Publishing in a Series for Your First Book

00:00:05:10 - 00:00:37:15
Cathy Hannabach
Hi, everyone., thank you for being here. Welcome to Publishing in a Series for Your First Book. 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 fifth of the six sessions of the First Book Publishing Series, which walks you through every stage of that first book publishing journey, from proposal to publication to publicity and beyond.

00:00:37:17 - 00:01:02:23
Cathy Hannabach
Across these sessions, I'm joined by acquisitions editors, editorial directors, production editors, series editors like today, and marketing directors from more than a dozen leading university presses. We are all here to demystify that first book publishing process. At Ideas on Fire, we've helped hundreds of scholars refine their book proposals and book manuscripts, strengthen their arguments, and ultimately bring their books into the world.

00:01:03:00 - 00:01:26:05
Cathy Hannabach
I know how much thought and care goes into first books in particular, and I really like helping people navigate that process. So I'm very excited to be in conversation here today with three fabulous speakers who are going to be talking us through that process of publishing in a series. We have Jennifer C. Nash, who's the series coeditor of Black Feminism on the Edge, published by Duke University Press.

00:01:26:07 - 00:01:53:06
Cathy Hannabach
We have Adrienne Shaw, who's the series coeditor of Critical Cultural Communication, which is published by NYU Press. And finally, we have Chris Barcelos, who's a two-time series author with Reproductive Justice: A New Vision for the 21st Century, which is published by the University of California Press. The three of us today are zooming in on what is an exciting, but I think often misunderstood, dimension of scholarly publishing: the academic book series.

00:01:53:08 - 00:02:16:16
Cathy Hannabach
If you have questions for our speakers or about book series during the webinar, you can click the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen to submit those. We'll have time at the end of the session today to get to some of those. So I wanted to start us off, before we turn to more specifics about particular series at particular presses, to do a brief overview of what is an academic book series, how does it work,

00:02:16:16 - 00:02:47:23
Cathy Hannabach
how is it different from traditional acquisitions, and what are some of the unique considerations that we'll be talking about today. In general, an academic book series is a curated group of books organized around a focused intellectual theme published by university press, university or academic press I should say. Unlike general acquisitions, which for the most part we've been talking about so far in this webinar series, general acquisitions are managed entirely by publisher staff.

00:02:47:23 - 00:03:10:14
Cathy Hannabach
These are in-house folks who work for the press. In contrast, a book series is led by senior scholars in the field. These are typically tenured faculty with deep expertise and established publication records in that field. These series editors, because they're faculty, they're not press employees but they partner with the press to shape the intellectual direction of the series.

00:03:10:16 - 00:03:34:17
Cathy Hannabach
They identify and recruit authors, evaluate manuscripts, guide revisions, work on peer review, and help promote the books. And in most cases, they receive in exchange a small share of royalties for the titles that they acquire. Series editors usually serve fixed terms, often 2 to 3 years, but that does vary by press and by series, and sometimes by editors themselves.

00:03:34:19 - 00:03:54:07
Cathy Hannabach
While they play a major role in curating the list, the press’s acquisitions editors and managing directors still supervise the series and have final approval on contracts. And some of the folks here today are going to talk a little bit about how that works with their particular series. One way to think about it is a book series is essentially a collaboration.

00:03:54:09 - 00:04:16:22
Cathy Hannabach
Faculty scholars shape the intellectual vision of the series while the press provides the institutional infrastructure. So I'd love to turn to our speakers here today and their specific series that they work with and talk through some of the particularities there. So to kick us off, I'd love to hear from Jennifer and Adrienne: Can you describe the series that you edit?

00:04:16:24 - 00:04:28:14
Cathy Hannabach
What's its intellectual scope? What are its aims? What is its audience? And also what is your personal philosophy as series editors?

00:04:28:16 - 00:04:50:01
Jennifer Nash
Adrienne if it is okay I’ll go. Okay. So first, Cathy, thanks for organizing this and for inviting me. It's really great to be here. So I coedit a series called Black Feminism on the Edge, which is on Duke University Press. I coedit it with my colleague and friend Samantha Pinto, who is at the University of Texas. I was saying to Cathy before we started that we kicked off the series in 2020, in the middle of COVID.

00:04:50:01 - 00:05:10:21
Jennifer Nash
It was our let's stay sane and keep thinking project. It took us a little while for the series to hit the ground running. The idea for the series was born from our shared observation that there were so many series adjacent to Black feminism but there were no series that were wholly invested in Black feminism as a separate and discrete area of intellectual inquiry.

00:05:10:23 - 00:05:39:24
Jennifer Nash
We wanted to curate a conversation about Black feminism across the disciplines. I think the main curiosity of the series is to think about what it means to place Black feminism in conversation with surprising disciplines or objects or methods to think about new and unexpected approaches or avenues of Black feminist inquiry, and to think about Black feminism posing questions that may be unfamiliar or surprising for much the parameters of the field itself.

00:05:40:01 - 00:06:01:08
Jennifer Nash
I think when we started the series, we were imagining two kinds of books in the series: conventional conventional academic monographs and also short books, which is an area that we've been trying to solicit more. We were imagining really short books about Black feminism and a particular object or preoccupation or interest of an author.

00:06:01:10 - 00:06:17:08
Jennifer Nash
As I said when we talked to the other day, I was like, what about Black feminism and Madonna? I was like, yeah, sure. But whatever is of interest. So far, the books that we've published in the series have been quote unquote conventional academic monographs. You asked, Cathy, what we're trying to build over time.

00:06:17:10 - 00:06:45:13
Jennifer Nash
I would say we are interested in curating a conversation that excites us as students of Black feminist studies, of Black feminist theory. We're interested in curating a conversation about where the field might continue to go. And I think Sam and I are really animated by a desire to be surprised. I think there's, at least in Black feminist studies, often a sense that we already know what Black feminism is and what it does.

00:06:45:15 - 00:06:58:19
Jennifer Nash
I think we're really interested in projects that upset that kind of disciplinary common sense and stretch our shared understanding of what Black feminism can do. So yeah, I think I'll stop there. Thanks.

