Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.

Please enable cookies for this site    
before adding to your shopping cart.
How to Propose Your Book

Thank you for your interest in writing for Neal-Schuman Publishers.  We pride ourselves in producing authoritative books that contribute substantially to the professional literature of librarianship and information science.  Here is what we require in a book proposal:

  1. A general description of the book addressing:
    • Why your book is needed
    • How it will be written or compiled
    • The audience(s) and market(s) for which the book is intended

  2. A thorough competitive analysis identifying similar books and describing the ways in which your book represents a compellingly distinct contribution to the literature.

  3. A prospective table of contents, including the estimated length, in pages, for each chapter, as well as the length of the total manuscript. Please specify the types and approximate lengths of all indexes you intend to provide. This gives us an idea of the depth and relative proportion of your chapters.

  4. An outline describing your proposed book in detail.  This element gives us our best glimpse of the book you intend to write, and is therefore absolutely crucial.  Please provide as much detail as possible here, preferably in traditional outline format.

  5. Sample pages.  We prefer to receive an entire sample chapter, but 6-10 sample pages usually suffice.  These should be representative of the book’s theme (sample introductions are not as helpful as samples drawn from the proposal’s body).  If possible, please include non-text elements such as tabular material, illustrations, sample worksheets and checklists, and the like.

  6. A draft preface addressed to the book’s readers.  This vital element is your opportunity to demonstrate exactly why you intend to write the book, and exactly how you mean to communicate with your audience.  At a minimum, the preface should address:
    • The book’s topic
    • Your reasons for writing the book
    • The way in which the book was compiled or written
    • How the book is organized (most prefaces found in Neal-Schuman books contain brief descriptions of each chapter, and we recommend such an approach for your proposal as well).

  7. The projected date of manuscript completion.

  8. A brief resume, including lists of other publications, membership in professional organizations, and so forth.

Some successful proposals run to all of ten pages or so; others are much longer.  When you have completed your proposal, please send it to Charles Harmon, Neal-Schuman’s Director of Publishing (charles@neal-schuman.com).  We prefer to receive proposals via email, as attachments in Word format.  If this is not possible, we will gladly receive your proposal at the address listed below.

Charles Harmon
Director of Publishing
Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.
100 William Street
Suite 2004
New York, NY 10038

Voice: 212-925-8650
Fax: 212-219-8916
E-mail: charles@neal-schuman.com

 

 

New Titles

The Librarian's Legal Companion

Staff Development on a Shoestring

The Medical Library Association’s Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences

The Medical Library Association Guide to Managing Health Care Libraries, 2nd Edition

Collection Development and Management for 21st Century Library Collections

Wireless Networking

Winning Grants

The New Information Professional: Your Guide to Careers in the Digital Age

The Medical Library Association Guide to Finding Out About Complementary and Alternative Medicine

The Kovacs Guide to Electronic Library Collection Development, Second Edition

M-Libraries 2

Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval, Third Edition

Family Literacy Storytimes

Early Literacy Programming en Español

Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan on a Shoestring

Digital Curation

Developing Library Leaders

Annotated Book Lists for Every Teen Reader

Academic Librarianship

1,000 Fingerplays & Action Rhymes

© Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. 100 William St., Suite 2004, New York, NY 10038. Phone: 212 925-8650. Fax: 212 219-8916