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Publishing with Berghahn Books

The Publication Process will take your manuscript through the Editorial, Production, and Marketing stages. Overviews of the different stages are below, and our dedicated team will guide you through the process as each phase comes up, but this will give you an idea of what to expect.

What to expect when my book is published by Berghahn Books

We strive to make the Publication Process as seamless and prompt as possible, but creating a high quality scholarly book does take time. The length of the Editorial Process varies, depending on the quality of the manuscript when it is received, the amount of time it takes for peer review to be completed, and the extent of the revisions needed. When these are completed and the final revised manuscript is received, the in-house editorial assessment and Production Process takes between 10 and 12 months, depending upon the condition of your final manuscript as well as the length, complexity, and topicality of your book. A single-authored book generally takes less time than an edited volume involving several contributors. You will be given a production schedule at the outset for your information and will be kept informed of any unavoidable changes to your schedule. While your manuscript is in production, you will be asked to collaborate in the Marketing Process with our Author Promotion Form. If there is a particular date by which your book needs to be published in order to take advantage of a significant marketing opportunity, then we will make every effort to ensure that it is published by that date, provided we are informed well in advance and the deadline is realistic.

Editorial

Proposal

We are always happy to discuss new ideas with prospective authors and to review book proposals. In the first instance please fill out our New Book Outline and send it, together with an outline and/or chapter summary, to editorial@berghahnbooks.com. There is no need to send the manuscript straightaway.

Unsolicited material will not be returned.

In general we are not in favor of simultaneous submissions made to other publishers and prefer to deal with manuscripts on an exclusive basis. In return we undertake to complete our review process in a timely fashion and strive not to keep authors waiting unnecessarily. In exceptional circumstances we may accept simultaneous submissions, but you must tell us at the time of submission (as requested in the New Book Outline) that the proposal has been sent elsewhere so that we can quickly decide (and communicate to you) whether to commence our own review process.

New Book Outline

Prospective authors may download a copy of the New Book Outline to be filled out and emailed as an attachment to our New York office. The document is in MSWord format.

New Series Outline

For anyone wanting to submit a new series proposal for our consideration, please download the New Series Outline.

Review Process

We will evaluate the initial proposal to decide whether it is suitable for us and, if this seems to be the case, it will be assessed in-house or by an expert. If we are confident the project is publishable, we will request that you send us the full manuscript. Once we have received the full manuscript, it will be sent out to several anonymous readers for peer review. If a book is intended for a series, we will also solicit the advice of the series editors – their level of involvement is at their discretion and varies from series to series.

Peer review is an important element of Berghahn's publishing process. It may take several months before a decision is reached on a full-length manuscript, depending on how soon we can secure readers and how quickly the readers submit their respective reports. Although more time may be agreed, we currently request that readers return their reports to us within six weeks from the time they accept the manuscript for review — you can find our Guidelines for Readers here. If we agree to publish your manuscript you will receive a written offer within one month of our decision. Upon sending you the readers’ reports, we will then ask you to submit a complete and revised manuscript by an agreed-upon date. It is very important that you consult our style guide and the editorial checklists provided with the publication acceptance when revising in order to avoid unnecessary delays at later stages.

Permissions

It is your responsibility to clear permissions for the reproduction of all copyrighted material (images and text) and to prepare the obligatory forms of acknowledgement in the text. All permissions need to be secured and sent along with the final revised manuscript. Berghahn is happy to provide sample permission request letters as well as to advise you where the need for permission is in question.

 

Please also see our Style Guides under Text Submission. 

Text Submission

Text Submission Requirements

House Style Guides

US Style Guide - US Documentation Guide - CMS Citation Quick Guide
UK Style Guide - UK Documentation Guide

Manuscript Text

Text of your manuscript should be submitted in Word or RTF format. Open Document files are problematic, but can easily be Saved As a .doc or .rtf before submission.

It is important to use the style and documentation guides above while writing or revising a manuscript. It will lessen the amount of work at the revisions and copyediting stages.

Formatting:

  • Text files should be in Times New Roman, 12 point font, double-spaced (including notes and references), with 1 in/2.5 cm margins, pages consecutively numbered throughout
  • The chapters should be separate text files, and named so the files fall in order--do not send the entire manuscript as one document
  • The text should be spell checked and all non-English text translated, either in notes or in following parentheses
  • A pdf file has been provided for any chapters that contain non-Latin characters (i.e. text using Cyrillic, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, or any other alphabets)
  • A paper copy of the final manuscript is not needed

Structure:

  • All edited collections need to include chapter-level bibliographies or chapter-level reference lists rather than having 1 bibliography at the end of the volume 
  • Chapter endnotes must be used (instead of footnotes)
  • Do not include cross references to pages in the text
  • All books need to include an introduction (which should not be named Chapter 1), a conclusion, a bibliography, and eventually an index
  • The style guides above include information about the different parts of a book, try to conform your chapters as closely as possible

Image Submission

Image Submission Requirements

 

Displayed Material (illustrations, figures, maps, tables, etc)

All displayed materials need to be turned in, in thier entirety, with the revised manuscript. This is the biggest cause for delays when entering production, please make sure everything is included.

