Navigating Peer Review on Your First Book

00:00:05:12 - 00:00:38:18
Cathy Hannabach
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Navigating Peer Review on your first book. Thank you for being here. My name is Cathy Hannabach. I'm the founder and CEO of Ideas on Fire, the academic editing and indexing agency that helps interdisciplinary scholars turn brilliant ideas into publishable and often field-shaping books. I'm very excited to welcome you to the fourth in our six-session series on first book publishing, which walks you through every stage of that first book journey, from proposal to publication and beyond.

00:00:38:20 - 00:01:03:13
Cathy Hannabach
Across these sessions, I'm joined by acquisitions editors, editorial directors, production editors, marketing directors, and series editors from more than a dozen leading university presses. We're all here to demystify the first book publishing process. At Ideas on Fire, we've helped hundreds of scholars refine their book proposals and their book manuscripts, strengthen their arguments, and ultimately bring those books into the world.

00:01:03:23 - 00:01:24:24
Cathy Hannabach
I know how much thought and care goes into first books in particular. They're often tenure books, but not exclusively. I really like helping people navigate that process. So I'm very excited to be in conversation here today with Elizabeth Ault, who's the senior acquisitions editor at Duke University Press, as well as Shaun Vigil, acquisitions editor at Temple University Press.

00:01:25:01 - 00:01:45:19
Cathy Hannabach
Rachel Fudge, who some of you might already know, is Ideas on Fire's editorial director and she's also with us. She will be active in the chat and providing tech support. So the three of us are here today to demystify a stage of the book publishing process that is both intellectually rigorous but also can be quite emotionally intense.

00:01:45:21 - 00:02:07:06
Cathy Hannabach
Peer review really is where your book manuscript stops being only yours and starts becoming a book that can live in the world. During the session, if you have questions for any of our speakers, you can click the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen to submit those, and we'll have time at the end of our session today to get to some of those.

00:02:07:08 - 00:02:43:05
Cathy Hannabach
So to get us started, I want to briefly ground us in what peer review is and also maybe what it's not, before we turn to how both Duke and Temple structure their particular review processes. Peer review is a defining feature of scholarly publishing. I would say it's the defining feature of scholarly publishing. It's the stage where your work is evaluated by subject matter experts who understand your fields, who understand the debates that you're wanting to be part of, and who understand the stakes of the intervention that you're making.

00:02:43:05 - 00:03:15:18
Cathy Hannabach
Unlike most other forms of book publishing, academic books are shaped not just by presses and editors but by sustained engagement from fellow scholars. At most academic publishers, a full book manuscript is sent to 2 or 3 external peer reviewers who are professors and scholars in that book's field. Now, Liz and Shaun will talk a little bit about the particularities of how their presses handle this, but this tends to be the process for most university presses in the United States.

00:03:15:20 - 00:03:44:08
Cathy Hannabach
Those peer reviewers are typically paid a few hundred dollars, in either cash or books, and they're asked to assess the manuscript’s scholarly contribution, the soundness of its research and its methodology, and its fit for that particular press or that particular list. The peer review reports that they write, they give to the acquisitions editor, and they're really designed to offer usually one of three recommendations:

00:03:44:10 - 00:04:16:14
Cathy Hannabach
1. Accept this book with minimal revisions. That's extremely rare for first books. 2. Revise and resubmit. 3. Reject. And then the acquisitions editor does their own assessment work, weighing those reports and those recommendations, that subject matter familiarity alongside their own editorial assessment and their publisher concerns, their market concerns, and then they present a summary or unified voice to an author about what revisions would be necessary to move forward in the publishing process.

00:04:16:16 - 00:04:43:20
Cathy Hannabach
I will say that what often first book authors in particular have questions about is that peer review is not a referendum on your worth as a scholar. It's not even a referendum on the quality of the book in question. It really is a structured, generous, ideally generous, conversation about how a book can become clearer, how it can become stronger, and how it can become more legible to the audiences that you want to reach.

00:04:43:22 - 00:05:11:16
Cathy Hannabach
And that conversation looks different at different presses. That's really what we're here to talk about today, how that breaks down in different contexts. So to maybe start us off, I'd love to hear from both of you about the peer review process at your individual presses. What do you ask peer reviewers to evaluate in a manuscript, particularly as it pertains to the specific list that you're building and the types of books that your press seeks to publish?

00:05:11:18 - 00:05:30:19
Elizabeth Ault
Thank you for this generous onramp and introduction, Cathy, and for the invitation to even be here. Before everyone else logged on, Shaun and I were engaged in a pretty significant hype session about how amazing Cathy's work and the work of everyone at Ideas on Fire is, and the space that they're creating for interdisciplinary scholarship.

00:05:30:21 - 00:05:48:08
Elizabeth Ault
The community that they're creating around the ideas that are both on fire and under extreme attack right now. So I'm really grateful for that, and really energized to be here because I do think being able to talk to folks, first book authors, returning authors, people who are out there doing the work every day,

00:05:48:10 - 00:06:10:23
Elizabeth Ault
it's what's keeping me going in these times. That and Heated Rivalry, but that's a different webinar. So thank you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, Cathy. I just want to take a quick step back to explain some of the structural function of peer review in terms of the relationship between a press and an editor, which is that I don't speak for myself.

00:06:10:23 - 00:06:30:23
Elizabeth Ault
I am not contract Oprah. I cannot be like, look under your chair. You get a contract, you get a book contract, you get a book contract, you get a book contract, just because I like your project. For me at Duke, I have to have reports on something in order to be able to request a contract for a book.

00:06:30:23 - 00:06:47:24
Elizabeth Ault
So in order to be able to make a formal commitment, that is something that can go in a tenure file, that is something that can be updated on a CV, that is something that can go into a promotion file, I have to send material out for peer review. And that does vary across the press. There are things called advance contracts,

00:06:47:24 - 00:07:05:08
Elizabeth Ault
and again, that could be a different webinar. But I'll just say for me, I am not sending things out for peer review to be like, is this something? Could this be good? Is there anything here? 95% of the time that I'm sending something out it's because I like it. I want to publish it.

00:07:05:08 - 00:07:26:02
Elizabeth Ault
I think it's a good fit for my press. And I believe in the project. And so I want to find reviewers who will also, as Cathy was saying, believe in the project, help it to connect with its audience, help it to maybe figure out who its audience is, with reviewers who can narrate the project back to the author and see the possibilities that maybe the author is too in the weeds to see.

00:07:26:06 - 00:07:45:08
Elizabeth Ault
I think a lot of people's first experience of peer review is double anonymous journal peer review, which is very different from book peer review because in book peer review it's basically impossible to conceal the author's identity, so we don't even try. So the reviewers of your book are going to know who you as the author are.

00:07:45:14 - 00:08:10:21
Elizabeth Ault
We will keep the reviewers identities anonymous. The reviewers, of course, can out themselves. I think in part because of that, and in part because it's a longer commitment and there is a nominal honorarium, not just vibes as in journal peer review, that people are taking this on in a slightly different spirit. I think journal peer review can often be very gatekeeping, can feel very gatekeeping.

