In my master’s program, I remember thinking, “Why aren’t there more environmental histories of New Jersey?” I was surprised to find that there was only one published book on the topic. Fast-forward fifteen years or so and I’m now directly expanding the work on New Jersey’s environmental history with my own edited collection—New Jersey’s Natures: Environmental Histories of the Garden State. Before starting that project, a dream of mine since I started my graduate studies, I completed another edited collection titled American Energy Cinema, a book of twenty-three essays on the ways twentieth-century American films address different forms of energy and energy production.
Completing these projects has reinforced my belief in the value of edited collections and I have learned a lot about what it takes to get them done. This essay is my attempt to share some of what I know in the hopes that more historians will take up this useful and fulfilling work.
The Four Steps of Publishing an Edited Collection
1. Conception and Initial Planning
What makes a good idea for an edited collection? Does the idea ask or answer a question within a given field or subfield of historical study? Are there other books out there that already do that? Is it a fun idea? Can you envision staying interested in the topic over several years? Can you immediately think of a few colleagues or other historians who might be a good fit for an essay contribution?
A good idea can start off big and then narrow or change over time. You might begin without geographical or chronological boundaries and add them later, or vice versa. Or you might get all of the essay drafts from your authors and realize the guiding argument you wrote about in your introduction needs some major editing. That’s okay. It is all part of the process. Just start somewhere and trust yourself.
Next, consider if you want to work by yourself or with another editor. There are benefits and drawbacks to each. If you work with another editor (or editors), you can co-write the book’s introduction and share the editing and organizational labor. However, as you can imagine, working with other people can create issues too. If you take this route, make sure you have a direct conversation about the division of labor and who is responsible for what ahead of time. Establish clear boundaries about your particular role and responsibilities. Try to think ahead and get on the same page about which tasks are (or aren’t) a priority. Recognize that you might have a different sense of how long something will take and set timelines when you can. If you choose to take on an edited collection by yourself, it can feel like a lot of pressure and it’s true there is a lot to do, but you also have a lot more control.
2. Finding Your Authors
There are a few ways to go about finding authors. You can invite people to contribute to the collection based on who you know, or you can do a “call for papers” through H-Net. Again, there are drawbacks and benefits to both.
Both of my edited collections were more informal in this regard. I first approached scholars I knew would be a good fit and then explored my network, asking friends to point me toward potential authors. Ask people you trust to recommend people they trust. Once I had a small cadre, I did some internet research (tip: look at conference schedules for relevant papers) to find scholars working on applicable topics before reaching out to them for a conversation.
I have found that having an actual conversation helps to feel out the vibe. Talk to your authors. Have them pitch their ideas to you verbally. Have follow-up conversations and keep talking if either of you is unsure.
Other things to consider: if it matters to you, ask a diverse group of people to write for you, such as scholars of color or those who identify as women, queer, trans, or non-binary. Also consider career stage. It might be harder to convince an emeritus professor in your field to write an essay than a graduate student or adjunct. Once you have your authors, you can also ask them to cite diverse sources in their writing.
3. Writing
Give your authors time to write. As much time as you can. I gave my authors a deadline of a year to a year and a half for their initial drafts. Writing and thinking takes time. Plus, although I could have written an abstract of the project earlier on, I needed more information to write a full proposal to approach a press.
Giving my authors time to plan their essays and come up with a title was essential. In general, be patient and build in buffer zones around all of your deadlines.
When you set a deadline for first drafts, also give your authors a word count limit for the entire essay (including endnotes). That means you will need to consider how long each chapter should be (roughly). Are there a lot of essays in your book? American Energy Cinema has twenty-three chapters and we limited authors to about 5,000 words. New Jersey’s Natures has fifteen chapters, but since I wanted the essays to be approachable and the book to not be too long, I asked authors to stay under 6,000 words. I also built in a 10K word buffer with the press to deal with essays that exceeded the word count anyway and manage any unknowns.
Once your authors are off writing their drafts, you might see if there are any conferences you can go to in the meantime, and organize a panel or two with interested authors. Presenting at a conference is a great way to get feedback and organize ideas in a new project.
For both my books, I did a round of editing on all of the chapters before we submitted the full manuscript to the press for peer review. You’ll want to make sure each essay is strong, makes sense in your book, and reads as an individual piece of scholarship. It is also vital to look for writing errors and consider the essay’s theme/perspective and general argument/narrative. For me, editing my contributors’ pieces was the most important part of the project. It also was the most enjoyable. The more feedback and editing you can give, the better each essay and the more cohesive your book will be. Ultimately, it is your name that will be on the cover. You need to know what is in the book. There’s no better way to do that than reading the drafts multiple times.
