the De Gruyter website online – however higher, stated the senior editor, to inform any reviewers who need a copy to contact her instantly as a result of she is quicker than the website online. As ordinary, emails from me acquired replies despatched the subsequent morning Berlin time (and on one event earlier than their places of work opened!).
Are there classes right here? One is clear: look at a press fastidiously earlier than sending a proposal, and search for a ebook sequence that matches together with your work. Don’t submit a proposal or a manuscript that has not been beforehand reviewed by colleagues and revised. Additionally, and it’s straightforward for a senior scholar to say the next: if you don’t obtain a response to your proposal inside six weeks, then pull the proposal and look elsewhere – you aren’t being taken significantly. And be daring sufficient to ask prematurely about deadlines: two years from submission of a manuscript to publication date will not be acceptable.
My expertise with publishing since 1989, together with three Canadian presses who accorded me nice respect, permits me to look at the warning, maybe timidity, of publishers. Something experimental – something that departs from the lengthy custom of impersonal, third-person, pseudo-objective writing – is unlikely to get previous editors or reviewers. Take into account, as an illustration, the crossing of the boundary between historical past and fiction by the French historian Ivan Jablonka. His Laëtitia: Ou la Fin des Hommes (Éditions du Seuil, 2016), the historical past of a homicide and of violence in opposition to girls, gained prizes in France for fiction and had appreciable impression in that nation. Up to now Laëtitia has not been translated into English! It’s laborious to think about any such boundary-fracturing work getting printed in Canada. Sure, there’s Donald Akenson’s “evocation of risk” – At Face Worth: The Life and Occasions of Eliza McCormack/John White (1990) – however who dares observe down such an unbeaten path? And who dares to jot down within the first-person, or inside the mode of l’ego-histoire (the historical past by which the historian-self is integral to the evaluation), as a couple of historians elsewhere have performed? Strive it, and look forward to the inevitable rejections. After which persist: there could also be a house on your work, if unorthodoxy is matched by high quality.
Historians and educational publishers work in a state of mutual dependence that’s consistently being negotiated. Authors could also be extra accountable for the publishing expertise than we understand, though the strain to publish imposes constraints on the untenured. Right now we’ve extra publishing choices than ever earlier than, together with open entry publishing, platforms for digital publishing, in addition to self-publishing. The presence of alternate options offers us a level of bargaining energy. And if we persist, we are able to transfer publishers in the direction of progressive and unique varieties and contents. We should have the braveness to evoke the attainable and even the inconceivable.
Eric W. Sager is Professor Emeritus, Division of Historical past, College of Victoria. Sager is the writer of Seafaring Labour (McGill-Queens UP, 1989), Inequality in Canada (McGill-Queen’s, 2020), and different books.
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