00:06:58:21 - 00:07:19:05
Adrienne Shaw
In contrast, I joined Critical Cultural Communication, which is had been a long-running series at NYU. It was started by Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kent Ono and then, after they had a run, Nina Huntemann, Jonathan Gray, and Aswin Punathambekar, who are my coeditors, took over. Nina ended up leaving academia,

00:07:19:08 - 00:07:58:11
Adrienne Shaw
And so Nina and Jonathan approached me about joining, this was in 2017, 2018. So I took over a series that was had been running and was had a fairly large backlog by the time I had joined. One of the things that Jonathan and I decided at a point, because we were overproducing compared to many of the other NYU series, is how do we find a more specific niche for ourselves because we are interested in critical and cultural approaches to media, and there are so many books on that topic.

00:07:58:11 - 00:08:19:05
Adrienne Shaw
So how do we narrow down what is CCC doing now that we're off the ground? And one of the things we arrived at is books that make a big theoretical intervention into the field. That became a guiding star for most books when we get them: What is the theoretical intervention this is making?

00:08:19:05 - 00:08:40:15
Adrienne Shaw
What is something that people who don't study this object or this topic, this nation state, whatever, would get out of this book? And so when we focus on media, we tell people we very much focus on popular media, digital media. We don't do journalism. Not that there's anything wrong with journalism, but we know that NYU doesn't go to the journalism conferences.

00:08:40:15 - 00:09:02:05
Adrienne Shaw
And so scholars whose work is in conversation with journalism, we're not as good a home for them. We also, in terms of focus, try to focus in on the kinds of conferences NYU will be at. Who are the people at that conference who would be interested in this book? That also helps us decide what is and is not necessarily a good fit for the series.

00:09:02:07 - 00:09:23:07
Adrienne Shaw
And then the other guiding star we had in our selection process and our solicitation process, who we’re checking in with to see if they have books in the works, is things that are not as well represented in media and communication studies. There was for a while a big push in our series to have more critical race books coming out.

00:09:23:07 - 00:09:45:07
Adrienne Shaw
And we have now we have a huge catalog. We wanted more that de-center the US in global media studies. We have increasingly found more work outside of the US to represent that. And now as we're in a transition period, as Aswin stepped back from the series, we brought on Catherine Knight Steele and the ultimate plan is that she will form a team and take over next.

00:09:45:13 - 00:09:59:24
Adrienne Shaw
What are the things that she wants to shepherd through, and what is the vision that she and whomever her new team is decides is going to be their focus? So we're in a bit of a transition period right now.

00:10:00:01 - 00:10:22:11
Cathy Hannabach
I'd love to hear from the author perspective on this. Chris is someone whom Ideas on Fire has worked with on their past two books, both of which are in the University of California Press's Reproductive Justice series, which is a fantastic series, by the way. Their first book was Distributing Condoms and Hope: The Racialized Politics of Youth Sexual Health, and

00:10:22:13 - 00:10:43:00
Cathy Hannabach
then their most recent book is Youth Organizing for Reproductive Justice: A Primer. I'm curious, how did you decide to publish in a series and that series in particular for your first book and also your second? There might be different answers that, I don't know. And what do you recommend authors consider when they're deciding about that for their own project?

00:10:43:02 - 00:11:25:18
Chris Barcelos
Sure. Thanks for for inviting me and to everyone for being here. My story with my first book was it's a dissertation book. One of my mentors wa on the extended advisory board. So not the series coeditors but the extended advisory board of the series. She gave a personal intro to my proposal to the series editors, which as I look back on it and I'm mentoring junior faculty, I'm just really struck by the importance of networking and the way that that connection enabled the introduction to the press and facilitated that.

00:11:25:20 - 00:11:56:05
Chris Barcelos
My book was also a very clear fit for the series, like very, very clear fit in that I think, it could go either way that you're either trying to convince editors of the fit of the book, or it's so obvious that it, I can't say for sure, but the really great fit, I think maybe kept them invested in working with me through revisions and that sort of thing.

00:11:56:07 - 00:12:33:09
Chris Barcelos
So my feeling was that they had an investment in it. The second book is, I guess, also about networking. The reason I have the second book is that Rockie Solinger who's one of the coeditors of the series, reached out to me during COVID. And similar to what Jen was saying this, this series from its inception was meant to have original academic monographs and then this series of primers that are meant to be introductory, not quite popular press books but written accessibly for a general audience that would be on different themes.

00:12:33:09 - 00:12:53:22
Chris Barcelos
And they had someone who backed out of writing one on youth said can you do this? And I also needed a COVID project, a book that can be researched mostly through archival research and other stuff. I didn’t need to be in rooms with bodies. And so that's how it happened.

00:12:53:22 - 00:13:20:24
Chris Barcelos
It was almost commissioned in a way, although that's not the right word for it. Some things that I talk to other people about in terms of selecting a series or pres, I think the thing about fit is like, are you try to put a round peg in a square box, or is it like such a clear fit that it's an easy argument?

00:13:21:01 - 00:13:47:22
Chris Barcelos
I'm really excited and heartened that so many academic presses are now having these other things, like Duke UP has the Practices series, and the one that Jen was talking. I really wish that my second book had a broader audience outside academia, maybe I was a little naive as to how much that would actually happen, even though it's written for a general audience and that kind of thing.

00:13:47:24 - 00:14:04:20
Chris Barcelos
I mean, there's lots of reasons why they don't get, much play outside of academia, so that's a consideration. If you truly want a book that's going to have a wide audience outside academia, an academic press may not be the way to go.

00:14:04:20 - 00:14:30:12
Chris Barcelos
But if you're in a tenure-track job and you want to keep your job, then you have to go with an academic press. So that’s the dilemma.

00:14:30:14 - 00:14:50:08
Cathy Hannabach
I think what’s interesting here is that in many ways, publishing with a series, choosing a particular series to publish with, can also often be about intellectual kinship or audience kinship, who you want to build community with over the long term, whether that's within the academy, beyond the academy, possibly a mixture of the two. A series in many ways can give you a leg up in that, if that series is already plugged into that community that you want to reach. So that's definitely something that that folks can keep in mind.

00:14:50:10 - 00:15:18:17
Cathy Hannabach
Jennifer and Adrienne, I'd love to hear from your perspective as series editors how you consider first books in relationship to the series. So what unique factors are you thinking about when you're coming across a proposal, either formal or otherwise, for a first book that wants to publish with your series? Particularly given that most first books, and Chris's is a good example, begin as dissertations and usually have to be tenure books.

00:15:18:17 - 00:15:21:24
Cathy Hannabach
What kinds of things are you thinking about there?

