Hi writers! Thanks for tuning into the 24th episode of my podcast.
Today I’m going to talk about whether you should submit your materials to more than one press, a topic that is hotly debated.
I want to set the record straight!
But before I do, I wanted to tell you about one of my amazing clients and what she’s been able to accomplish in a short period of time.
This junior faculty member is a woman of color in the social sciences at a highly-ranked research university.
She hired me when she was feeling particularly disenchanted with her job last year.
The pressure was on to publish, but she was constantly getting dragged into stressful department politics that were harming her mental health and ability to write.
I’m sure a lot of you know what I’m talking about!
These politics revealed disturbing racial biases of certain colleagues whom she greatly admired before starting her position.
When we began working together, she was not only struggling with her job, she also had lost all motivation to work on her book and was feeling defeated after a big journal rejection.
So, what did we do?
Publishing was her goal, so we honed her book proposal and got her reinvested in a topic she’s studied for the past decade.
However, I believe that the most important work we did together was to find ways to help her manage her emotions and mindset around her job so that she could focus on her own priorities.
I’m very happy to say that after half a year of coaching, one of her articles just received a revise and resubmit and another one got a conditional accept, both at top-ranked journals in her field.
On top of that, after reading her great book proposal, an editor at her dream press asked her to submit sample chapters for review.
What I’m so happy about is that my client accomplished these things on her own terms by putting her own values and needs first and disconnecting her identity from her job.
So when I finish working with a client, I always ask them to fill out a feedback form.
This client wrote that she’s proudest of two things that are surprisingly not about external outcomes.
The first is, I’m proud of “putting my job into perspective, and realizing that I can make this job what I want it to be. And to embrace the joyous aspects of the job, while also figuring out strategies for managing the less fun parts of it.”
And the second thing is: “rediscovering a sense of purpose for writing my book that is not about getting tenure.”
So why am I so proud of this client?
It’s because she realized that it’s the internal shifts you make in your perspective and mindset that are most important to feeling better.
And being able to detach your deeper purpose as a writer and researcher from external outcomes like tenure and publications is actually the KEY to getting those outcomes.
I am just so excited for what is in store for her next!
Today’s Topic
Okay, so let’s move on to talking about what you should do when you find yourself in the enviable, but also very common, position of having more than one press be interested in reviewing your book materials.
This episode is inspired by a post I saw a few days ago in a large Facebook group of women academics that I’m a part of.
Here’s what the poster wrote:
“Seeking advice and guidance…how do you respond when two presses show interest in your work? You have already taken a meeting with one press, and are working on book proposal and chapter revisions based on their recs to send out for official review. Is it kosher to take the meeting with the other press?”
The advice that people gave was diametrically opposed.
One person answered, “It is my understanding that you can do inquiries with multiple presses at the same time. However, once you submit a proposal, it has to be exclusive. [You cannot] submit to both simultaneously.”
The next person wrote, “Yes, take the other meeting. You have signed nothing.”
So which one is it?
In my mission to bring more clarity to the very unclear process of scholarly book publishing, that’s what I’m going to address today.
Is It Okay to Talk to Multiple Presses at the Same Time?
I thought that the best way to handle this topic was to present a series of questions that I am often asked by my own clients.
The first question people have is whether it’s okay to talk to multiple presses at the same time.
In a nutshell, YES!
As I talked about in Episode 6 about when you should talk to editors, it’s a good idea to set up meetings with acquisitions editors at your top presses early on, although you could really do it at any point.
When it comes to my own clients, once they have a solid proposal and one or two sample chapters, I encourage them to start reaching out to editors and introducing themselves and their projects to gauge interest.
When you’re at this early stage, it is just like dating.
You’re meeting people and trying to find the best fit for your book and for your personality in terms of how you like to work with people.
You are not committed to anyone, even if they’ve read your proposal and sample chapters and provided feedback on ways you could improve your materials.
If an editor has done this for you, congratulations!
It means they are truly invested in your project and will certainly send your materials out for review if you are able to make the suggested changes.
But—and this is a really important but—this in no way binds you to the press!
I’ll say this a few different times, but YOU ARE ONLY BOUND TO THE PRESS ONCE YOU SIGN AN EXCLUSIVE CONTRACT WITH THEM.
Can You Submit Your Materials to More Than One Press at the Same Time?
So, this then begs the question: can you take meetings with and submit your materials to more than one press at the same time?
And I should clarify that at this stage, you might have already been developing relationships with editors but no one has yet offered to send your materials out for review.
The short answer is: Yes, you should!
I’ve noticed that a lot of scholarly authors tend to develop an unwarranted sense of loyalty to the first press that expresses interest instead of really playing the field to see if there might be a better fit out there.
