Celebrating Client Books of 2021

Hello Manuscript Workers,

The bad news just keeps coming in 2021 (thank you to everyone who reached out after last week’s newsletter to say you’re struggling too). However, I wanted to take a quick minute this week to celebrate the wonderful, ambitious scholarly books that my clients released this year.

New book releases are always a reminder of what a long game book publishing is. My work on these particular books spanned from 2017 to 2020, so these publications definitely qualify as delayed gratification.

In several instances I helped first-time authors figure out how to reframe their dissertations into marketable and compelling books. In other cases, the authors were working on second or third books and seeking a developmental editor’s eye to bring everything together smoothly.

Over the course of this year my editing and consulting practice has almost entirely shifted away from one-on-one developmental work with authors—most of my energy is now focused on the online programs I run—so this crop of books is extra special. I learned so much from each project and I know you will too if you decide to read any of them. The authors are also all just really nice people and were a joy to work with.

Below are the books in order of release date, with links to their university press webpages. Where applicable, I’m also including the descriptive one-liners that appear with the books in their publishers’ catalogs (if you’ve read The Book Proposal Book you know why these are important!):

The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family
Sophie Bjork-James
Rutgers University Press, March 2021

Fighting Visibility: Sports Media and Female Athletes in the UFC
Ultimate Fighting Championship and the present and future of women's sports
Jennifer McClearen
University of Illinois Press, March 2021

The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope
Why simple technological solutions to complex social issues continue to appeal to politicians and professionals who should (and often do) know better
Daniel Green
MIT Press, April 2021

The Stuff of Spectatorship: Material Cultures of Film and Television
Caetlin Benson-Allott
University of California Press, April 2021

Against Flow: Video Games and the Flowing Subject
A critical discussion of the experience and theory of flow (as conceptualized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) in video games
Braxton Soderman
MIT Press, April 2021

Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan
Shenila Khoja-Moolji
University of California Press, June 2021

Micro Media Industries: Hmong American Media Innovation in the Diaspora
Lori Kido Lopez
Rutgers University Press, August 2021

Underground: The Secret Life of Videocassettes in Iran
How Iranians forged a vibrant, informal video distribution infrastructure when their government banned all home video technology in 1983
Blake Atwood
MIT Press, September 2021

Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism
Feminism’s link to fashion from the 1890s to the 1970s
Einav Rabinovitch-Fox
University of Illinois Press, November 2021

Many other clients landed contracts this year and several have books coming out in 2022 with University of Minnesota Press, University of Chicago Press, Princeton University Press, Yale University Press, University of California Press, Clemson University Press, University Press of Mississippi, New York University Press, MIT Press, and more. Some of the titles are currently available for pre-order—you can preview those on my website and get your orders in early if any pique your interest.

If you’re somewhere in the midst of your own book publishing timeline, I wish you patience and fortitude for the road ahead. It may be long but I hope the result will be worth it!

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If you’re still near the beginning of your book publishing process—say, developing your book proposal or preparing to reach out to publishers—and you’d like a partner for the road, consider joining one of my programs in 2022.

The Book Proposal Accelerator is a live group program that runs from January 7th to February 18th; enrollment opens on January 3rd at 9am PST.

The Book Proposal Shortcut for Busy Scholars is a self-paced program that you can start and finish anytime. Enrollment for that will be open from January 3rd to January 9th.

Both programs come with indefinite access to the materials, so you can use them to complete your proposal on whatever timeline works for you. Plus, everyone who goes through the programs gets invited to periodic office hours to check in with me and ask any questions that arise during your publishing journey. I really do hope to be an ongoing partner and sounding board for you throughout the process.

Questions about which program (if any) would be best for your needs? Shoot me an email at laura@manuscriptworks.com.

Want reminders when enrollment is about to open? Subscribe to this newsletter and I’ll give you a one-hour heads up before I open the doors to the Accelerator and Shortcut in January.

Thanks for reading and see you here next week!