00:15:22:01 - 00:15:43:19
Adrienne Shaw
I'll go first, if that's okay. One of the big things that we consider is people's timeline. We know that the publication process can be slow, and because we are looking for those big theoretical interventions, we do make sure that for first-time authors, if the book can make that theoretical intervention, we will tell them and tell them

00:15:43:21 - 00:16:06:00
Adrienne Shaw
how much work would be involved in making that theoretical intervention very clear in their manuscript. Sometimes dissertations come in that are just really well thought out or making those big theoretical contributions and are ready to go. Sometimes, and this was the case when I published my own first book, it took me about a year and a half to actually figure out what the theoretical intervention was.

00:16:06:02 - 00:16:25:05
Adrienne Shaw
And so we try to be clear with first-time authors. If you need a book for tenure and your current manuscript needs multiple years of work to get there, then we might not be the best fit for you, but we can put you in touch with other presses and other series that might be what they're looking for.

00:16:25:05 - 00:16:52:23
Adrienne Shaw
The CCC books, we have a very specific aim for those books. Not every series does. And that there are good homes for you. sSo one of the things we always try to do with first-time authors is give them what we need for it to be in our series, and then what their other options are, if that doesn't work with their timeline. Because we don't we don't want to hold people up in the in trying to make the perfect book when they have a perfectly good book for another series,

00:16:53:00 - 00:17:00:04
Adrienne Shaw
just because of our very specific editorial aims.

00:17:00:06 - 00:17:22:01
Jennifer Nash
Yeah. I appreciate Adrienne’s comments about timeline. I think Sam and I always try to speak very frankly with first-time authors about what they need and when they need it. And we also try to be really, really candid about the fact that some presses are slower than others. Sometimes folks will appreciate when they're grad students, sometimes they'll approach us when they're third-year assistant professors.

00:17:22:01 - 00:17:39:18
Jennifer Nash
Those are folks on very different timelines. I think the other conversation that we try to have very early on is a conversation about how a first book is not just a revised dissertation but is a different kind of animal. And that can be a painful conversation at times because a dissertation takes a lot of time and a lot of work.

00:17:39:18 - 00:18:08:03
Jennifer Nash
And hearing that you actually oftentimes have to fully reconceptualize it or rethink the voice of the project can be hard to hear. So one of the conversations that we often have with first-time authors is how do you move from something that is a dissertation, which is an exercise that you complete to graduate, where you show your mastery of a particular field, oftentimes through lengthy literature reviews, to a book that somebody wants to read that has a clear and also a real voice that tells a story. That's a huge transition.

00:18:08:03 - 00:18:21:13
Jennifer Nash
We try to try to think with authors about that. And I do think the question of voice is really important. We'll often talk to first-time authors about what kind of voice do you want this book to have? How do you want it to sound? What do you want readers’ experiences of the book to be?

00:18:21:14 - 00:18:30:21
Jennifer Nash
Which, at least for me, when I was a graduate student were not questions that I was thinking about my dissertation, but I think are key for a first book.

00:18:30:23 - 00:18:51:18
Cathy Hannabach
In many ways it sounds like both of you in different ways are both evaluating not just the manuscript in and of itself but also the broader context of the author. So the kind of work that they would have to do and how that fits into their professional goals, their life, but then also does that fit with your editorial vision for the series?

00:18:51:24 - 00:18:58:00
Cathy Hannabach
And how that plays out. What’s the Venn diagram overlap there.

00:18:58:02 - 00:19:27:16
Adrienne Shaw
Yeah. And one of the things that I do tell people is, I am one of those series editors that I will give people very detailed feedback on their proposal, especially if it's something that aligns with my research areas and I know what the rest of the field looks like in those terms. I'll be very clear about the difference between what they need to do to get this published anywhere and what they need to do to get it published with us, and that they don't have to do that work to get it published with us if

00:19:27:18 - 00:19:44:13
Adrienne Shaw
they just need it published. And to not encourage them to make the book that I see in their materials but the book that they need to publish, thinking about it that way.

00:19:44:15 - 00:20:10:23
Cathy Hannabach
Chris, I'm curious if you experienced a version of that with your first book. What did you learn about framing that first book, or maybe also the second one, specifically for the series that you worked with versus just the press as a whole?

00:20:11:00 - 00:20:38:11
Chris Barcelos
Yes. Two things. One is that I didn’t feel like I had to do very much like reproductive justice 101 in the book itself because the first book in the series was literally called Reproductive Justice: An Introduction. So there was a little bit less of having to spend a whole chapter explaining the theory, framework and, social movement of reproductive justice. So I did that in a more condensed way and then talked about the other books in the series.

00:20:38:13 - 00:21:09:00
Chris Barcelos
So I appreciated that. What I have thought about in the time since is that, this is true for any press, but when you're in a series, you have no control over the the company you will keep or the other books in the series. So there are possibly some books in the series that I would have really strong ideological or political differences with.

00:21:09:00 - 00:21:40:03
Chris Barcelos
And they're in the same series. So that could affect how people might view them, or make assumptions about the book itself, or the author. People make a lot of assumptions about who I am or what I study because of the theories or the titles of the books.

00:21:40:05 - 00:22:05:16
Cathy Hannabach
Interesting. I think in many ways when you’re in that author position, you’re not just thinking about what is going on with my book but how does my book fit with this broader community, for better or worse. Jennifer and Adrienne, let's talk about how folks get this conversation started. How do you prefer authors begin that series publishing conversation with you? Do you like early, informal conversations? Both of you mentioned you talk to folks at various stages in development. Are you looking for a proposal and sample chapters?

00:22:05:16 - 00:22:15:13
Cathy Hannabach
Do you want a full manuscript? What is it that you're looking for in terms of how you want folks to approach you about potentially working with your series?

00:22:15:15 - 00:22:30:23
Jennifer Nash
I think any of the above. Sam and I get emails from people pretty regularly. We have lots and lots of Zoom meetings and phone calls. And sometimes it's someone who's like, hey, I have a seed of an idea. Does this sound like something that might be of interest to you down the road?

00:22:31:00 - 00:22:49:18
Jennifer Nash
Or sometimes we have ideas like it would be a dream to have X person on this series. Let's reach out to them and have a brainstorming session and see what they're interested in. Oftentimes people will say, I am working on a proposal or I have a proposal I'd like to show you. For us, those are great conversations because we have a text to work with.

