Hello Manuscript Workers!
This week you're getting another chance to get acquainted with an acquiring editor at a scholarly press. Today's conversation will feature Amber Rose Cederstrom of the University of Wisconsin Press. Read on for some great insight into how editors think about the peer review process. And if you've ever wondered what the difference between a list, a series, and an imprint is, Amber clears it up!
I have a few more of these interviews lined up over the coming months. If this is a feature you enjoy reading in the newsletter and you think I should keep doing these interviews, don't hesitate to let me know. You can simply reply to this email (and all you have to say is "more like this please!" or something similarly brief).
If you're an editor who has a tip for scholarly authors that you wish was understood more widely, get in touch! I'm especially eager to talk to editors who are newer in their roles and haven't had as much access to speaking directly with scholarly writers. I know that conferences and campus visits aren't accessible to all editors and presses (or authors!), so I hope this interview series will serve as an alternative avenue for communication between scholars and publishers.
Quickly, before we get to the interview: I'm raising money this week for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. If you'd like to help and have just $2 to spare in your Venmo account right now, you can send it to me @Laura-Portwood-Stacer (last 4 digits are 0511). I'll match the total I receive and send the full amount over on November 1st, so get your donations in by Friday.
Five people who give will be randomly selected to receive a copy of The Book Proposal Book (ebook) to keep or pass to a friend. Anyone who gives $10 or more will be in the running for a free enrollment in my Book Proposal Shortcut course ($395 value).
Thank you in advance for helping feed people who are going to need it next month!!
Laura Portwood-Stacer: Thank you for chatting with me today! Can you share with readers who you are, where you work, and what you do? What areas are you acquiring in these days?
Amber Rose Cederstrom: I am an acquisitions editor at the University of Wisconsin Press. Depending on how you count, I’ve been there since either February of 2020 (when I started my full-time job) or August of 2014 (when I joined the department as a part-time assistant while a graduate student). My terminal degree—sounds so dire!—is in Scandinavian Studies–Folklore, and I’m lucky enough to have landed at a press that has let me develop lists in both areas. In addition to Scandinavian, or rather Nordic, studies and folklore, I also acquire in some of our established fields, including classics and Russian, East European, and Slavic studies, and dabble in some regional trade acquisitions as well. I also manage two active series: the Warren Moon Series in Art and Archaeology and our Critical Human Rights series.
LPS: Because you oversee several lists, series, and an imprint at Wisconsin, could you briefly explain what those various terms mean and what authors should understand about them when submitting a book project for consideration?
ARC: A “list” is a broad subject area, and also, confusingly, refers to the whole set of areas a press is active in. So a press’s list comprises all of its editors’ individual lists. Even within lists, though, presses often specialize. For example, we publish in Russian, East European, and Slavic studies: but not all books that could be published in that field would be good fits for our list. We focus on modern and contemporary cultures and societies, for instance, so a book on the medieval Rus likely wouldn’t make sense for us. A series is even more focused than that. The raison d’etre of a series is to make a mark on the field, to call attention to an area of research that seems in need of focused or extra attention. Series often (though not always) have editors who aren’t employees of the press; rather, they’re specialists, often faculty, in the field. Our Warren Moon series, for example, has two editors, Mark Stansbury O’Donnell and Allison Emmerson, who are eminent archaeologists of ancient Greece and Rome respectively, and in collaboration with us have shaped the series to focus on how the study of material culture and archaeology can give insights in ancient culture and society.
While the press has sole decision-making power about what books they want in their lists, series editors will also need to want particular books in their series. If you want your book in a particular series, it’s therefore a good idea to talk to the series editor(s) and not just the acquisitions editor (though both have to agree!). Good series editors act partly as acquisitions editors in their own right, seeking out and maybe developing promising projects, and as visionaries—for their personal legacies but also for the field. Being a series editor is a great way to make a lasting impact on your field of study. Being included in a particularly prestigious or exciting series can be very motivating for authors and perhaps significant for their careers. For a press, series are a great way of establishing a presence in a field or extending their presence in a field, of reaching authors they might otherwise miss, and of playing a role in developing a field of study.