00:08:10:21 - 00:08:38:22
Elizabeth Ault
It can also feel like you are trying to fit into the journal. You're editing your voice to fit to the journal’s voice. Whereas in book peer review, you're honing your voice to connect with your audience and figuring out who that is and what that is. And so I have experienced book peer review most of the time as very enabling, an energizing opportunity.

00:08:39:09 - 00:08:56:17
Elizabeth Ault
I think that a lot of people approach it with fear and trepidation because of some of those Reviewer 2 experiences that are often discussed on social media, which I think more often come from journals. But I love peer review. I see it as an opportunity to get to share projects that I'm excited about and to make formal commitments.

00:08:56:19 - 00:09:11:13
Elizabeth Ault
So I just want to just start by saying like that is another part of the function of peer review in the life of a relationship between a book and a press is for me to be able to put a book under contract. I need to send something out for peer review. So that's just kind of where we start from here.

00:09:11:13 - 00:09:14:15
Elizabeth Ault
And I'll pass it to you.

00:09:14:17 - 00:09:35:22
Shaun Vigil
Yeah. I would obviously cosign everything you said, including the praise of the Ideas on Fire folks, which we'll get back to again later and embarrass you all. But I would say a few things. I would add, to what Liz just noted, for me, the main thing that peer review should do is really inform the author about how to better your book.

00:09:35:23 - 00:09:56:08
Shaun Vigil
That is really in the abstract, and obviously, I understand there are pragmatic concerns about your first book for everybody on this webinar. I'm sure they're contractual for your position, things you have going on in your mind, you may need it for a contract for, say, a position you're applying for or whatever it may be.

00:09:56:10 - 00:10:21:06
Shaun Vigil
But ultimately, peer review, at least in the abstract, should really be viewed as something that's about improving your work, helping you constructively see where there are oversights in your project. That specifically is what Temple is looking for. But I would say this is true of any press I've been at or any editor I know at other presses. It’s one of the essential things we're looking for in peer review, especially as Liz has noted,

00:10:21:06 - 00:10:44:13
Shaun Vigil
this is a very human process in a lot of ways. Does this book that you're either proposing with sample materials appended and again, what we send out for peer review and for who and how is something I'm sure we'll get into. But whether it's a proposal and sample materials or a full manuscript, the central question for me as an editor for the press is, does this theoretically cohere?

00:10:46:02 - 00:11:09:06
Shaun Vigil
I say that maybe with a lowercase t, if you will, because some books are more theoretical than others. Some are very practically oriented. But wherever they fall on that spectrum, does the through-line remain across the book? Does the central thesis? Is it examined and explored in chapter 3? And in chapter 4 is complicated further?

00:11:09:06 - 00:11:28:00
Shaun Vigil
Peer reviewers are there to help us as editors disentangle those nuances across the book to make sure that the sense that we have of it on a macro level is true on the more micro level as well. And I would say, again, we can talk about specific subject areas that myself or Liz acquire

00:11:28:02 - 00:11:48:09
Shaun Vigil
and the specificities with those specific lists, sublist fields. But by and large, for me, the central thing is, as Liz said, we don't send things out typically unless I already felt confident about the book and some central part of its argument in some way, and also in it fitting with what we do at Temple.

00:11:48:11 - 00:12:09:24
Shaun Vigil
So if it's reached that stage, it's really a matter of what can the author do? What kinds of things can they bring to the fore to make this a stronger book, that centers their voice even more clearly and effectively? Because the peer reviewers are not there, again, irrespective of the type of book, I'm maybe leaving STEM out for the moment as I've never edited that.

00:12:10:01 - 00:12:32:17
Shaun Vigil
But at least in the humanities or more qualitative social sciences broadly, I would say really the critical thing here is if you're an interdisciplinary scholar and you're working with Ideas on Fore, do these disciplinary dialogs connect? Are they do they feel like they're in isolation? These are the kinds of questions that speak back to that theoretical center or that argumentative center that I mentioned.

00:12:33:04 - 00:13:03:22
Shaun Vigil
No matter what type of book you're publishing, one of the hardest things to do is really have your thesis statement carry through across the whole book, as silly as that can sound sometimes. So for me, that is one of the central elements of peer review, irrespective of your field or subject area, because ultimately, speaking to Liz's point about the process as well, that's what's going to inform myself as the editor that you're working with or whichever editor you're working with at any given press on what they do next with those reports.

00:13:04:04 - 00:13:28:06
Shaun Vigil
Because as as was mentioned, this functions differently than journal publishing. What might lead to a full contract, an advance contract, and again, those are discourses that are part of this but maybe for another time or today later. But the nature of the kind of contract we might offer, the way we contextualize the book to our faculty advisory board, how we contextualize those peer reviews themselves.

00:13:28:08 - 00:13:50:07
Shaun Vigil
Again, this is a very human process, at least at Temple and every press I've been at. So what I would say is the key thing here is how you’re attending to the central argument in your book and how that carries through. It is ultimately the main thing we're thinking about, because a member of our faculty advisory board, and we'll go into these points later as well, how different presses approve the peer reviews or whatever, I'm sure.

00:13:50:07 - 00:14:15:08
Shaun Vigil
But here at Temple, we have members of our architecture school. We had somebody from our dental school as well as the law school. They're not all humanists working in disability studies or things like that, although we have them as well. But this is to say ultimately, when they're looking at the peer reviews, they're going to want to get a sense of what is this book doing that that translates even outside of its immediate field?

00:14:15:08 - 00:14:34:12
Shaun Vigil
It's not just that the peer reviewers are reading back to you and narrativizing, in a way, what your book is doing and therefore what you can do to improve it. But how does it read legibly, even just on a basic level? There's that level too, because as editors, we might be in the weeds a little bit too much to catch that bigger macro picture.

00:14:34:13 - 00:14:52:04
Shaun Vigil
How does this speak to the broader dialogs that are beyond its individual field? And that's why I would say, without going into a million nodes here or too far, peer review is informing the way that we internally understand what the book is doing, seeking to do, who it's for and how it fits with what we do.

00:14:52:04 - 00:14:59:22
Shaun Vigil
Peer review is all a part of helping us break that down, analyze it, and think through the next steps for the book.

00:15:00:09 - 00:15:07:15
Elizabeth Ault
And I mean, I think we're sort of speaking in these generalities. But to be clear, every press has guidelines for peer review.

00:15:07:16 - 00:15:08:09
Shaun Vigil
Right.

00:15:08:11 - 00:15:33:10
Elizabeth Ault
Now, as with any academic situation, you'll send people guidelines. Some people will read them, some people will use them, some people will follow them to like a beautiful biblical T. Some people will never open the attachment and will write whatever the hell they want. And both ways are totally fine. But like, literally the first question on the Duke peer review guidelines is what is the primary contribution or argument of the proposed publication?

00:15:33:16 - 00:15:49:23
Elizabeth Ault
What is the importance of this work in terms of original content or perspective? So that's number one, that's the first question that we're asking. Then from there, all of the questions get a little bit more detailed and nuanced. There are questions about the strengths of the work, the weaknesses of the work, the audiences for the work.

