Getting Your Book Published: A Roundtable

About This Event

Whether you’re trying to publish your first book or your fifth, figuring out how to navigate the process successfully can be mysterious and challenging. At this online round table for CNY Humanities Corridor faculty, postdocs, and graduate students, area university press editors demystify the process by discussing the questions they most often hear from authors and answering questions from the audience. Among the questions they will address:

• How do I find the publishers most likely to be interested in my project?
• When’s the best time and what’s the best way to approach an acquisitions editor?
• What goes into a book proposal and what makes a proposal most likely to succeed in convincing the press to invite the manuscript?
• Can I send proposals to more than one publisher at a time? What about the full manuscript?
• How long should I wait to hear back from an acquisitions editor?
• How does the peer review process work and how long does it usually take?
• What happens after my manuscript is accepted…or rejected?
• What about contracts? When should I expect to be offered one and what should I look for in it?
• Is it okay if I’ve already published some articles out of my book manuscript?
• I published my first book several years ago. What should I be mindful of this time around? What does it mean if my previous publisher won’t publish my newest manuscript?
• What happens after I submit my final manuscript? Why does it take so long for the book to be published?

A resource list will be provided to registrants.

Register via Zoom.

Featured Guests

• Moderator: Heather Stauffer, Syracuse University Press
• Panelists:
  • Rebecca Colesworthy, SUNY Press
  • Laura Fish, Syracuse University Press
  • Sonia Kane, University of Rochester Press
  • Meagan Levinson, Cornell University Press

• Heather Stauffer is editor-in-chief at Syracuse University Press. She acquires for the Irish Studies, Indigenous Studies, Jewish Studies, and TV/Pop Culture lists, among others. Having completed MA degrees in History and English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, she worked at the University of Nebraska Press for over a decade before joining Syracuse in the spring of 2024.
• Rebecca Colesworthy is a senior acquisitions editor in gender and queer studies, education, and Latin American studies, among other fields, at SUNY Press. She writes a publishing advice column for the Chronicle of Higher Education, published a book in 2018 with Oxford UP, and holds a PhD in English from Cornell.
• Laura Fish is an acquisitions editor at Syracuse University Press, where she acquires scholarly, nonfiction, and fiction book projects related to Middle East studies, Geography, and New York State studies. She received her PhD in Middle Eastern Literatures and Cultures at the University of Texas at Austin, focusing on Iranian cinema. Previously, she worked in acquisitions, marketing, and rights and permissions at the University of Texas Press and in marketing at the University of Washington Press.
• Sonia Kane is editorial director at the University of Rochester Press. She has a PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center, with a specialization in the works of eighteenth-century British women writers.
• Meagan Levinson is editorial director of Three Hills, the regional trade imprint at Cornell University Press. She is on the lookout for engaging stories, both fiction and non-fiction, that deepen our understanding of and appreciation for New York state and the greater Northeast. Before joining Cornell UP, Meagan held editorial positions at Princeton University Press, Penguin Random House, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.