The WAC Clearinghouse
supporting scholarly exchange about communication across the disciplines
supporting scholarly exchange about communication across the disciplines
Series Editor: Cheryl E. Ball, West Virginia University
After an initial solicitation period, in which the series editor will take or solicit proposals for up to four books to start the series, #writing will have an open solicitation for monograph proposals twice a year: August and January. In advance of those open submissions periods, authors should review the proposal guidelines outlined here.
Submission Guidelines
Authors wishing to submit proposals for the #writing series may use any prospectus format they wish (including for another press, recycle that work!) as long as it includes the following information:
Your prospectus can be submitted as Word, Pages, Markdown, PDF, or another format to be determined in consultation with the editor. Authors who submit to #writing are assumed to agree with the open-access, pedagogical mission of the press’s production methods. [Link forthcoming]
The current procedure to submit is to attach your prospectus with a brief cover email and send to Cheryl E. Ball with this link. Queries may also be emailed to the editor.
Review Process
#writing will open-review all prospectus after the initial >4 books have been selected. (We expect this process to start sometime during the 2014-15 academic year. In the meantime, proposals will be chosen by the editor.) During the open review session, which will last 3-4 weeks every February and September, the editors will solicit 2-3 proposal reviewers through a combination of our choice and the author’s choice. Proposal reviewers will function as ‘thought-leaders” in the proposal review process—to ensure that, as we start this process, we will have some initial reviews. Authors will be encouraged to promote participation in the crowd-sourced reviews via their social networking sites, and potential readers of a book will be invited to note their interest in seeing a book’s proposal come to life in #writing. All review comments will be weighted equally and will be advisory--respected, but not conclusory--to the editors’ judgement. Based on this open- and editorial review, the series editor will rank proposals and contact the author of the highest-rated proposal to request a complete manuscript. The proposal acceptance (with advanced contract) will occur no later than three months after the proposal was submitted.
Draft Review
In cases where a proposal acceptance is extended to a high-risk concept and/or when the book has not yet been started by an author at proposal time, the editor may request an intermediate review of the in-progress manuscript and conversation with the author about its progress. This intermediate review will happen no later than eight months after proposal acceptance. The series editor reserve the right to pull an advanced contract if sufficient progress on the manuscript has not been completed by this deadline. Authors are encouraged to work on their manuscripts in open formats (blogs, etc.), if they want.
Manuscript Review
Authors whose proposals are accepted will be required to submit a full manuscript no later than ten months after the proposal has been accepted. Manuscripts will be distributed to two editorial reviewers from the WAC Clearinghouse Publications Board and/or open/solicited review, depending on the type of manuscript, the editors’ recommendations, and the author’s request. If the reviews indicate that the manuscript’s argument has not been adequately made at this point of the writing process, the editor may either work with the author or (if revisions are seen as extraordinary) revoke the advance contract.
Completed Manuscript
The final book manuscript, with all necessary revisions, is due to the editor no later than four months after revision-letter receipt (depending on initial advanced contract timeline). This timeline is strict due to the pedagogical instruction that accompanies the production process for #writing.
The #writing series offers books in free digital editions and low-cost print editions. Books are offered through a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Copyright is held by the author(s) or editor(s) of the books. The WAC Clearinghouse covers the costs of reviewing, designing, producing, and distributing the books. Any proceeds from sales of print books in the series are used to support the publication of subsequent books. Our goal as a publisher is to make work available to the widest possible audience while maintaining the highest standards in scholarly publishing. We welcome contributions to the series and to the larger goal of supporting open-access scholarly publishing. If you have questions about the goals of the larger WAC Clearinghouse project, please contact Mike Palmquist at Mike.Palmquist@ColoState.edu or 970 491-3132.