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CQ Press Book Proposal Guidelines for Reference Works

CQ Press Reference Division would like you to write and submit a proposal for the book you wish to write/compile. The more detailed a proposal you can provide up front, the more fruitful the review process will be.

CQ Press’s award-winning reference titles are well regarded by librarians and scholars for their high-quality, authoritative, and nonpartisan content. Our books are written by a single author, a small group of experts, or by a team of contributors led by an editor in chief. Reference works often have an editorial board and/or a board of advisors. Our authors are experts in their fields and almost all hold academic positions. Our market comprises libraries, high-school and college students, graduate students, journalists, policy makers, government officials, think tanks, nonprofit organizations, etc.

A note on reference books in general: classic reference works come in a variety of formats. Most familiar are encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, atlases, bibliographies, thesauri and handbooks. Recent innovative formats include documentary collections and various hybrids that combine elements of classic and contemporary reference formats. Some reference works are primarily text-based while others are data rich and tabular. Many are being published both in print and online editions. Unlike textbooks or monographs, reference books are not usually read/used cover to cover.

Part of the art of reference publishing is finding the right format to meet the needs of students and scholars for obtaining information. It is often helpful to read book reviews to get a sense of what makes a good reference work; three journals that review reference books for libraries: Booklist, Library Journal, and Choice.

Your proposal for CQ Press, submitted double-spaced on single-sided pages with an attached electronic document, should include the following:

1. Overview
   • a. Think of this as marketing or dust jacket copy—this should really sell the project and give a sense of the scope of the work. Assume potential reviewers know very little about your subject and include a little background information on the topic/issue your work covers.
   • b. Briefly outline the goals of the work.
   • c.Describe yourself briefly, focusing on how your experience has prepared you to write this book.
2. Purpose of Work and Its Major Contributions/Innovations
   • Explain why your proposed work is important, expanding on the goals mentioned in the overview. Describe how your work is unique and will make a contribution to the field. Is it providing new information or analysis? Filling a niche? Presenting information in an innovative format?
3. Competition
   • a. List what you consider to be the 5¬¬-10 competing works. For each, include title, author, publisher, publication date, and a line or two describing their strength/weaknesses vis-à-vis your proposed new work. This information will help us further explain why your work is unique and an important reference for scholars and libraries. (It may help to consult your reference librarian.)
   • b. Also include a paragraph or two that explicitly explains why/how your book fills a gap.
4. Audience/Market
   At CQ Press, we seek the broadest possible audience for our reference works. Therefore, it is important for your work to be written and organized in a way that makes it accessible to non-specialists.
   • a. Identify the primary and secondary audiences for your work (undergraduates, high school students, interested citizens, professionals, etc.).
   • b. Include some ideas about how students could potentially use this volume. Are there courses that might directly tie into this volume?
5. Organization
   Think of this as a “narrative table of contents.” Will the volume follow an alphabetical encyclopedia format? Thematic? Chronological? Other? Explain.
6. Working Table of Contents (as detailed as possible.)
7. Maps/Photos/Tables
   Do you plan to include any maps, photos, and/or tables? If so, please give us a sense number and type.
8. Permissions
   If materials in your proposed work will require permissions, please estimate how many and what are the expected costs.
9. Time Frame
   What is your anticipated manuscript completion date?
10. Revision Schedule
    Is this a work that could/should be revised regularly and, if so, how often?
11. Author Bio
    • a. Write a narrative biography that includes such information as academic background, work experience, other authored/edited journal articles and books, speaking engagements, conferences you attend, and any other information relevant to this work that will help position it and you in the marketplace. Where possible, include copies of reviews of your published works.
    • b. Attach recent C.V.
12. Ideas for reviewers
    We send all proposals to both scholars and librarians for feedback on the proposed work’s scope, organization, and market.
    • a. While we have a pool of librarians that we use as readers, we would appreciate your providing us the names and contact information for 4 to 5 scholars who you think would be able to give us some feedback. These scholars should be specialists working in your field. Reviews are most helpful to us when scholars have time to really think about them, so please be sure to take availability into account when creating your list.
13. Sample Chapter or Entry
    Provide a writing sample from your proposed work consisting of 20–40 double-spaced pages.

Proposals can be sent hard copy or via e-mail as an attached document. Please do not send us any original documents. If you would like to have us return any of the material you have sent, include an SASE.

Please submit your proposals to:

Jim is Senior Acquisitions Editor for SAGE and CQ Press Reference. Jim's publishing career started in 1983 with a part-time job at the University of Massachusetts Press while in graduate school. He subsequently attended the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures program at Harvard University and spent 14 years in college publishing with Brooks/Cole (8 years in sales and marketing; 6 as Acquisitions Editor in psychology). He came to SAGE in 1998 as Senior Acquisitions Editor for psychology, family studies, and gerontology.