Book Production

Overview

A. Choosing a Title

The first line of book promotion starts with choosing the right title for your book. When creating your title, use keywords that academics in your field would use when undertaking internet searches on your topic. Include these words in your main title, not just the subtitle.

For instance, if your book explores gender and sexuality in absolutist France, we recommend against titling it Noble Duty: Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century France. Rather, we would suggest calling it Absolutist France, Sexuality, and Catholicism: The Nobility and Gender. The second title would ensure that anyone doing a Google search for the terms absolutism, nobility, gender, sexuality, Catholicism, and/or France would find your book.


B. Manuscript Submission

The first step in the production process is deciding when you would like to submit your completed manuscript. You can pick any date that works best for you—whether it be far in the future or relatively soon.

When choosing a date, please keep in mind how much time you will need to clean up formatting and when you would like the book to be published.

The whole process, from manuscript submission to publishing, can vary greatly depending on how long the peer review process takes, how many peer reviews need to be done and how quickly you complete revisions after peer review. However, the production time needed after peer review and revisions is usually three months.


Submission Date Extensions


We try to be as lenient as possible regarding submission date extensions. We understand that publishing, while a major part of an academic career, usually comes second to teaching, and there are certain times every year that professors get busy with university work.

If you are experiencing delays, please let the Managing Editor know as soon as possible and he will update the production schedule for your book accordingly. Do keep in mind that since we publish many books, production schedules are very important to maintain, and frequent date changes will mean delays in production on our end. To combat this, if your submission date is extended, your manuscript will be put at the end of the production queue


Choosing a Book Series and Research Network


Please let us know if you have a particular research network and book imprint in which you would like your book published. We have twenty-four research networks, and sometimes books have a bit of overlap with multiple book imprints. We understand that you may already be a member of a specific research network, and we would like to give you the opportunity to publish within that research networks book series, especially if it means you will be able to launch your book at a future conference.


Layout and Formatting


We use a specific layout for all of our books. While you are not required to submit your manuscript using this layout, we do have a template we can send you if you would like to transfer your book into this layout before the manuscript submission date.

Some things to keep in mind when getting your manuscript ready for submission are:

  • Use quality images. We can only work with what you submit and cannot improve the quality during typesetting.
  • Make sure you own the copyright or have permission to use these images before the manuscript is submitted.
  • If you include graphs, charts, or tables in your manuscript, make sure they can fit on a page that is 6.14 X 9.21 (inches) with 1.6 inch margins. If you include any graphs, tables, or charts that are drawn to a larger page size, they will become distorted when we begin typesetting.


Peer Review


1. Single and Multi-author books

For single and multi-author books, manuscripts will be sent out for peer review after the manuscript is submitted and typesetting is finished. The pool of peer reviewers consists of subject experts from our research networks and former Common Ground authors.

2. Edited Collections

Many of our books are collections of articles published in our various journals. Because these articles have already been through the peer review process and the editors act as another peer reviewer, the edited collections are not sent out for peer review. This means that once the manuscript is submitted, we will finish the typesetting and have the first proof back to the collection editor for approval within a week. 

3. Revisions

Manuscripts will be scored as: Accepted, Revisions Requested, or Rejected. If the manuscript is accepted, you will still have a chance to make any minor change between peer review and final submission for publication. For manuscripts requiring revisions, we will send you the typeset Word document and you can take as much time as you need to make the changes. However, we do ask that you keep us informed of your progress.

Once you are finished with your revisions, the manuscript will be sent out for a second round of peer review. If after three peer reviews your manuscript is not accepted by a reviewer, the manuscript will be rejected by Common Ground.

4. Copyediting

If copyediting is requested by the reviewer, you might be required to send your manuscript to an editor. You may find your own editor to complete this task. Common Ground Publishing also has a team of freelance copy editors you may choose to use for a fee. 


Proof Approval


When your manuscript is accepted, we will send you the final typeset proof for approval. If you need to make any minor changes or corrections you can request the Word file proof to make these edits.

Once the proof has your final approval, we will send the manuscript through our own internal approval process to make sure all the styles, formatting, and layout is consistent and to find any errors that might have been missed in the previous steps. Note: CGRN does not create indices in manuscripts for authors. Those must be done by the author or a third party.


Cover Creation


Common Ground Research Networks uses a specific template for all book covers and creates all covers in-house. However, we give every author and editor the chance to give us their input, so their cover will have its own personal touch.

For the back cover, we will need you to submit a back cover blurb and your author bio. Together, they should not exceed 300 words.


A note on Cover Images...

If you have an image that you own the rights to or have permission to use, you can forward it to us to use as the cover image. Images must be at 2000 x 2000 pixels and 300 dpi. If you do not have a particular image in mind, we also provide a large number a pre-approved images to choose from which you can view here.


Final Approval

Once the cover is created, it will be sent to you for approval with the final proof. By this time both the cover and manuscript proofs will have gone through an initial approval stage with you and Common Ground Research Networks. This final approval stages only last a couple weeks, and all major editing will have already been done by this point.


Once we have your final approval for the cover and manuscript proofs, they will be uploaded to our printers. It usually takes two weeks before we receive the print proofs. Once we receive and approve the print proofs, your book will be published and added to our online bookstore and Amazon.com.




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