Zooming out again, an imprint can be even broader than a list. Imprints can serve as a brand, a marker that signals that “we publish these kinds of books.” Imprints can help a press develop a lasting relationship with particular audiences and establish nuanced reputations across markets. A big press might have several imprints that focus on different types of publications, for instance textbooks or cookbooks or children’s books. Just as with a series, if you’re interested in publishing with a specific imprint, make sure first that the imprint is still active, that you identity which imprint you want and why you think it would be a good fit in your first communication, and that you’re writing to the correct staff member at the press when you make contact!
LPS: All scholarly authors have to go through the (dreaded?) process of peer review. Do you have any tips for authors on how to handle the peer review process?
ARC: Peer review is perhaps the single thing that best distinguishes academic from other kinds of publishing. It’s an incredibly important feature of good scholarship—and unfortunately it’s one that a lot of young academics are ill-trained or prepared for. The point of peer review is to improve a manuscript for the betterment of the entire field (as well as for the particular manuscript and author). It’s not, fundamentally, a gate-keeping exercise, although of course it can happen that a manuscript simply doesn’t fit the needs or requirements of a field and doesn’t “review out,” meaning it’s rejected after poor peer reviews.
From an author’s perspective, it’s important to keep in mind that these are peer reviews. This shouldn’t be adversarial, but collegial: a partnership of sorts that makes the book better, supporting both you and the field. Reviews are the (hopefully) honest and unvarnished and (ideally) constructive opinions of people who would be likely to read the published book and use it in their own work. It’s an opportunity to identify weak spots in the argument, whether the structure you’ve chosen makes sense to your readers, if there’s scholarship out there you should incorporate, and generally make your manuscript the best version of itself it can be. “Good” peer reviews can thus read as either positive (publish this!) or negative (needs work).
Just because a peer review identifies areas for improvement does not mean your manuscript is bad: it means the process is working. A mixed peer review is far better than getting a negative, published review of the final product in your field’s flagship journal. But not all peer reviewers come to the task with the same clarity of purpose.
From my previous editor-in-chief, I learned that there are three kinds of negative reviews. The first is the “needs work” variant (the good kind of bad). The second is a reviewer who’s missed the mark, essentially reading the manuscript for something it isn’t—the most common kind can be summarized as “this isn’t the book I would have written.” The third is simply vitriolic—for whatever reason, the reviewer seems to have taken a personal dislike of the author and can’t read their work objectively. Part of my job as an acquisitions editor is to discern what kind of peer review we’re getting and help the author navigate how to respond and revise. It’s rare that, even in the third case, there’s nothing remotely useful to be gained for a manuscript, even if overall the review isn’t what we’re hoping for.
Ask your editor for help navigating the review process and understanding what the reviewers are asking for, and what they think is most important—if they don’t volunteer that information themselves. One final note: Because these are peer reviews, you don’t have to follow every suggestion the reviewers make; reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Be cordial, purposeful, and confident in your responses.
LPS: Do you have any additional tips on how to be a good peer reviewer, since many of my readers will find themselves on both sides of the table at some point?
ARC: From a peer reviewer’s perspective, the critical thing is to keep in mind that the press and, indirectly, the author, are asking not just for your expertise as a specialist but also as a reader. How could the manuscript be made better? How could the argument be sharpened, better supported, or better communicated? Set aside any personal biases or how you would interpret the data. The press wants to hear how the manuscript in front of you can be improved, not how you would write about the same topic (send in your own proposal!).
