Any experience with university presses?

[Hank Trent]

Has anyone had experience being published with a university press? I know there are lots of history writers and researchers here, but if a discussion is too off topic, you can email me at the address below with replies, or if it's too far off topic, period, hopefully one of the mods can just delete it.

How would you recommend choosing which press to approach? For example, does it need to be nearby, or can most everything be done by mail and email? Should one try to find a friend of a friend to go through first, or are submissions from strangers given fair consideration? Is it worth approaching the bigger, more prestigious presses first and working one's way down, or better to try to be a big fish in a little pond?

The general topic is antebellum black history, which almost every university press says they accept. I've read basic guidelines like this, this and this, but am interested in personal advice or experience to help me read between the lines.

Right now the manuscript is about half finished, with one more research trip to go, but not sure if it's best to send a sample and proposal, or for an unknown author like me, to wait and send the whole thing.

Also, from one of the links above:

include... a summary of your own professional experience, past publications, and relevant research, aimed at explaining why you are the right author for the book you intend to write

How would you recommend dealing with a complete lack of professional experience? I'm obviously the right author for the book because I'm the only one who found newspapers and depositions in archives and realized they solved a 150+ year old puzzle, but what prejudices might I face in the university press world, as a complete upstart with no academic experience or background or contacts?

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions on choosing and approaching a university press.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[19thTexas]

Re: Any experience with university presses?

Hello Sir:

I also am writing a manuscript for a book and have been asking the same questions. Here is what a friend mine who has more experience told me.

Find yourself a literary agent. Agents do all the hard work for you and of course they take a cut. I have not started with that phase yet but I do know that as soon as I have completed my manuscript that an agent will be my first objective.

Hope that helps.

[LWhite64]

Re: Any experience with university presses?

Hank,
I worked with the University of Tennessee Press to publish the letters of Col. C.I. Walker. I never had a face to face meeting with them, it was all email and phone calls. I would look at the list of what the press has released and find one that has books of a similar vein. I have connections at the presses, so cant really say, if you have an insider it cant hurt. I think so, I wanted mine to be in UT's Voices of the Civil War series so I went to them and was accepted, I would say aim for the top. I didnt have much a publishing background either and only a BA in HIstory, I wouldnt worry too much about it, push the depth of research, etc. Everyone has to start somewhere.

[bizzilizzit]

Re: Any experience with university presses?

Not exactly what you are looking for, Hank, but perhaps you can get a contact or two. Plus, everything is in OH.

http://www.nitasweeney.com/newsletter/events/

[Hank Trent]

Re: Any experience with university presses?

Find yourself a literary agent. Agents do all the hard work for you and of course they take a cut. I have not started with that phase yet but I do know that as soon as I have completed my manuscript that an agent will be my first objective.

Do agents market academic nonfiction? Or, more importantly perhaps, do university presses generally offer advances enough to even interest an agent? This article, on negotiation university press contracts, indicates that advances are rare and sales are necessarily limited, which makes me think an agent would be less interested in spending time for 15% that would be years coming:

Advances, usually given first and most immediate attention in trade book contract negotiations, are almost never included as a standard provision in university press contracts. Authors with some clout are able to negotiate advances into the contracts of some of the larger academic presses, but for the less well-known author or the college professor, caught in the "publish or perish" bind, advances usually are non-existent or negligible at best.

But I dunno. I just pictured agents more for trade publishers.

I would say aim for the top

Very encouraging! Though your BA trumps my formal education by, um, four years. A discovery almost identical to what I've got (only different of course) was published by Harvard University Press a while ago. Gulp!

Other than them, what are the big ones? I haven't run across any that don't publish at least some African American history. Louisiana State University? University of Virginia? University of North Carolina? Anyone have any "stay away" kind of bad experiences?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com