And this makes perfect sense.
When you are a first-time author and likely a junior scholar, you are not only navigating completely new and disorienting territory, but you probably feel a HUGE sense of relief when someone is interested in your ideas!
It’s quite flattering to have someone give you their time and feedback, and you should fully enjoy it.
But also know that, depending on what YOU want for your career and your book, the first press to express interest might not be the most appropriate.
And you’ll only know that if you take meetings with multiple editors and get feedback from them on your materials.
See how invested they are in your work.
How enthusiastically do they reply to your messages (this is within reason, of course, as editors are slammed by emails)?
How willing are they to set up a meeting with you?
And then weigh all of that information against what’s important to you.
Your career might benefit more from going with a higher-ranked press.
Or maybe you want to work with an editor that is very hands-on, whereas some of them are more hands-off in their approach.
Just like the advice that’s often given about not settling down with the very first person you date, you shouldn’t immediately commit to the first press that is interested in your work.
And like all things, there’s caveats, so if this first press also happens to be your dream press, then go for it.
But it often doesn’t work out like that.
All About Simultaneous Review
So now it’s a good idea to talk about the practice of simultaneous review—which is when you submit your materials (meaning your proposal and your manuscript or sample chapters) to more than one press at the same time.
Should you do this?
In a nutshell: it depends!
Let me explain more.
First of all, just know that simultaneous review is something that happens all the time.
So it should always be something you consider as an option depending on how things go.
It can be a useful tool to get presses to move quicker on your project once they know that other presses are also involved.
And this is exactly what I clarified to that original Facebook poster so she didn’t limit herself to just that first press.
Remember that publishing is an industry and presses are competing against one another for the best projects.
When multiple presses are interested in a project, it’s clearly a hot topic and editors will do what they can to meet the author’s needs.
So how do you go about doing simultaneous review?
If you want to go down this path, you need to keep these three things in mind:
1) You need to have all of your ducks lined up before you make a move.
What do I mean by this?
Simultaneous review is truly simultaneous. Meaning, you need your materials to go out at the very same time with the different presses.
It’s really not okay to have one press send your materials out, thinking that they’re the only press involved, and then have another one do so a few weeks later.
2) The second thing, which builds on the first, is that you need to be fully transparent with the different presses that you’re pursuing simultaneous review.
They likely assume you’re talking to other presses anyway, so this is just letting them know that you’re going to take these conversations a step further into the review stage.
So how should you do this?
I think once your materials are ready to be sent out—and this is something the editor will let you know—it’s fine to just send a quick email to each editor saying that another press will also be reviewing them.
You don’t need to provide the name of the other press (unless it’s a really top-tier press), just the heads up that this is now a competition.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if they promise to turn things around much faster for you.
3) And my third point is that you should limit simultaneous review to only TWO PRESSES at the same time.
Why do I say this? What if more than two presses are interested? Isn’t it better to try your luck with as many as you can?
I give this advice because you need to remember that each press is going to have to locate two different expert reviewers for your manuscript.
If you send out to two presses, they need to find four people who can speak in an informed way about your topic and methods.
As we all know from submitting journal articles, it’s hard to find good people to serve as reviewers because it takes a lot of time and effort (and it’s all unpaid, which sucks).
And even though presses do offer a small honorarium to reviewers, closely reading an entire manuscript and offering feedback is a major investment of time.
Let me tell what happened to a colleague of mine when she got a mismatched reviewer.
She didn’t do simultaneous review, but the press she went with chose a reviewer in a completely different field who used totally different methods.
This person wrote an extremely long and negative review that almost tanked the whole endeavor.
Ultimately it worked out fine because my colleague was able to address all of the critiques in her response letter in a way that appeased the press, but it was a lot of labor and stress for her.
And all because they didn’t choose a good fit for her project!
So imagine if you are sending your materials out to multiple presses.
You’re increasing the chances that something like this could happen.
In the end, you want to leverage the competitive advantages of undergoing simultaneous review while also giving yourself the best shot at getting GOOD reviews.
Summing Everything Up
So I hope this episode has cleared up some misperceptions about your obligations to a press once you’ve started talking with them and when and how to go about sending your materials out for review to more than one press at a time.
Don’t forget that the key to all of this is open communication and transparency.
Editors understand that authors are talking to multiple people at the same time.
You do not need to commit to anyone until you’ve received reviews back from both presses and you know whether you are going to be offered a contract from them or not.
And even if you’re offered two contracts, you are still not committed to anyone until you choose one over the other and sign on the dotted line.
And if one of you listening is that original Facebook poster, reach out to me because you could really use some coaching!
I’ll be back again soon with more tips and advice on how to get your manuscript published.
Take care until then.