00:15:49:24 - 00:16:08:16
Elizabeth Ault
Would you teach it in a class? What kind of class would you teach it in? How is the writing style? How is the organization? How are the images? How does it relate to other works in the field? We're asking people these specific questions as the main points that we want the peer reviewers to cover.

00:16:08:18 - 00:16:26:04
Elizabeth Ault
We also have, I'm looking at a folder on my other screen. There's like 10 different types of guidelines because we have different guidelines if it's an edited collection, if we're sending out a completed manuscript, if we're sending out a proposal and sample chapters, if we're sending out a proposal for a trade book, if we're sending out, we have poetry peer review.

00:16:26:07 - 00:16:50:16
Elizabeth Ault
So so we we are trying to guide the readers, to give the author helpful feedback. And I have definitely, in a few cases, had to go back to peer reviewers to be like, could you expand? Because of course, this is another part of the academic hidden curriculum, which is that no one teaches you how to write a peer review,.

00:16:52:08 - 00:17:21:00
Elizabeth Ault
Often when we're thinking about who to ask to do the peer reviews, because everyone is overworked, especially in these interdisciplinary subject areas where people are often jointly appointed, so might already have more service work, where people are holding many, sometimes multiple marginalized identities and so also doing that emotional and political work on their campuses, where people are often responsible for care work in their personal and professional lives, all of these things.

00:17:21:00 - 00:17:41:15
Elizabeth Ault
Peer review is one tiny part of what we're asking people to do. And so I think trying to like, not waste people's time. So trying to make sure the manuscript is ready for review and is relevant and is something we think this person will be interested in. That can be a real enticement for someone to peer review

00:17:41:15 - 00:18:03:17
Elizabeth Ault
a book is for them to keep up with what is happening in their field. So that's also where as editors, we are like, oh, this person is working on this topic, even though their last book was about this other topic, maybe they'll want to read this book because they need to know what's going on with, like, the Sphinx as a concept because they're on a fellowship in Greece.

00:18:03:17 - 00:18:21:23
Elizabeth Ault
This literally is a thing that happened to me. I was asking someone to peer review a book. And she was like, oh, I'm going to Greece. I was like, do you want to read this other book? Anyway, so, I think a lot of people don't always have the time to read books.

00:18:21:23 - 00:18:38:12
Elizabeth Ault
And so some, especially mid-career faculty, do peer review to keep up with the literature in their field, which is great because then they know what's coming out. They know they can plan to assign the book, plan to have the author come to campus, and start to already build community and a conversation around the book even before it's published.

00:18:38:12 - 00:19:01:08
Elizabeth Ault
That's a really important part of peer review as well. To build on Shaun’s point, too, about interdisciplinary discourses, I would say that it's sometimes rare that we have the perfect reader. Like I'm right now. I'm working on a book about the high modernist capital of Nigeria, Abuja. It's a boring city.

00:19:01:08 - 00:19:17:18
Elizabeth Ault
It's a high modernist capital. There's not that much written about it. So there aren't a lot of people out there who are experts on this city that I can send the book to. So I have to think about like, okay, so could I send it to someone who knows things about Nigeria and then someone who knows things about like high modernist planning?

00:19:17:22 - 00:19:37:05
Elizabeth Ault
I'm trying to think about what are the pools of expertise that need to be covered? And obviously, I'm not going to publish a book on Nigeria that no one who works on Nigeria has peer reviewed. That would be irresponsible. But there might be another another piece of the pie that I need to make sure is also covered.

00:19:37:11 - 00:20:08:03
Elizabeth Ault
And sometimes it might be that there's multiple things that work. So this is not only a book about high modernist city planning, but it's also a book that's trying to connect Black studies and African studies, which are two fields that don't always talk to each other. And so I might end up hoping that the author can cover the high modernism piece, or that might know enough about the planning history of Nigeria to speak to that and then get someone from Black studies who can really speak to will readers in Black studies resonate with the way that that scholarship is being used to theorize

00:20:08:03 - 00:20:28:21
Elizabeth Ault
these examples on the continent. And so that is something that I think we're always really carefully thinking about: making sure that the peer reviewers have complementary skill sets, whether it's site or method or field. Because the last thing that we would want in interdisciplinary studies also is for one field to be used to kind of punish the other field.

00:20:28:24 - 00:20:57:22
Elizabeth Ault
I think that is sometimes a very strong temptation for people who are trained in traditional fields and then discover interdisciplinary scholarship to be like, well, geography is bad, and I'm going to use queer theory to show geographers why they're bad and they should feel bad. And I'm not going to disagree with you that there are certain biases and assumptions and traditions built into the field of geography that I, too, would love to unsettle.

00:20:57:24 - 00:21:21:08
Elizabeth Ault
But if you want geographers to read your book, you actually need to explain to them why it would be so great to consider this queer theoretical approach and how it would enhance their own practice of geography, as opposed to telling them that their field is bad and they should feel bad. And so I think trying to work with authors before peer review to get to that stage and then send the book out to people in those fields to see how it's landing differently.

00:21:21:08 - 00:21:49:00
Elizabeth Ault
And that is where you get kind of some of the real tensions in interdisciplinary scholarship. It is sometimes very challenging to navigate when you have one peer reviewer that's like, I need more archival citation and one peer reviewer that's like, I need more theoretical citation. And meanwhile the book manuscript can't be over 90,000 words. That's also when an editor is there to help you try to navigate and thread those particular needles.

00:21:49:02 - 00:22:06:11
Shaun Vigil
Definitely. One thing I would add to that, going back to this question of specific lists you're building or types of books that you publish, related to the questions you ask. Further to your point, using a concrete example here as well without divulging too much information about its review process.

00:22:06:11 - 00:22:29:18
Shaun Vigil
We had a book recently that published last year, Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland. This book was at the vectors between urban studies and Asian American studies, that was sort of the overlaying interdisciplinary fields that it was coming from, but it had urban studies and it has history in it, in the way that historians understand it, cultural criticism, things like that.

00:22:29:20 - 00:23:00:12
Shaun Vigil
In a book like that, there's the element of you need to find the person, as Liz was saying, that might know X or Y, but additionally, this is a big part of what we're doing and another part of peer review, even beyond the selection of the reader is making sense for that book. Another thing is in shaping what we're asking, oftentimes what we view at Temple is, if it's a book like that where you can see chapters that are the history chapter or the urban studies chapter, even though it's not that neat of course, is asking

00:23:00:12 - 00:23:19:12
Shaun Vigil
them, like, okay, can you add a little bit more about this section? We are interested in your particular thoughts on it because they are the specialists more familiar with that or this. That's one way of guiding a reader to say, okay, even if maybe theoretically, they're not going to jive with everything. This is why we're interested in knowing from you.

00:23:19:14 - 00:23:38:23
Shaun Vigil
And sometimes adding those conceits can be helpful—without overprescribing, of course. Because again, we want to make sure the reader is right for a book no matter what. Even if somebody has the perfect profile on paper, there may be any multitude of things behind the scenes that you don't know about that might make them not an ideal reader.