00:22:49:18 - 00:23:04:00
Jennifer Nash
We can mark it up and work through it together. Sometimes people want to have a meeting with us and have a proposal and sample chapters. One of the things that Sam and I always try to be clear on, especially with first-time authors, is we are not the gods you have to satisfy.

00:23:04:05 - 00:23:23:14
Jennifer Nash
We see ourselves as as champions of the book and champions of the series. But ultimately all decisions are made by Duke University Press. And while we can always say this is a book that we feel really strongly about, the book, like any book submitted to the press, has to go through the regular channels of peer review. Our enthusiasm is not sufficient to get the book published.

00:23:23:14 - 00:23:34:10
Jennifer Nash
And so we always like to be transparent with people about that. But I think more conversation is better than less conversation and at any stage of the game works for us.

00:23:34:12 - 00:23:52:08
Adrienne Shaw
Yeah, I would say, very similarly, when people are meeting with me at conferences or more casually, just approaching me, I usually like to treat those as a chance to give them, especially first-time authors, advice on how to work with this press. What are the things to think about in terms of timeline,

00:23:52:10 - 00:24:11:01
Adrienne Shaw
what are the things to think about in terms of the audiences this book will be shown to. So while we do draw a lot of books on international topics, because that was something that we felt was very important to our field and our particular niche of that field, we also know that NYU doesn't market very heavily outside of the US.

00:24:11:01 - 00:24:34:12
Adrienne Shaw
The US is the primary market for the press. And so we try to make authors who are writing beyond the US make sure that they know that, that that's who is going to be treated as the primary market and that that will be both a concern for them in terms of what conversations their book enters int but also just a thing to keep in mind that the press is also evaluating.

00:24:34:14 - 00:24:57:10
Adrienne Shaw
I personally like to get a proposal before any sample chapters, mostly because I can tell from the proposal if it if it hits those key points that our series is looking for. Usually I think first-time authors especially don't realize that submitting a book proposal is not like submitting a journal article to a journal.

00:24:57:12 - 00:25:12:15
Adrienne Shaw
It's not a desk reject. It's a conversation. So if you send me a proposal and there are things that I see you're not really emphasizing, or I know how you could pitch this a bit differently, I'd like to give you that feedback before you've done a bunch of other revisions on the rest of the manuscript.

00:25:12:15 - 00:25:30:20
Adrienne Shaw
There's no deadline for you to get back to me on any of those revisions, but if I see something that I know reviewers are going to react negatively to, I and my co-series-editors, we try to get you to address those before you submit more, because we don't want you to get dinged by reviewers for something that we saw was an issue from day one.

00:25:30:24 - 00:25:56:05
Adrienne Shaw
We try as much as possible to give advice for whatever stage people are at. When it comes to sample chapters, we usually want to make sure that we're on board with the whole idea before you send sample chapters. And then sample chapters are really what we ask for once we're on board with the book enough that we know we're going to send it on to the press for next steps.

00:25:56:07 - 00:26:12:19
Adrienne Shaw
And the press will always need those sample chapters. So if we get a proposal and we're keen on it, we'll send it to the press ahead of time as well, just to get it in there in their books and in their view. But we definitely need sample chapters before we send it on to the press.

00:26:12:19 - 00:26:18:10
Adrienne Shaw
And so that's the last thing we ask for.

00:26:18:12 - 00:26:42:01
Cathy Hannabach
I posted in the chat some resources about book proposals, working with editors, and navigating peer review. And several of the previous webinars in the series have talked in more depth about that. So if folks are here and have questions about that, I definitely recommend checking out those videos where a lot of acquisitions editors were talking about similar concerns in terms of how to ensure that your book proposal is strong,

00:26:42:06 - 00:27:05:18
Cathy Hannabach
what are they looking for, who does that book proposal go to, who beyond a series editor or an individual acquisitions editor is looking at that, and who does it need to speak to at the broader press and in the broader communities that are taking a look at that. And I think both of you raise a really good point about this, there's no bad time to start that conversation.

00:27:05:20 - 00:27:35:10
Cathy Hannabach
But you do need to start it, you do need to approach editors. I know that can be scary, whether they're acquisitions editors or series editors. But I think both of you have explained that it's not an adversarial relationship. It's literally your job. That's why you're there, to meet prospective authors, to have conversations about books, to offer feedback, even at really early stages.

00:27:35:12 - 00:27:45:01
Cathy Hannabach
So I certainly hear both of you encouraging authors to not view that as intimidating but as a chance to start to get to know where you might want your book to live.

00:27:45:03 - 00:28:05:18
Adrienne Shaw
Yeah. If I can add one thing, when it comes to tailoring the pitch, explaining why the series is a fit, one thing I think it's important for authors to think about is in that section of the proposal where you talk about competing texts, if none of those are published with NYU, then any case you make for how it fits in the series is being undercut by that.

00:28:07:15 - 00:28:32:10
Adrienne Shaw
I think Chris talked about this as well. You're being put in a community of all the other people on that list. So if you don't see the connections to books that we've already published, it's not that it will diminish the impact your book can make in our series, but it does sound like if you list all of Duke University Press’s books as your competing books, then it becomes a question of why is this an NYU book,

00:28:32:13 - 00:28:50:20
Adrienne Shaw
if it's so in conversation with Duke books? That's a conversation we can have, between an author and a series editor, once you've submitted that initial proposal and we can give you feedback on it before sending it on to the next stage.

00:28:50:22 - 00:29:18:00
Cathy Hannabach
Chris, I'd love to hear about that tailoring process from the author perspective. Did you find that there were moments during the revision process when you felt the presence of the series shaping your decisions, whether that's about tone, structure, content, citation, anything like that? Did you did you experience that? And if so, in what ways did that feel generative and helpful as you revised and then maybe in what ways did that feel challenging, if it did?

00:29:18:00 - 00:29:41:11
Chris Barcelos
Sure. I did not feel much of that shaping from the series. I don't have comparison because the my two books are both in the same series, but the editors, both acquisitions and the series editors, followed very closely

00:29:41:11 - 00:30:16:15
Chris Barcelos
the readers review reports. So responding to those was really what convinced the editors to move forward. I was mostly responding, I got very little editorial direction, actually. It was mostly through the peer reviews. So there were some concepts that at the beginning, like Adrienne was talking about, what is the theoretical intervention that I had to fight for and I fought for successfully because they were things that were central to my argument, that I wasn't going to let go of.

