Propose your Publication

Propose Your Publication

Before submitting a book proposal to one of our acquisition editors, please take note of the following guidelines and if in doubt contact the relevant person.

Aims & Scope
A 1-2 page overview of the work and how it contributes to scholarship. If the book is based on your doctoral thesis, please state how it will be amended to make it into a book. Please note that unrevised theses are not usually sent for peer review and are therefore not considered as manuscripts submissions.

Table of Contents
Please provide an annotated outline, including an abstract of each chapter. If the project is a contributed volume, please include the names and affiliations of the contributors. Indicate if any of this information is subject to change.

Sample
If available, include some representative material for the project such as the introduction, a sample chapter, including a brief description of special production issues such as artwork or non-Western fonts.

Length
Provide an estimate of the length of the project (number of words including footnotes, number of illustrations b/w, maps and tables). Brill is not usually able to consider manuscripts of fewer than 80,000 words.

Time Schedule
What is the proposed submission date of the completed manuscript for review. Please note that we do not usually send drafts or unrevised theses for peer review.

Market
Who is the book aimed at, what is the prospective readership.

Exclusivity
An indication of whether you are submitting your proposal to a number of prospective publishers and a sentence or two explaining why you are submitting your proposal to Brill. As a rule, Brill will not start formal review rounds when your work is being considered by another publisher.

CV
Please include a resume of your work experience and publication history

Manuscript Questionnaire
If additional information is needed your will hear from the editor or their assistant. In some cases you may be asked to fill out a manuscript questionnaire, especially with works with foreign scripts or a large number of illustrations.

Peer Review

Generally only final manuscripts are sent for peer review, in most cases to one or two readers. We endeavour to keep the review process double-blind, i.e. the reviewer does not know the name of the author and vice versa. However, complete anonymity is difficult if manuscripts refer to the author (i.e. a footnote saying “see my article, etc.”), or when information about your work in progress is advertised on your personal website. With edited volumes it is also difficult to keep the identity of the contributors and editors anonymous. Sometimes, the reviewer allows us to give the author their name for further correspondence and advice.

The reviewer may make suggestions for improvement, but it is important to understand that the review is not meant for detailed advice on how to proceed with finishing the manuscripts, or what approach to take. Decisions by Brill usually come in one of three forms:

• Negative decision: Brill has decided to decline your manuscript for publication
• Negative decision with the possibility to resubmit: we will accept resubmission of the manuscript after substantial revision. The manuscript will be treated as a new submission.
• Positive decision conditional to revision: the reviewer and/or the editorial board may give an offer to publish conditional upon certain revisions. After revision the manuscript will be returned to the reviewer and/or the editorial board. Some advice may not be conditional and at the discretion of the author.  Depending on the amount of revision needed a contract or letter of intent to publish may be offered.
• Positive decision: the editor will offer you a contract for publication based on the existing manuscript.

Contract

As a general rule we only offer a contract for publication after we have received a positive advice following the peer-review process.

In some cases the acquisitions editor may decide to offer a contract on the basis of a proposal only. However, publication will then still be dependent on a positive outcome of the peer-review process.

Contracts for contributed volumes are signed with the editor or editors and contributors are asked to sign separate consent to publish forms.

Rights Reserved to Authors
 Brill has a clear and generous open access and archive policy allowing authors to make use of their intellectual property without compromising the commercial value of the work for Brill. You will find up-to-date information on our Rights and Permissions page.