00:23:39:00 - 00:23:54:12
Shaun Vigil
So this is the sort of thing, as Liz noted, we're thinking about really critically. And even sometimes the questions that we might tailor a little bit for any individual reader will have in mind what we're looking for them to comment upon. But equally, this is where I would bring back this point about the human nature of it.

00:23:54:14 - 00:24:13:03
Shaun Vigil
This is also where when we're bringing the project forward or interpreting those reports, what a geographer, to your point there for your book, Liz, is going to say to bear on the queer theory part. We're going to think about it with that in mind, too. It's one thing to also note to them, you need to make sure this translates.

00:24:13:03 - 00:24:51:06
Shaun Vigil
But then, on the other hand, there is an element for my books at least I can say, well, how do you make sure your point is clear? You're not that historian, so you don't need to do that book. That's what a lot of this is about. Or even when we're presenting later for approval processes, interpreting that for others as well. It’s important when we speak with our editorial director, if we have a more middling report, a positive report, and maybe another middling report, contextualizing them in what those readers are bringing to this particular project is also important, or getting a sense of their understanding of

00:24:51:08 - 00:25:06:10
Shaun Vigil
the field as a whole, contextualizing with the other reports is critical. This is a long-winded way of saying we're interpreting all those things the whole time. And that's why we ask some guided questions too, as well, as Liz noted.

00:25:06:12 - 00:25:26:16
Cathy Hannabach
One of the things that I like to tell authors is that peer review reports give you really important feedback and data about how your book lands with specific readers, which is not a perspective that as an author, you're privy to prior to sharing it with other humans that you have access to. You know how it lands with you.

00:25:26:16 - 00:25:51:24
Cathy Hannabach
You know what you are trying to do in it. Presumably you've gotten collegial feedback in some capacity on it. But peer review reports really are the chance where you see how how it is heard by people usually that you've never met or at least never worked with directly in that fashion. And that's gold. That's so helpful to you as you try to figure out how do I better speak to them if they misunderstood something?

00:25:51:24 - 00:26:10:20
Cathy Hannabach
What does that tell me about the way that I'm trying to explain this important concept? And how can I change the way I explain it so that it lands better, or it is heard correctly, or in the manner that I want it to be heard by the people that I care about? And you only get that feedback by giving it to another human and having them read it.

00:26:10:22 - 00:26:26:18
Elizabeth Ault
And I'll say too, I always ask authors for a list of recommendations of folks that I should send their work to, and then also for a list of people who they'd prefer not read their work. I don't need to know why. I mean, there's certain people that we would never send it to.

00:26:26:18 - 00:26:40:22
Elizabeth Ault
We wouldn't send it to someone who was on your your dissertation committee if it's a first book or who's at the institution that you did your PhD at, or someone who's your current colleague or someone who you've coauthored with. Ideally, we'd prefer to not send it to a romantic partner or ex. That is sometimes unavoidable.

00:26:41:03 - 00:27:06:21
Elizabeth Ault
But we don't need to know why you don't want us to send the work to someone. We want the book to get a fair, excited, engaged reading. And so if there's someone who you know is not a good reader of your work, you don't want to send your work to them. We take the recommendations of people seriously too, although I will say that I don't think Saidiya Hartman reads a lot of first book manuscripts for university presses, neither does Judith Butler.

00:27:12:04 - 00:27:34:02
Elizabeth Ault
I think what is not helpful, like, I think what Cathy said is helpful is imagining the report as a stand in for a group of readers, like this person didn't get what I was trying to do as a historian. But what's not helpful is to try to be like, well, that's just Cathy's read, and this is what she thinks.

00:27:34:02 - 00:27:59:13
Elizabeth Ault
And she's always on about this, this and this. I have had multiple authors try to tell me who they think their readers are. If they're right, it's not helpful. And if they're wrong, it's also not helpful. It's sort of funny, but trying to read between the lines of the peer review to identify the specific person that did it is deeply unhelpful.

00:27:59:13 - 00:28:14:02
Elizabeth Ault
That is why we keep our readers anonymous, even if they say they're fine being disclosed, because the idea is that the reports are supposed to stand in for groups of potential audiences, not as one woman's opinion.

00:28:14:04 - 00:28:16:19
Shaun Vigil
Yeah, totally. Totally.

00:28:16:21 - 00:28:30:08
Cathy Hannabach
I'm curious where in both the peer review process and the revision process based on those peer reviews, do you most often see authors benefit from bringing in developmental editing support?

00:28:30:10 - 00:28:47:08
Shaun Vigil
Yeah. So I guess I can take this first. I would say most of my authors, well, I actually shouldn't say this because there's no rule at all about it. A lot of authors I work with come in with a developmental editor about maybe 1 to 3 points in the process.

00:28:47:10 - 00:29:08:08
Shaun Vigil
This is just my experience. I'm sure, Liz, you'll have others. I would say most most authors I work with tend to either do it before they actually formally submit anything. Now, is that necessary? Is it the right approach for any individual? I don't know, that depends on a lot of factors. But it’s always great when you see it because you're working with somebody that's seen a proposal and what it should look like.

00:29:08:10 - 00:29:25:05
Shaun Vigil
But a lot of folks I know will have worked with somebody before they submit so that they feel comfortable. As an example here, folks I know that have worked with Ideas on Fire before they sent it through, they know what kinds of questions is this press going to ask? What are the things they're looking for?

00:29:25:07 - 00:29:44:04
Shaun Vigil
You know, what do they really need to know? Just to get a sense of is this even something that we want to read all the sample materials for? And looking at that from a perspective of is this the right place for it? Not is this good or bad? A lot of people will do that so that they feel confident in what they send through.

00:29:44:06 - 00:30:05:17
Shaun Vigil
A lot of folks I know will also do it if there's a revise and resubmit recommendation from a peer review process, which, again, we can break that down further if that's helpful. But in the interest of this question, many folks will take those reports, the comments from the internal editor, or say, if it's in a series, the series editors, or is being considered for a series, or if maybe it’s gone to other points in the process.

00:30:05:19 - 00:30:25:03
Shaun Vigil
Here at Temple, additionally, one thing I mentioned, anything that we send out for peer review, and different presses do this as well, goes before a full team of editors and the press director and marketing director, so we all can get a sense of how does it not just fit with my list as me as an individual editor, but how does this speak to our broader program,

00:30:25:03 - 00:30:42:06
Shaun Vigil
the broader movements in our press, the things that we want to represent in the forthcoming list? We have those conversations first, and sometimes those comments will also be a part of what the author works on before they resubmit. But then there are plenty of folks as well that I would say have a good peer review process.

00:30:42:06 - 00:31:05:13
Shaun Vigil
It gets a contract, if it's a first book. And this is where different presses can vary, but just in principle, I would say whether it's a full contract or advance contract, depending on what kind of review process that was. Again, we can get there. But long story short, a lot of authors will do it after the the contract is completed as well, because that's where you have all of the comments.