00:30:16:17 - 00:30:29:22
Chris Barcelos
And there were some reviewers that said you must cite this canonical article, which I had left out because I felt like it's not really that canonical anymore. I was like, whatever. I'm just going to cite it because it's not that big of a deal to me.

00:30:29:22 - 00:30:36:23
Chris Barcelos
It's not a roadblock to get stuck on.

00:30:37:00 - 00:30:54:22
Cathy Hannabach
It sounds like in many ways, the boundaries of a series can be generative in terms of revision. It gives you a sense of the the playground you're playing in, so to speak, and the boundaries of what you need to include and what you need to not really care about. And that could be helpful.

00:30:54:24 - 00:31:16:06
Cathy Hannabach
I'm curious how those boundaries play out from the editorial side. So Jennifer and Adrienne, have you found that when authors publish a first book in your series, do you find that it affects marketing or peer review selection or production timelines in a different way?

00:31:16:08 - 00:31:42:15
Adrienne Shaw
I’d say not production timelines. I think that those are what they are at any given press. I think in terms of the peer review process, because there are three of us as coeditors and we have we have overlapping but different intellectual communities, which is one of the reasons why I think our series works really well, because we have a huge pool of people we know about who we can reach out to for reviewers.

00:31:42:19 - 00:32:16:11
Adrienne Shaw
We don't do any of the reaching out directly. We just suggest the names and then the press takes those names and decides amongst them from our list who to ask. And if they're struggling, because we're in a peer review crisis, they come back to us for more names and then more names. I think that it does make it a bit easier because we're editors with extensive networks who know who the people are who will agree to review. If it's just the press working with just the author, there's sort of limited information as to who the author can think of to suggest. In terms of marketing,

00:32:19:16 - 00:32:38:09
Adrienne Shaw
we publish through our own social media and various accounts when books are out, especially around conferences. I try to make a list. RIP Twitter, but I used to try to make lists of books in the series and post them to the conference hashtag around the time the conferences happen.

00:32:38:11 - 00:32:57:20
Adrienne Shaw
And then we share them with our networks as they come out. We know about them well in advance and start hyping them. And as soon as they're in production, we start telling people about them and telling people to expect them. That's that's a unique privilege of being a series editors.

00:32:57:20 - 00:33:10:12
Adrienne Shaw
I know what's coming out next. I know what to have people keep an eye out for. And I can share that even faster than the press might get those books up on the website.

00:33:10:20 - 00:33:33:19
Jennifer Nash
I was essentially going to say just ditto that. We do not shape timeline processes. I don't think we really shape endorsement processes. I think the ways that we help the process around peer review is just, as Adrienne was saying, by providing additional names when they're necessary or by saying, you know what, this book is stepping into a really big fight in the field.

00:33:33:19 - 00:33:50:24
Jennifer Nash
So maybe don't ask these people to peer review the book, there might be other folks who are better. I think where a series really makes a difference is around marketing because, as Chris said, you're essentially joining a conversation that already exists. You're joining a conversation and so your book will be marketed as part of a conversation.

00:33:51:07 - 00:34:07:09
Jennifer Nash
I think of series that have incredible visibility in my mind, like I think of Sexual Cultures. I mean, this is a Sexual Cultures book. That’s become a brand. Or this is a Black Outdoors book, where that means something and you can know the books that are on that series.

00:34:07:11 - 00:34:29:01
Jennifer Nash
I think series editors, as I said before, are champions of the book. As Adrienne was saying before, with conferences or when a book is coming out, we are there on Bluesky. Yes, RIP Twitter. We’re there championing the book on Instagram. We are trying to have a little Zoom parties to celebrate books that are coming out of the series and trying to stage conversations among authors in the series.

00:34:29:01 - 00:34:46:24
Jennifer Nash
We see it as our job to promote the visibility of books that are in the series in any ways that we can. So I think the biggest difference in being in a series, and I've published in a series with two of my books and not in a series for two other books, is around that kind of visibility.

00:34:47:01 - 00:35:03:07
Cathy Hannabach
Yeah, it definitely does shape the marketing. And I very much agree that for many, many series, the editors have done a fantastic job of building them where they really are standalone brands. I mean, we know who they're affiliated with, the presses that they're affiliated with. The presses have done a very good job at cultivating that

00:35:03:07 - 00:35:33:03
Cathy Hannabach
and I think that's fantastic. But I agree, you could definitely say like, oh, that is a whatever series book. It’s immediately identifiable and it gives a sense of prestige. You can be really proud that, yes, I wrote a book that's in this really famous series, that has been a canonical series in my field, that has defined my field sometimes, and that brings certain things to not just the first book but to any kind of book for sure.

00:35:33:05 - 00:35:59:15
Cathy Hannabach
Chris, did you find that your series affiliation for both of your books shaped how the books were received, how they were reviewed, how they were engaged with by authors, or how they were marketed? How did the series placement shape that for you?

00:35:59:17 - 00:36:26:03
Chris Barcelos
Well, the first book is hard to tell because it came out in December 2020, which was a really terrible time for a book to come out. People hadn't really gotten the groove of the Zoom book release parties and that kind of thing. So the marketing was incredibly difficult, both on their part and on my part, because the world was such a disaster. I mean, it's always a disaster, but that particular flavor, it was at that moment. I think it's relevant also for folks in attendance to know my book was one of the first published in the series.

00:36:26:03 - 00:36:50:11
Chris Barcelos
So that first primer had come out and then six plus years later, mine was the second book of original research that came out. My reviewers were not from the series. They weren't necessarily even working on similar topics because everyone that could have been peer reviewers were either writing books for the series or on the advisory board.

00:36:50:13 - 00:37:24:11
Chris Barcelos
Then for my second book, they reached out, I think, to the same people because they would do it again. So in that way, getting in at the beginning of the series, it could be both that I was a little left without direction about the shaping but also free to go in the directions that I wanted because there wasn't already a brand or throughline that that was really already established.

00:37:24:13 - 00:37:44:20
Chris Barcelos
And will say, most series are interdisciplinary, and many of your clients, I think, are writing interdisciplinary books. That's a big part of the marketing. I'm trying to market across different disciplines and going to so many conferences in one year.