The best peer reviews are thoughtful, thorough, and specific–we don’t want just “develop this idea further,” but “develop this idea further by taking into account issues X and Y.” Even better than that, “Develop this idea further by taking into account issues X and Y and considering the works of Author 1 and Author 2.” In some ways the ask isn’t dissimilar to a PhD advisor reading a dissertation—although, of course, there are real and important differences between a dissertation and a book, and between a peer relationship and an advisor-advisee relationship. The ideal peer reviewer, however, is similarly discerning, supportive, knowledgeable, and constructive, if also critical and honest.
One final note: we are not looking for peer reviewers to proofread or copyedit the manuscript. It’s fine and helpful if you notice things like distracting linguistic quirks or a repeatedly misspelled word, but your job is the big picture, not the minutiae.
LPS: Let's talk about what happens after peer review. I know from personal experience that when an author finishes writing and revising a manuscript, they’re eager to call it “done” and celebrate the accomplishment. But more goes into a “finished” manuscript to make it ready for production than most first-time authors realize. Could you talk about some of the work authors should anticipate—beyond writing the book—before they attach the file and hit Send for the last time?
ARC: After an author signs a contract and completes the final round of revisions for submission to the Press, it can–understandably–feel like you’ve reached the end of the marathon. But in many cases the last draft you submit to acquisitions isn’t the only thing you need to send for it to count as a “final, complete manuscript.” (It won’t even be the last time you have a chance to make changes to the text, although you shouldn’t plan on making any large edits after that point.)
If your book will include images, you’ll have to send those in as well, formatted to the press’s specifications. You will also have to send in permissions. These could be permissions to republish your own work that appeared earlier in another volume or journal, lyrics you want to use as an epigraph, or permission from copyright holders to reproduce an image. If you have a lot of images, collecting them in good quality and all the permissions to publish them will take a lot of time, and possibly cost a lot of money—typically from the author’s own funds, whether personal or professional. Make sure, when you’re negotiating a due date for the contract, that you give yourself enough time to get all of those ducks in a row! You will also likely need to submit forms provided by the press, for instance a marketing questionnaire or contributors’ agreements if you’re editing a volume.
Every press will have slightly different requirements for what is required when. Your acquisitions editor should clarify all of this, but if you have any doubt, ask! It’s better for everyone to smooth the ground ahead of time and prepare for any possible hiccups in the process.
LPS: What kinds of projects would you love to hear about in the near future? If any authors out there are working on something that could be a good fit for your areas, where can they find you and how would you like them to reach out?
ARC: This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer succinctly–partly because the answer is different for my different lists, partly because I like being surprised by projects that might not on the surface seem “just right” but have an attractive spark to them, and partly because while all of our lists have particular strengths and areas of focus, every project is a unique partnership.
That said: For my area studies (Nordic and Russian, East European, and Slavic) lists, I’d most love to hear about projects in modern and contemporary cultural history, particularly projects looking at the intersections between culture, society, and politics. I’d really like to develop our sublist on Polish studies and support the field’s growing focus on minority and Indigenous cultures within Russia and the former Soviet Union.
For classics, I’m similarly interested in cultural history, but there I’m especially interested in popular culture, broadly understood–for instance, magical practices, sports, ancient folklore–and I’d love to broaden the lens from Greece and Rome to the broader Mediterranean. I’m also interested in contemporary popular culture about the ancient world, for instance how ancient cultures are used, employed, or interpreted in things like video games, movies, or modern paganisms.
Our folklore list is focused especially on contemporary belief: genres like legend, rumor, conspiracy theory, and so on. I’m also excited about interdisciplinary folklore projects–again, the intersections of folklore with popular culture, politics, communications, or sociology.
Again, though, I’m very open to conversations–if you’re unsure about whether we’d be the right partner for you–and it really is a partnership–send me a note! I would love to hear from folks by email (ajrose2@wisc.edu).
Thank you so much for speaking with me, Amber. I hope you get some new book projects with an attractive spark in your inbox soon!
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This newsletter is coming to you from Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, professional developmental editor and publishing consultant. I help scholarly writers navigate the book publishing process with more ease and agency.
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