00:31:05:13 - 00:31:24:17
Shaun Vigil
You can really get into the nitty gritty as you're continuing to complete the project as the manuscript is completed, and feeling confident in it before it either goes out for its final approval review, if it's an advance contract, or before it goes to the editor or series editors for a last look before it goes to press or the publication process.

00:31:24:17 - 00:31:40:19
Shaun Vigil
So this is a way of saying that most authors I work with bring people in at those 3 times. But really, I don't see a bad time. And I'm not just saying that because I'm here, I know Cathy, but this is to say truly developmental editing,

00:31:40:21 - 00:32:13:19
Shaun Vigil
I don't know of any book I've ever worked on that couldn't use some level of developmental editing, my own writing included. Having another person really help you get outside of your own head in individual sections, whether it's at an early phase so that you know how to explain these complicated thoughts that are in your head on the page, so that an editor who may or may not be a specialist in your field, or may or may not even be the right editor for you, will understand, at least in principle, what it is is helpful for folks that take those peer reviews and then use someone who can go in there

00:32:13:19 - 00:32:31:01
Shaun Vigil
in the level of detail that maybe an acquisitions editor can't. We would all love to only be looking at Word docs, I'm sure, all day, but the reality I'm sure Liz can attest to is we are on the phone and email and spreadsheets more than anyone that's an editor I imagine would ever want to be in a spreadsheet.

00:32:31:01 - 00:32:51:03
Shaun Vigil
So this is a way of saying developmental editors also can go into some depth, sometimes on like a sentence level, that an an acquisitions editor can't necessarily for every book. And so I don't see a bad time. But really those are the 3 spaces that usually I see, with probably the first then the latter being the most common.

00:32:51:03 - 00:32:54:24
Shaun Vigil
But, you know, I'll open that up.

00:32:55:01 - 00:33:24:10
Elizabeth Ault
Yeah, I totally agree with Shaun’s point about the timing, I guess maybe this is the time to just explain the process here since, Shaun, you had outlined a little bit about how things work at Temple. So here at Duke Press, for first books, we strongly prefer to send out a completed manuscript. That's because for a first book, when you're trying for the first time to extend an argument across an arc that could be between 50,000 and 100,000 words, it's really helpful for you to take your best shot at it,

00:33:24:12 - 00:33:45:13
Elizabeth Ault
to really figure out what it is that you think, how you want to organize the information, what your authorial voice is, the tone, the pacing, etc. so a lot of people can find it helpful in the process. I can start talking to people before they defend their dissertation, and then 8 years later and 3 postdocs and tenure-track positions later, they're submitting their book manuscript.

00:33:45:13 - 00:34:03:03
Elizabeth Ault
So there can be a long talking stage before we're actually sending anything out for review. And at that stage, to Shaun’s point, I'm offering maybe feedback on an introduction or maybe high level feedback, like, oh, you sent me your new version of chapter 4. Why are you still defining the title concept in chapter 4?

00:34:03:03 - 00:34:22:13
Elizabeth Ault
That's a great question for an acquisitions editor to ask. You know, high level feedback, but I'm not a writing coach. I can't check in routinely. I don't like to read iterated drafts. I like to see here is my best version of this and then offer feedback.

00:34:22:18 - 00:34:44:11
Elizabeth Ault
Whereas a developmental editor can help someone devise a plan for how to get from one thing to another, can set up those accountability check-ins and deadlines and stuff like that, can read those iterative drafts, depending on the kind of arrangement, and support that is available. Developmental editors offer a much wider range of that kind of support.

00:34:44:13 - 00:35:02:19
Elizabeth Ault
And so that is really important. We do strongly prefer to have a completed manuscript to send out to peer reviewers here at Duke Press. Part of the reason for that is that our editorial advisory board, which is comprised of Duke faculty, have all published a book and all have tenure. They see the project at the very end of the process.

00:35:02:19 - 00:35:29:21
Elizabeth Ault
The contract at Duke is an internal process. It's a staff committee. It's the editors saying, here's why I think we should do this book. Here are two supportive peer reviews, and here's the author's plan for revision, and I think this is going to be an important boundary pushing book. The fact that we don't have that editorial board oversight at the contract stage, I think, is part of what helps us to be so boundary pushing and interdisciplinary.

00:35:29:23 - 00:35:46:20
Elizabeth Ault
Because we can sign up whatever we want and then work with the author to make it work for the faculty board. So then the faculty board is seeing a totally complete peer review process. By the time we're taking things to our faculty board, 95% of things have gone through at least 2 rounds of peer review.

00:35:47:01 - 00:36:05:08
Elizabeth Ault
So there's an initial round of peer review. There's an internal contract process, but it's a full contract. We only offer 1 kind of contract. The author goes and revises, submits the revised manuscript, and then we send the revisions back out, ideally, to one of the reviewers from the first round, assuming they were helpful then and are willing and able now.

00:36:05:10 - 00:36:36:12
Elizabeth Ault
And then once we have sign-off support from one of those readers, sometimes both of them, then we will take it to the editorial advisory board for final approval, because all of our books need to be signed off on before they can be approved. Sometimes it is a quicker path to a contract to send out a proposal and 2 chapters, but it can actually extend the peer review process, because if peer reviewers are seeing the full manuscript for the first time in the second round of review, they may have more feedback on the manuscript.

00:36:36:17 - 00:37:08:17
Elizabeth Ault
They may say, in the proposal you said you were going to do this and this and this, but in the manuscript you've done this and this and this, and I don't like that as much. Or now that I see what you mean by juxtaposing ethnographic and historical detail, I think there's too much of this one, or I think the chapters should be, separated into parts, or I think the chapters should be interwoven. There’s just more room for the readers to feel like they have latitude to comment if they're seeing the full manuscript for the first time in the second round, which could mean that it is again, at Duke, more likely

00:37:08:17 - 00:37:26:01
Elizabeth Ault
for there to need to be a third round of review before we can take it to the editorial board for final approval. So that's part of why we strongly encourage people to submit full manuscripts for first books. And that's also why it can be useful to work with the developmental editor even before you submit to the press.,

00:37:26:03 - 00:37:47:17
Elizabeth Ault
as long as you're staying in conversation with editors at the press to make sure that the development is developing along the lines that will continue to make the book a good fit. And then also at these stages, as Shaun mentioned, when you have this concrete feedback where you are developing a plan of action, that can be another great time to partner with the developmental editor on how you're going to execute that plan.

00:37:49:05 - 00:38:04:01
Elizabeth Ault
I am happy to work with people. I hate spreadsheets, I'd prefer not to look at them, but I do love calendars and timelines. I love working backwards with people to be like, what needs to be in a tenure file? When does it need to be there? What are our internal deadlines that will help you meet that?

00:38:04:03 - 00:38:13:23
Elizabeth Ault
But again, it’s a developmental editor who can dig into the weeds with you and help you make sure that you're hitting those milestones.