00:37:44:20 - 00:37:54:04
Chris Barcelos
And that's the burden and the benefit of the interdisciplinary work.

00:37:54:06 - 00:38:17:02
Cathy Hannabach
For sure. There are some really great questions in the Q & A that I think follow up on a lot of what we've talked about. I'd like to get to some of these. One person asks, should you assume that a series will not be interested in your book if you find out that a book is coming out in that same series that is very similar to yours?

00:38:17:04 - 00:38:22:00
Cathy Hannabach
How do you navigate that as a series editor?

00:38:22:02 - 00:38:52:03
Adrienne Shaw
That's a great question because I think it also will make us talk about the ugly secret of academic publishing, which is that it is capitalism. The presses want to sell books. And so one of the things that does happen is if there is an existing book in the series on that topic, or just if there's an existing book on that topic and it's done very well, the press will look more highly on books that are similar published in the same series.

00:38:52:05 - 00:39:12:18
Adrienne Shaw
If a book on a certain topic didn't perform very well in terms of sales, then it will be harder for us as series editors to make a case for a similar type of book the next time around. If a book is unique in that there's no other book in the series like it, it's covering a new topic, and a book comes in that's very similar to that

00:39:12:18 - 00:39:33:24
Adrienne Shaw
but the first book isn't out yet, sometimes it's hard to get the press to be as interested in it, because they want to wait and see how that book does before they're willing to take on another similar type of book. We did have one instance of a proposal that came in right as another book was going into press on very similar topics.

00:39:34:03 - 00:39:52:02
Adrienne Shaw
In fact, it they were basically parallel books in a host of ways. And it was just it was just unfortunate timing because we had fought hard for the one book and the press was like, oh, I'm not really sure if this is quite right. And we were like, it really is.

00:39:52:02 - 00:40:09:21
Adrienne Shaw
And then another book came in that was very similar. And they're like, we want this one out in the world before we before we take on this other one. In the case of that author, they were on a shorter timeline and we were like, the press will make you wait if you stay with us. Here are some other presses you could go to

00:40:09:23 - 00:40:28:09
Adrienne Shaw
that would still be interested in this. So it's not a automatically a no. But it does tap into concerns that you as an author can't really fix, which is the things that are outside of your control and things that you won't know, which is how well this book did.

00:40:28:11 - 00:40:47:13
Adrienne Shaw
If everybody's buying this book, then that might be one insight you have. But some of it is just so much background things, stuff that you don't have access to as a submitting author and that as a series editors, we don't even have much control over.

00:40:47:15 - 00:41:10:05
Jennifer Nash
I would just add, I think the question that's on the table isn't just a question about series but a question about academic publishing writ large. When I submitted my first book to the press that ended up publishing it, they said, we can't publish this book, we've already committed to publishing a book on Black women and pornography, to which my response was, it's possible there might be different perspectives on Black women and pornography. In the end they ended up publishing it.

00:41:10:05 - 00:41:27:00
Jennifer Nash
But it was a lesson for me that there was a perception that there could only be one book on Black women in pornography. What I learned from that experience was twofold. One, that it was actually really great to be in a moment where there were two books on Black women in pornography, because Mireille Miller-Young and I were invited to do things together all the time.

00:41:27:06 - 00:41:45:09
Jennifer Nash
It's actually better to be part of a conversation than to be alone. So that was lovely. And also I learned, and I think this is the first book lesson, that my book wasn't about what I thought it was about. I was pitching it as a book about Black women and pornography. And then I realized this is a book about Black feminism and visual culture,

00:41:45:13 - 00:42:04:17
Jennifer Nash
and I'm thinking about that through the lens of pornography. But it's not actually about that. So actually, Mireille and I were writing indeed very different books, even though we shared a set of similar objects. I say all this to say, I think sometimes they're really interesting clarifying conversations to be had with people like us, with series editors, that are really about how do I describe what my book is?

00:42:04:17 - 00:42:24:24
Jennifer Nash
Is the way that I'm talking about my book really what it is? And the last thing I'll say is, I think it's often exciting for a series editors to be able to say, our series is at the forefront of publishing books on, say, Black feminism and science studies. Look at these two or three books that we've published. That's actually an asset and not a liability.

00:42:25:01 - 00:42:45:21
Cathy Hannabach
Absolutely, absolutely. That's often a fear that folks have of will a press be interested in mine if there's something that that came out recently, that they may or may not have access to. I think this is a really great point about sometimes a press might come back and say no. But you can also work with that a little bit.

00:42:46:01 - 00:43:13:05
Cathy Hannabach
You could make a case for why they should, why it might be important to have multiple perspectives on a similar topic, or why the topics themselves might actually not be as identical as an easy read might imply. This is a really good point that authors can follow up. It's part of a conversation, not just a gatekeeping yes or no, go away kind of thing.

00:43:13:07 - 00:43:39:03
Cathy Hannabach
Somebody asks, actually there are two questions around a similar thing so I'm going to combine them. Do you recommend that authors simultaneously submit proposals to a series editor at one press and that same proposal or a tailored proposal to a different press? I think the question is, can I submit a proposal to a series and to a different press?

00:43:39:05 - 00:43:57:04
Cathy Hannabach
On the surface, yes you can. And you're encouraged to submit proposals to multiple presses. But I am curious about your responses about the series fit question with regard to that. That was a very confusing way of combining these questions, I'm sorry.

00:43:57:06 - 00:44:04:11
Adrienne Shaw
Is the question should you talk to multiple series and should you tailor the proposal to multiple series?

00:44:04:11 - 00:44:07:24
Cathy Hannabach
Yes, that is a much clearer way of phrasing that. Thank you.

00:44:08:01 - 00:44:26:09
Adrienne Shaw
My advice would be to not tailor too much to the series. The book proposal you really should just...how do I say it? The thing that I would like to see in your book proposal is not why it's a fit for my series. It's what is your book?

00:44:26:11 - 00:44:46:22
Adrienne Shaw
I really want you to have thought about what is the intervention your book is making? Who's this book for? What are the takeaways that people are going to get out of it? I and my coeditors for the series will figure out and debate fit. That's something different. But who who are the other books

00:44:46:22 - 00:45:22:20
Adrienne Shaw
your book is in conversation with? I think is a better way to phrase it than competition, which I think is what most proposals ask for. Who are you on a bookshelf with? If you are on a shelf with books in multiple different presses, then I would approach multiple different presses for your book. If all of the things you can think of are with one press, if you can't find a fit with that press, then in order to find a fit with other presses, you'll need to start looking at what those other presses have done. What are the books you could be in conversation with that you aren't already?