That being said, you aren’t writing the essays; your edits should help enhance them as individual pieces of scholarship and as part of the collection. You need to leave space for authorial voice and perspective, and you might have a suggestion that isn’t possible to implement. Editing is a conversation, not a courtroom.
But remember: you and any coeditors will have to write an introduction to the collection. You’ll want to have already read the chapter drafts to write a good chunk of this, but do not leave it until the last minute. The same editing rules for writing a good chapter also apply to your introduction. This is where you can both historiographically situate your book in the field, and give readers a reason to keep going once the book is in their hands. Think carefully about your hook and the questions you ask readers to consider as you explain why your book matters. Also, keep it short. Ten pages is plenty. And, if you are unsure where to start, pick your favorite history books and look at their introductions. What does each paragraph do? Can you create an outline based on how other introductions are formatted?
Another thing to know is when peer reviewers approach edited collections, their focus is often on the book’s scope, organization, and introduction. They usually do not offer substantive comments on the individual chapters, only the occasional suggestion. The work you do as an editor in reading and offering feedback to the authors will be the most significant edits your authors receive. Leave space for them to tell their own stories, but don’t be afraid to hold them to a high standard.
4. Working with the Press
If you don’t immediately know what press you want to work with, consider the following questions: What presses are well-known for publishing books in your field? Which ones show up at the conferences you go to? Have you spoken with any of their editors? Are there any book series that speak to your topic?
Once you have a few presses in mind, search their websites to find the appropriate editor for your book’s topic. Presses often have different editors for different subject fields. Check to see what the press expects in a book proposal. Each one will have slightly different requirements. Make sure to tailor your proposal to the specific press before sending it out. If you are unsure about any part of this process, don’t hesitate to reach out directly to the editor. It’s much better to have a conversation to see if the book is a good fit before going through the work of creating a proposal.
Once you agree to work with a press (this is likely an informal conversation), you should stop your search. It is unethical and unprofessional to have multiple presses sending out your manuscript for peer review.
After peer review, there are two main stages of manuscript review. The first is the copyediting. You or your contributors might already personally work with a copyeditor (I recommend Alix Genter heartily), but the press will always do a round of copyedits on their end too. This is your contributors’ last chance to make detailed or stylistic changes to the text. That includes fine tuning sentences, adding new sentences, or adjusting phrasing. The next stage, page proofs, is for catching errors in typesetting or fact. There should be very, very few changes by this point, and often there are none. Make sure your contributors are aware of the distinctions between these phases.
Lastly, if you have conflicts with the editor or the press, you can leave—especially if you haven’t signed a contract. Be wary of editors who don’t respond to your emails in a timely fashion or other signals that the working relationship might be more challenging than it needs to be. You have to do what is best for you and your contributors, and that can sometimes mean making hard but necessary decisions.
General Tips
- Know without a doubt that you are asking a lot of your contributors. Be respectful, gracious, and compassionate. Always move a deadline when asked if you can, and build in buffer zones for press deadlines. And know that despite everyone’s best efforts, there will be authors who miss deadlines most often through no fault of their own. It’s not intentional, it’s life.
- Make an email group for your contributors and use it to send periodic updates.
- Make a shareable online document (like Google Docs or a comparable service) for the contributor biographies so that the authors can edit their own bios. Remind them to do so periodically.
- Create a spreadsheet with tabs for things like contact info, image count, word count, draft titles, etc. to keep everything organized and in one place.
- Advise authors to consider the costs of copyrights and reproduction for their images as they are writing, not after.
- Consider if there are any state or regional grants that could support your project. Winning grant money can help the press keep costs low and pay for things that may fall to you, like images and indexing.
- Make sure you know exactly how your contributors want their names spelled and check that they are correct everywhere author names are mentioned.
- If you don’t hear from someone in a while, especially a grad student, make sure you have their current email address. You might have to track them down.
*Cover Image: Book covers of American Energy Cinema and New Jersey’s Natures. Image courtesy of Rutgers University Press and West Virginia University Press.
[Cover Image description: Two book covers side by side for Raechel Lutz’s edited collections: American Energy Cinema is on the left , showing a person watching a large industrial fire and New Jersey’s Natures is on the right, picturing an illustrated factory with smokestacks and flowers.]
Edited by Nina Foster; reviewed by Evelyn Ramiel.