00:38:14:10 - 00:38:32:08
Shaun Vigil
I guess, Cathy, just to add on to that briefly, at Temple and I say this, I guess just a brief background further about me. So I’m at Temple, I've been here since March 2020 of all times to start a job. But, I'm grateful for that, of course.

00:38:32:10 - 00:38:51:16
Shaun Vigil
We are about 15 people at the press. We're pretty small. I've also been at a large commercial academic press, and I've been at a large university press as well, and an intern starting my career at a mid-sized one. So this is all to say, all places work a little different.

00:38:51:18 - 00:39:12:03
Shaun Vigil
At Temple specifically, I can say when it comes to first books, some of our philosophy or my philosophy individually as an editor, because my colleague in sociology might disagree with this a little bit, at the press. But at Temple, the way we approach an advance contract and full contract,

00:39:12:03 - 00:39:44:24
Shaun Vigil
since we're on this topic briefly, we internally review them the same. The difference in our contract is just that the advance contract specifically has a line in there that says this will go, I'm paraphrasing, will go out for a final approval review before it's published. That's the only distinction in our contracts. Pretty much any place I've ever worked in and any editor I’ve ever known, advance or full, if you're getting a contract, it’s a commitment to the book from that press, just to clearly state that.

00:39:45:01 - 00:40:18:20
Shaun Vigil
In terms of our process, we can review based on proposals with sample materials, and those should be body chapters, generally, or full manuscripts from the outset. Ultimately for us, the things that we think about in that process, especially as a smaller press and part of the reason I came here, other than the list, of course, and the love of Philadelphia and wanting to be here, is really that I have some more latitude and time to do some of that thing that reflects developmental editing, at least more than I did in previous roles where I had a larger list.

00:40:18:20 - 00:40:35:19
Shaun Vigil
So this is a way of saying, what we think about when it comes to that or when I recommend a developmental editor versus I can give you some feedback along the way at whatever stage that may be, whether you're under contract or not, for me, is the level of depth that they're going to need.

00:40:35:19 - 00:40:55:17
Shaun Vigil
Even if I can go in and read chapters that are iterative, that's part of why I love working here at Temple, actually, the contrast of that would be at the end of the day, I am not somebody who is a specialist at helping people organize those thoughts. I'm a macro level person by the way my mind works.

00:40:55:17 - 00:41:29:07
Shaun Vigil
I'm not a developmental editor by trade for a reason. There's a reason folks like Cathy can do this. It's a specific skill. So that's where I would say, irrespective of in an internal press's review process where they come in, I still always find it helpful because at the end of the day, that writing coach element that you mentioned, Liz, I think is a critical part of that. Editor’s jobs are just categorically, or acquisitions editors jobs are a little different categorically, and the way we work with an author on the peer review reports even

00:41:29:13 - 00:42:06:15
Shaun Vigil
might be a little bit different than someone who is there to help you on page 5 of chapter 3 to work that out. So this is all to say, I just mentioned that because like what Liz said and where you would come in, how review process works or us, the key thing is developmental editors always get to improve the book because ultimately it's honing the ideas, it's clarifying the ideas, and really thinking through how that reads, as Liz said, to people that are maybe not your immediately obvious, audience, which is important for interdisciplinary scholars, I would say.

00:42:06:17 - 00:42:24:11
Elizabeth Ault
Then also I’ll just say a little bit more about what our job actually is since we've said a lot about our job isn’t. I think what we're thinking about, and this goes back to the selection of peer reviewers and thinking about audience, we are really thinking about the shape of our list. Presses have lists. Editors have lists.

00:42:24:11 - 00:42:49:10
Elizabeth Ault
It's a jargony publishing word, so I just want to unpack that for a second. What the press’s list is is all of the books that we're publishing. And then we might say we have lists in American studies, queer theory, Black studies, anthropology, Latin American history, environmental history. It can be anything from a huge macro field like sociology to a section of a section of a section.

00:42:49:12 - 00:43:11:14
Elizabeth Ault
Individual acquisitions editors are building pieces of that that go together. And for some presses, it's very defined. I go to the sociology meeting, which is hilarious to me because I was a student of Rod Ferguson, whose most famous book is a critique of canonical sociology. And now I'm talking to sociologists.

00:43:11:14 - 00:43:31:03
Elizabeth Ault
But part of the reason I'm going is to try to build a slightly different kind of list in the field to make a home for a slightly different kind of sociology in the world of sociology. I go to sociology and I go to American studies and I go to women's studies. And there aren't a lot of editors that do that.

00:43:31:05 - 00:43:52:12
Elizabeth Ault
So what I'm looking for there are books that will help me build the list that I want to build in sociology, whereas other presses send editors to sociology who are there to find the best 25 books in sociology. They go to the national meeting, they might go to regional sociology meetings, they might go to criminology as well, or they might go to an education meeting.

00:43:52:12 - 00:44:14:00
Elizabeth Ault
But they are the sociology editor and they're looking for 25 sociology books. Our job titles are acquisitions editors. We have performance evaluations annually and we're evaluated on how many books did you put under contract? How many books did you get into production?

00:44:14:02 - 00:44:31:22
Elizabeth Ault
Part of the reason I have a job is because Duke Press has contractual commitments to our library partners to publish 150 books a year. And we have budgetary commitments that are based on us having 150 books a year. And so if I'm not holding up my part of that list, we might not have 150 books a year.

00:44:31:24 - 00:44:53:20
Elizabeth Ault
Less less of our goal is like, is it a good book, award winning? Great. That's always fun. So just to say that in my job as a editor, building a list is different than another editor at the same meeting. And the way that I'm thinking about a project and its fit for my press is also my own specific interests.

00:44:53:22 - 00:45:16:18
Elizabeth Ault
At Duke, the boundaries are much blurrier. It's much less clear who to submit to. We sent 3 editors to American Studies. It's a 2,000 person meeting. Why are we doing that? I know why we're doing that. It's because, I think, it’s the most exciting intellectual engine that is in conversation across a huge range of the most high-stakes and important issues of our time.

00:45:16:20 - 00:45:32:19
Elizabeth Ault
As an American studies PhD, I am not biased. I think it’s a little abstruse when people talk about fit and list so I just wanted to say a little bit more about what that is and what that means and how that affects what we are looking for as acquisitions editors

00:45:32:19 - 00:45:50:04
Elizabeth Ault
in terms of how a project might fit into a certain niche in our list or help us push a conversation forward in a specific way. And so the way that you, as a first time author, might think about building a relationship with an editor could be like, oh, there's a new editor trying to build a list in my field.

00:45:50:06 - 00:46:10:09
Elizabeth Ault
How can I work with them to do that? Or, you might conversely be like, oh, I'm a new person, and I'm being told that I have to publish with one of 5 presses in order to get tenure. So now I have to figure out how to develop my project in such a way that it can be a fit for one of those presses.