00:45:22:22 - 00:45:43:15
Adrienne Shaw
I always think it's great to reach out to as many series editors as possible, but I will say, at least for NYU, if you're submitting to one series in NYU, if we see it and we don't think it's a great fit for our series, we'll still pass it on to the press, especially if we know there's another series at the press that it could be a good fit for.

00:45:43:16 - 00:46:08:22
Adrienne Shaw
We are constantly passing things back and forth between CCC and Postmillennial Pop because most of the time, a lot of authors are not sure which one to send it to. Usually it will get sent to both of us eventually, through the press. And the same way, even if it's not a fit for the series, if we still think it's a really strong book, we will pass it on if we think that the press will be interested in it.

00:46:08:22 - 00:46:30:16
Adrienne Shaw
We'll still pass it on to the press, it just won't be a CCC book. As long as everyone knows, as long as your book doesn't go out for peer review, it's fine to send it to multiple presses. The time that people get upset is if they've burned peer reviewers, especially right now in a peer review crisis,

00:46:30:18 - 00:46:53:18
Adrienne Shaw
because you said you were sending it to us and then you sent it to a couple other presses without telling us and then went with them. So we've just used up two peer reviewers who we might have used on another book. That's the only time that it ever becomes an issue, with submitting to multiple presses.

00:46:55:13 - 00:47:17:05
Cathy Hannabach
So one question is, I wanted to follow up on the point about competing books or maybe textual kin shall we say. Does the conflict matter most when applying to a book series or in general if you cite competing books from other presses? I think this person is asking, is there a difference

00:47:17:07 - 00:47:32:08
Cathy Hannabach
if you find that most of the books your book is in conversation with is from a different press than you’re courting? Does it make a difference whether you're submitting to a series versus a general acquisitions editor?

00:47:32:10 - 00:47:55:05
Jennifer Nash
I think in general, when you're submitting to a press, it's important to have comparable titles that are on the press. I'm just speaking from my experience at Duke University Press. They’ll say, is this a Duke University Press book or not? And the way that you show that you're a Duke University Press book is that the titles that you think are most similar to yours, that your book is in conversation with, are other books on the press.

00:47:55:05 - 00:48:10:09
Jennifer Nash
It doesn't mean you have to only cite books that are part of that have been published by the press, but I certainly think it's one way that you show that you think the book belongs at a particular academic publishing house.

00:48:10:11 - 00:48:32:20
Adrienne Shaw
Yeah. Similarly, if you list books from other presses, it's not necessarily the only thing we look at. But if nothing is from NYU, then it becomes a question of how does this fit in? Sometimes it might. But if every everything you list is from the same press, that's when we start to raise eyebrows.

00:48:32:22 - 00:48:56:04
Adrienne Shaw
And to a certain extent, it even if it's other books at NYU, it doesn't have to be in our series necessarily. It's just other NYU books. Each university press has its own brand, and there's no clear way for me to explain it. But there is a difference between an NYU book and a Duke book and a Minnesota book and a California book.

00:48:56:04 - 00:49:04:01
Adrienne Shaw
There's just a different vibe to them, for lack of a better term.

00:49:04:03 - 00:49:34:00
Cathy Hannabach
Definitely, definitely. Somebody asks, what advice do you have for authors, this might be interesting to hear from Chris as well in this, what advice do you have for authors who are choosing between a very prestigious press in their field without a series, so general acquisitions at a top-tier press, versus a slightly less prestigious press in their field but has a series that feels like a very strong intellectual fit?

00:49:34:02 - 00:50:02:23
Chris Barcelos
That's a good question. There's multiple ways of answering it. So the wisdom I always got for journal articles or for books is to aim for the top. Then you get the feedback and whatever. I am personally not someone who's very concerned with prestige and I went up for tenure at an institution that didn't care so much about the prestige of the book.

00:50:03:00 - 00:50:27:01
Chris Barcelos
But some people are in that position where the prestige is very much going to matter, and they should know from their mentors and colleagues if prestige is going to be part of the discussion when their tenure case goes up. The less strategic, less yucky way of answering that, less career-focused, is where do you really want the book to be?

00:50:27:08 - 00:50:58:17
Chris Barcelos
And do you have flexibility in your publishing goals? If your goal is to use the book to get tenure, then you have to be strategic about it. If the goal of the book is more than that, then you have some more latitude. And that’s what everyone does with their second book because they've already established that they can they can do so. So it’s strategic, like all decisions.

00:50:58:19 - 00:51:26:24
Adrienne Shaw
Yeah, I would say ditto to all of that. You would need to talk to your colleagues at your university to see if the prestige matters more than the conversation. In a perfect world the best colleagues I know know that sometimes the best place for a book or a journal article is the place where it's going to be read by the people who are going to cite it and and talk about it and be in conversation with it.

00:51:27:01 - 00:51:50:00
Adrienne Shaw
That unfortunately doesn't, especially in the interdisciplines, always overlap with “prestige.” So it really depends on your career stage and the expectations of your department. For some departments, you can publish a book and that's what they want, that you published a book, and so they won't worry too much about that. In those cases, take that freedom and put it in the place where it's the best conversation,

00:51:50:01 - 00:51:58:07
Adrienne Shaw
if that fits what your career goals are.

00:51:58:09 - 00:52:15:12
Cathy Hannabach
Somebody asks, how can early career scholars identify whether a series is still actively shaping a field, that it's an active series versus simply maintaining a legacy reputation?

00:52:15:14 - 00:52:49:13
Jennifer Nash
I love the phrase legacy reputation. I would look to see how many books are being published, and how regular does publishing seem to be? You can also assess how often books are being published by new authors and how often are they publications by senior authors. Because I think one way you can tell that a series is still alive and vital is that the series editors are going to conferences and soliciting work, so are actively engaged in hearing what early-career scholars are up to.

00:52:49:15 - 00:53:06:02
Jennifer Nash
Those are the two main metrics that I would think about. You can also, I know you said at the beginning, Cathy, that sometimes series editors have terms. At Duke University Press, series editors seem to be around for a really long time and series tend to linger for a long time.

00:53:06:02 - 00:53:19:19
Jennifer Nash
But sometimes what will happen is that a series that was started 20 or 30 years ago, will live on but will have new editors step by and it will give it new direction. That's something else that you could look at. Maybe a series that has been around for a really long time suddenly has new editors.

00:53:19:19 - 00:53:31:19
Jennifer Nash
You can often read that as a sign that there's a kind of new energy and even possibility the series will move in a different direction because it has new leadership.

00:53:31:21 - 00:53:48:08
Cathy Hannabach
Yeah. Somebody asks, are there any disadvantages to publishing in a series that's relatively new? I think this is a great question to ask.

00:53:48:10 - 00:54:14:17
Adrienne Shaw
I feel like Jennifer might be able to answer this better. But I can't think of a particular disadvantage. I mean, you don't have the same back catalog of work to reference when you're submitting your proposal so you don't have a clear sense of what these editors are looking for.

00:54:14:17 - 00:54:40:23
Adrienne Shaw
So there's that. But the benefits of the series is really having that that person between you and the press, who's willing to help shape it. And I feel like that isn't it isn't particularly different for new versus legacy series. Is that the phrase used? There might be less of a machine in quite the same way,

00:54:40:23 - 00:55:00:18
Adrienne Shaw
like if it's the very first time, especially if the coeditors haven't worked much together, there could be some figuring it out that happens, especially in relationships and the building of trust between the press and the series editors. That's something we didn't actually talk about. We do have to win over the editors of the press as well.

00:55:00:18 - 00:55:24:21
Adrienne Shaw
They need to learn that they can trust us when we say this is good and or yes, this seems like it's not exactly what we've done before but we think it's going to really do something important. There's a level of building trust with acquisitions editors that we have to do, but that’s all I can think of.

00:55:24:23 - 00:55:49:16
Chris Barcelos
From the author side, I think it was an advantage, mainly, publishing in a newer series because there was not very set anything. So I could be at the beginning of shaping that, and also when books are listed in order of publication, mine's always at the top.

00:55:49:18 - 00:55:57:00
Chris Barcelos
So I appreciate that.

00:55:57:02 - 00:56:09:04
Cathy Hannabach
Jennifer, did you find when you first started the series with Samantha that this was a concern for authors, or was everyone just super excited to submit to this new series?

00:56:09:06 - 00:56:29:09
Jennifer Nash
I didn't sense that it was a concern among authors. I mean, I do think if the advantage of a series is that you're being marketed as part of a conversation, when a series is new, there's not a lot of conversation. I mean, my book was the first book that we published in the series because Sam and I both agreed contractually that we would publish our next books in the series.

00:56:29:11 - 00:56:45:00
Jennifer Nash
And then when the first book that came out that wasn't by us in the series, we did a lot of splashy publicity around it because we wanted the author to feel like there was a conversation that was happening. I don't think the author experienced as a disadvantage. I just think it's a bit of a marketing conundrum, how to how to sell that

00:56:45:00 - 00:57:01:09
Jennifer Nash
there’s a conversation happening when the first person did it. But I think honestly, most people are just so overjoyed to be published and feel so excited to have made it to the end of a very long road that I don't think people really experience anything as a disadvantage.

00:57:01:11 - 00:57:23:17
Cathy Hannabach
That makes sense. So we have time for maybe one more question. Somebody asks, for both Jennifer and Adrienne, would you be willing to share the number of proposals that you get? They're asking in a year, but if you have a different time frame, that'll work.

00:57:23:19 - 00:57:49:19
Adrienne Shaw
I would say I easily get, averaged out over the year, probably two to three a month. It definitely goes up at the beginning and end of a semester. I would say the most we've ever gotten is I think we had like ten proposals come in over a very short period of time a couple of summers ago.

00:57:49:22 - 00:58:07:08
Adrienne Shaw
I think it was all the COVID books coming out at once. But also it was just memorable because all my coeditors were also having a bunch of life events at the same time, and so we had to have a meeting to go through this long list of ten that we had gotten over a short period of time.

00:58:07:10 - 00:58:19:10
Adrienne Shaw
But there's no there's no exact rhythm to it. There is a host of other factors that go into play, but I would say about two to three a month for the most part.

00:58:19:12 - 00:58:36:15
Jennifer Nash
That sounds about right. Summer tends to be a little bit busier for us because folks actually have a little breathing room, especially in June and July before the demands of the semester start to creep in, and we tend to get more outreach from prospective authors. And then this is a quieter time.

00:58:36:17 - 00:58:52:23
Jennifer Nash
This tends to be a quieter time when everyone's just trying to make it to spring break. So there are ebbs and flows over the course of the academic year. As I was saying to Cathy, we started our series during COVID and the first year there were periods where I was like, is anyone going to submit?

00:58:53:00 - 00:59:04:08
Jennifer Nash
It's just felt really, really quiet. And then I feel like everyone who had started a project during COVID, sometime in 2021 or early 2022, suddenly reached out. So it definitely comes in waves for us.

00:59:04:10 - 00:59:32:24
Adrienne Shaw
I would also say that the number doesn't really affect our acceptance, what moves on. We can get a ton and we can move them. All our authors are on such different timescales in terms of being ready or not. So of those ten, yes, there were ones that weren't a good fit for us, but the number doesn't necessarily matter in terms of, for first-time authors, whether or not we're going to look at it or accept it.

00:59:33:01 - 00:59:40:15
Adrienne Shaw
You're not up against a pool for any given cycle.

00:59:40:17 - 00:59:42:05
Cathy Hannabach
Awesome.

00:59:42:07 - 01:00:01:09
Cathy Hannabach
We are coming up on time here, so I want to thank all of you for joining us today. I hope you're coming away with some good ideas for publishing in a series for your first book, why you might want to, and the different things to consider. I very much want to thank Jennifer, Adrienne, and Chris for sharing your experience and your expertise and your advice.

01:00:01:11 - 01:00:21:15
Cathy Hannabach
All registrants you'll be getting a recording this session in about a week or so, so keep an eye on your inbox. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions about editorial support, about book series, or about scholarly publishing. And finally, don't forget to join us for the next and final webinar in this year's series, which is about marketing your first book.

01:00:21:21 - 01:00:36:09
Cathy Hannabach
That's coming up on April 13th. I put a link to register in the chat, but you can also find that link on our website at ideasonfire.net. Thank you all for being here, and I will see you next time. Thanks everybody.