00:46:10:11 - 00:46:43:21
Cathy Hannabach
Looking at time, I'd like to turn to some of the questions that are posted from the audience because I think they get at some of the things that we've been talking about and some of the things that I was hoping we we get a chance to chat about. Somebody posts what I think is a really helpful question that I get a lot as an editor, and I'm sure you all do in your roles as well, is which kinds of reviewer comments should authors prioritize responding to and which ones of them are more negotiable or which ones can they can they leave toward the

00:46:43:23 - 00:46:46:15
Cathy Hannabach
end of the list?

00:46:46:17 - 00:47:12:21
Shaun Vigil
To answer that briefly, as an editor, I feel like I always give qualified answers. But I feel confident and maybe Liz will completely disagree, but at the end of the day, anything that relates, like I said at the top, and this is my takeaway that I give a lot of authors I work with, I say put the thesis statement of your book in the proposal and then does everything actually lead back to that,

00:47:13:02 - 00:47:35:07
Shaun Vigil
is sort of what I ask as an exercise. That's the same thing here. Is this book really, is your theoretical framing, and again, even if that's an overly complex way to put it for your individual book, maybe it's a very informal book, that's irrespective or unimportant for a moment, but is really does your theoretical framing cohere and does your argument flow, does it make sense?

00:47:35:07 - 00:48:03:00
Shaun Vigil
Do the chapters interconnect with one another, really? For me, that's another way of saying is your argument clear? And anything that extends from that is what I always prioritize. So that's another way of saying, really the peer reviewers are there as peer reviewers, they're there to to let us know, even if you have a PhD and did a postdoc yourself in a certain area, what someone is writing is going to be something that's different at a different time.

00:48:03:02 - 00:48:24:11
Shaun Vigil
Even if you're a specialist, you won't be able as an editor to evaluate everything at that level. Peer reviewers are there to tell us about how the argument flows. At the same time, most presses have a question about market in some way or audience in some way. For me, that is less important a lot of the time than what a reviewer will say about that.

00:48:24:11 - 00:48:51:09
Shaun Vigil
While I do want to know how they envision the market and that informs how this is actually translating, a lot of those decisions related to how it's published or things like that are actually going to be ours internally to make and aren't as much about the content of the book itself. So there is a distinction, just to clarify that, between does this make sense to the audiences that the author has set out to try and reach?

00:48:51:11 - 00:49:12:13
Shaun Vigil
That's the content question versus oftentimes we'll get review comments that say, well, if you want this to be more accessible, you should probably get rid of a lot of this jargony area here. Another reader might say the opposite, kind of like what Liz said, if they're more theoretically oriented. That's where we are thinking then about what would we do as this press for this book?

00:49:12:13 - 00:49:34:03
Shaun Vigil
How would we position it? And having a conversation with the author about that and how what we're imagining fits what they're doing. So this is all, again, a long-winded way of saying anything related to the central argument and how it coheres is always most important to me. Least important, I guess, would be how you're going to then mold things to fit imagined people or even the press itself.

00:49:34:03 - 00:49:57:07
Shaun Vigil
Because to be blunt, and this is something about being at a smaller press that I actually enjoy, there are books that peer review actually surfaces that we are not the right press for the book, and that doesn't mean they're negative reviews, to be clear. So to me, a critical part of it is helping you hone what you are saying, and that's the central takeaway.

00:49:57:07 - 00:50:17:07
Shaun Vigil
That's what you should be focusing on in your reviews, rather than the one person’s dea that was sort of outlined. How how an argument carries to a field is really the question, less what does one individual person think about how this book might do in this introductory course across the country?

00:50:17:07 - 00:50:28:00
Shaun Vigil
We'll do our own research about that, talk to marketing and say how it might work in introductory courses. If we're asking that it's going to be in a guided way, so that's kind of one way of answering it.

00:50:28:02 - 00:50:53:01
Elizabeth Ault
Was I mean, I have to apologize. Thank you. I am listening intently, I am learning, thank you Shaun. When I send reports to an author, I don't just say here are the reports, I'm done. I'm usually spending quite a bit of time with the reports myself before I send them to the author.

00:50:53:01 - 00:51:13:03
Elizabeth Ault
I’m vetting them, reading through them, getting a sense of where do the reports overlap, what's the feedback that's actionable? I tell the authors straight up, like, here's what I don't think you need to agonize over. Here's where I think the reader might have gotten it wrong. And also in a response for a book peer review, you can say I disagree.

00:51:13:03 - 00:51:14:04
Shaun Vigil
Absolutely.

00:51:14:19 - 00:51:29:13
Elizabeth Ault
And here's what I'll do instead. So the key thing is again, I think sometimes with journal peer review it's more like just accept all the suggestions and that's what you need to do to get published. With book peer review, if you read a response that just says, I accept all the suggestions, it's going to look like you're not actually engaged.

00:51:29:16 - 00:51:46:21
Elizabeth Ault
What we want you to do is to really engage. So much of writing a book is about your entering into a conversation and that's what peer review is too. So we really want to see you engaged, not to be defensive and combative. No no no no. But to say like, this I think is great.

00:51:46:21 - 00:51:59:18
Elizabeth Ault
This really affirms my vision for the book. I was thinking about this section doing this work, and I see it's not doing that. So I will change it to make sure it does this instead. It's not always about accepting all of the changes.

00:51:59:22 - 00:52:00:11
Shaun Vigil
Absolutely.

00:52:00:11 - 00:52:20:04
Elizabeth Ault
It's really just about engaging the feedback to say, here's maybe where I fell short, or here is where this person didn't quite see what I was doing. And so here's what I will do. I'm not going to do the thing they're saying to do to fix the problem. I'm going to fix the problem this way. So much of what I am sending, so I usually have a head note before I send the reports.

00:52:20:04 - 00:52:41:03
Elizabeth Ault
That's a pretty meaty paragraph. And I'm always happy to dig into reports with an author. That's the best part of my job. Like it's Christmas for me when I'm like, we got reports! I get to send them. That's like a party. I love it so much. Even if the reports are complicated, it's an interesting problem for me to think about working with the author to solve.

00:52:41:05 - 00:52:58:20
Elizabeth Ault
And so I think your editor, your press editor in addition to your developmental editor, is a really important resource in helping guide you through that response. Because guess what? That's another academic genre that nobody's taught how to write. And so I'm not going to get the response to be like, well, I guess I'll send it on to other people.

00:52:58:20 - 00:53:20:14
Elizabeth Ault
No no no no, no, no. If I get the response and I'm like, I think you've missed the boat slightly, I will say, let's dig in here. I just got a manuscript back where one of the key points in the initial round of review was there's this new book that's just come out that maybe you didn't have time to fully digest while you were working on the manuscript, which is fine, which happens.

00:53:20:16 - 00:53:43:00
Elizabeth Ault
But now by the time the book comes out, the other book will be 2 or 3 years old. And so you actually really do need to digest it and deal with it. And what the author did in revision was they cited that. So when I got that revision back, I said, I'm glad that you've gone back and incorporated these ideas more but you're still not actually engaging them.

00:53:43:02 - 00:54:20:20
Elizabeth Ault
You've cited the book, but every time that you cite it, it's the end of a paragraph. You're ending the paragraph with a quote from this other scholar, and I actually need you to dig in and tell me, what does it take for your argument in this? That's the back and forth and engagement that I think acquisitions editors can help authors with, in addition to developmental editors and in addition to thinking about what is the goal of the peer review process, to produce an important and clear book that can connect with its readers and acknowledge the other things that they might

00:54:20:20 - 00:54:27:08
Elizabeth Ault
have read, the things that they're hoping the author will cover, even if that's not the author's core focus.

00:54:27:10 - 00:54:50:13
Shaun Vigil
Yeah. One thing that synthesizes what I'm saying, but also speaking to your point, Liz, a little more clearly is I just realized there's this phrase that always comes out of me, irrespective of the rest of the setting or whatever notes I have, you know, when sitting on reports, which is always something along the lines of while you may not agree with everything they've offered, essentially the idea is we want to see how you're going to shore up your position.

00:54:50:13 - 00:55:22:14
Shaun Vigil
That's really the idea. That's really critical to know. Just because a peer reviewer has suggested something doesn't mean that's the right approach to take. You know, that’s the way that you manage that. And actually to that specific point, Liz, I think it's really important to note, whether it's speaking with your acquisitions editor, developmental editor, whoever it is, or just thinking internally, how you respond to things that you don't agree with is actually often times for our board or internally, some of the things that we think about the most critically, because if you say, yes, this makes sense, and I'll do it in X, Y, and Z ways, that's good.

00:55:22:14 - 00:55:47:01
Shaun Vigil
We do want to know that. But how do you deal with what is essentially potentially foreshadowing an academic debate that might emerge from your book is just as important? So that point about engagement that Liz said, I couldn't echo that enough. But specifically as well, highlighting that idea that that is a representation of what somebody in that field might say later in a published review or just reading the book.

00:55:47:07 - 00:56:10:12
Shaun Vigil
So that's why it's important to know what it is you want to say and address that it in the response memo, because that's what gives us, as a publisher, confidence or in our case when our board is looking at the project for the first contract approval or, depending on this process, that gives them the confidence to know not only do you understand what they said but you know how you're going to address this or at least have a sense of it as you're writing.

00:56:10:14 - 00:56:11:23
Shaun Vigil
So yeah.

00:56:12:00 - 00:56:37:12
Cathy Hannabach
Nice. Somebody else posted a question of how long is normal for an author to take with revisions after they get peer review reports back. I know there's no single answer to this, so I will just tell everybody, all audience members here, there is no single answer. But in terms of books that you've worked on and the kind of process that your press, how do you handle that timeline with authors?

00:56:37:14 - 00:56:59:08
Shaun Vigil
I can just say, and I know I'm a loquacious person, so I'll keep it brief. Working backward from whatever professional, pragmatic deadline you have is step one, as Liz noted. From there, though, I tell authors this is the timeline you need to write. Being at a smaller press, this is really a critical part of it for me.

00:56:59:10 - 00:57:13:23
Shaun Vigil
I have authors who I sent reports to in the fall who I've checked in with a little bit. Hey, how's it going? And they said, I'm still thinking about it. I'm still working on it. Some of them, maybe it's in a series. They're working with a series editor on addressing some real minor things, and that takes a while.

00:57:13:23 - 00:57:37:09
Shaun Vigil
It's another schedule. They're thinking about it. Other folks, they want to get it to the board as soon as possible. They want to think about the contract. They do it quickly. We have a conversation back and forth. I might ask them to expand or whatever, but that's the thing. There's no set time, as you said. But the key thing is I will always try to work backward from what timeline you're trying to hit and advise you on when you should have this done accordingly.

00:57:37:11 - 00:57:44:19
Shaun Vigil
Accounting for everything always takes a little bit longer, at least, than you think it's going to.

00:57:44:21 - 00:57:47:24
Elizabeth Ault
Yes, my short answer to that is longer than you want to think.

00:57:48:01 - 00:57:52:09
Shaun Vigil
Oh for sure. Yeah, just that's true too. Yeah.

00:57:52:11 - 00:58:11:17
Elizabeth Ault
So this is something. In the response to the reviews, you'll include things like practical details like the final word count. That's important. I think especially in proposals some people are thinking in terms of pages. It's like you teach undergraduates, you know pages are fake. We care about the word count, which is what I kept mentioning.

00:58:11:19 - 00:58:30:12
Elizabeth Ault
It's a word count, image count, and timeline is something you'll put in the response. And so that's something we can also talk about. Realistically, what is your tenure timeline or your promotion timeline or what are your care responsibilities? What is your teaching load? How many grad students do you have defending? When are you realistically going to be able to do these revisions?

00:58:30:18 - 00:58:47:23
Elizabeth Ault
Sometimes the revisions might be calling for you to travel back to your archives. That's going to be a different timeline then read this new book in your field. But then also reading the new book in the field is a different timeline than actually metabolizing and engaging the book in your field.

00:58:48:00 - 00:59:05:06
Elizabeth Ault
So I always encourage people to be really generous. You can always hand it in early, you can always turn it in early. I would say give yourself more time than you think you're going to need. Because of how our process works, we want to send the revised manuscript back out to readers who are going to sign off on it.

00:59:05:08 - 00:59:19:17
Elizabeth Ault
If you have already vetted it with your own internal readers, then that also gives us more confidence that our readers will be able to sign off on it. So I would say that's another thing you want to build into your timeline.

00:59:19:19 - 00:59:37:16
Cathy Hannabach
Okay, we are at time, and I just want to thank all of you for joining us today to talk about the process of peer review—the joyous, generous process of peer review. I hope you are coming up, away with some ideas for how to navigate that on your own book. I do want to thank Shaun and Liz,

00:59:37:16 - 00:59:59:11
Cathy Hannabach
thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your advice and insight into how your individual presses handle this as well. I think that's really helpful. All of you who are registered for this are going to receive a recording of this within the next week or so, so keep an eye on your inbox. And finally, don't forget to join us for the next webinar in the series, which is about publishing in a series for your first book.

00:59:59:19 - 01:00:10:06
Cathy Hannabach
That's coming up on March 2nd. I put a link to register for that in the chat, but you can also find the link on our website. Thank you all for being here and I will see you all next time.

01:00:10:08 - 01:00:19:23
Elizabeth Ault
Thanks so much, Cathy. Thanks everyone for coming and giving us the chance to yammer about peer review, which is one of my very favorite things. If you have any other questions, Shaun and I are both very findable.

01:00:20:00 - 01:00:38:01
Shaun Vigil
Just in closing, the worst thing you can do is just not get a response from somebody who's busy, anyone in these fields. We're going to get back to you. At a minimum, it's just to let you know if something's not right for me, we try to let you know that something's right.

01:00:38:01 - 01:00:54:16
Shaun Vigil
We'll do that. But any questions, we're here to help you demystify this, too. A lot of first meetings I have with people maybe the book's not right, but we can help send you to the right place,. So this is a way of saying, feel free to reach out. Really, truly.

01:00:55:14 - 01:00:57:17
Elizabeth Ault
Thanks, everyone. Take good care out there. Thank you.