Each displayed piece, whether an image or a table, needs to meet the following 3 requirements or it will be subject for removal from the book:

  1. Permission: per the contract/contributor agreement each individual is responsible for securing permission for all displayed materials in their chapter and submitting proof of permission to the publisher.
    • Please note that for many artworks from museums, galleries, archives, and similar, credit information is required both for the original artwork and the digital image (e.g. the photograph of the artwork), if the latter is licensed by the museum, gallery, or archive.
  2. Full caption information:
    • Title and/or description of the piece
    • Source designated (was it created by the author, someone else, scanned from a book?)
    • Permission status clearly stated (courtesy of...)
      Examples:
      • Author Images
        Figure 10.1. A coffee farm near Sasaima, Colombia, 2013. © [insert author name].
        Figure 3.2. A family packing their encampment and goods at the end of the Santa Catalina fair in 2010. © [insert author name].
        Figure 4.2. BioShock’s Big Daddy (image 2K Games). Screen capture by [insert author name].
      • Image by an individual
        Figure 1.1. Winemaker Bálint Losonci posing in front of an old wine cellar with a bottle of a 2015 Parola, his signature wine. © Polina Georgescu.
        Table 2.1. Evaluation criteria for fortune telling (2012). Reproduced with the permission of Li Chan.
        Figure 1.9. Motif variations of body painting (female, chest). Drawing: Aponé Pataxó. Published with permission.
      • Public Domain and CC BY Images
        Figure 1.1. James Joyce. Photograph by Alex Ehrenzweig, 1915. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
        Figure 8.3. Cosplay at MCM London Comic Con 2015. Photo by Pete Sheffield, CC BY-SA 2.0.
        Figure 1.1. A group of Puna Flamingos in a mating dance. Photograph: Pedros Szekely, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
      • Images from a Museum/Gallery/Archive
        Figure 2.3. Francios Perrier, Orpheus before Pluto and Persephone, 1647–50. Oil on canvas. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre), used with permission.
        Figure 1.1. Corn Patch Fringed with Maquay [sic], Toluca, 1907. Courtesy of Milwaukee Public Museum, Sumner W. Matteson Collection, negative number SWMI-D179.
  3. Proper format: industry standards are detailed below, per format.

Format Specifics:

     Photographs (called Illustrations)

  • photographs need to be a minimum of 1350 x 1800 pixels = 4.5 x 6 inches (11.4 x 15.2 cm) at 300 dpi
  • if a photo is less than 300dpi and is resampled to 300dpi it will not be crisp and clear and we will reject the image. If it is less than 300 it is better to rescan the image, if possible, or to send us the image as is so we can see if we can work with it.

     Charts, Graphs, and Maps (charts and graphs are called Figures)

  • it is especially important for these to be crisp and clear otherwise the data won't be able to be read or used
  • if you have the image as a tif or jpg it will need to be at least 600dpi at the size you want it to display in the book (usually about 3x3in or larger)
  • ideally, these types of displayed material should be submitted as a vector graphic in eps format with all fonts embedded. However, if you have a tif or jpg you can't easily convert the image to a vector graphic, so send us it as is and we will see if we can work with it.
  • if the image was created in Word, Excel, etc. it will need to be converted to an eps file for us to accurately import it into our page layout program. Please do so before submission.

     Tables

  • tables should be submitted with the text in columns and rows (like a Word table)
  • if a table is formatted using text columns or the data is separated by spaces or tabs, it won't import into our page layout software accurately and will be sent back to the author to rework
  • tables should not be submitted as excel files
  • tables should be included in the text of your manuscript at the place you would like it to be in the final book--however, if a table is over a page long in Word, please save it as a separate Word file in order to not disrupt the text, and add a note in the text where the table should be placed.

Color

Color versions of images will be used in the ebook edition if provided, but cannot be accomodated for the print edition.

All photos, tables, charts, graphs, maps, etc need to be in grayscale before they are submitted to Berghahn. It is important for the author to do this so they can see what the color range will be.

  • This is especially important in charts that use colors to designate different values, a conversion to grayscale may make the data ambiguous. For example:


Production

Copyediting

Your manuscript will be copyedited by an experienced freelance editor and returned to you so that you can review the edits and answer the copy editor's queries. All copyediting is done electronically using Word's track changes feature. Only the electronic files will be sent to you to either accept or reject the edit. Detailed instructions outlining what is required of you will accompany the copyedited files. For more information about copy editor corrections, please consult our style guides under "Text Submission".

Proofs

At the next stage you will receive page proofs and will be asked to check and correct them within a short period. All setting errors are corrected free of charge. Amendments at proof stage, once the script has been typeset, are expensive however, and we would urge you to keep proof corrections to a minimum. Excessive changes at this stage will be charged to the author, as stipulated in your contract.

Index

Unless other arrangements have been agreed to you will have to produce an index, which should be considered just as much an integral part of the book as other matters, for instance the bibliography. We strongly advise authors and editors to prepare the index themselves because nobody knows their book as well as they do. Our guidelines contain advice on the preparation of an index, and there also are some useful books on indexing in the market. If you would like to use a freelance professional indexer we can put your in touch with someone or we suggest that you contact The Society of Indexers for a listing of accredited local freelancers. US: www.asindexing.org, UK: www.indexers.org.uk.

GENERAL INDEXING GUIDELINES:

  • The length of the index should be 3-5% of the book's typeset pages (so a book that is 340 pages would have an index of 10-17 pages, single-spaced in Word).
  • The index needs to include main subjects in addition to persons and places.
  • Do not include contributor or author names, unless they are discussed in relation to your book’s topic.
  • Do not include reference names cited in the text parenthetically.

Cover Design

We appreciate author input about their book's cover. If you would like to suggest an image for the cover please let us know as soon as possible, after we have samples designed it is too late to go back and start again with a new image. Please note that if you do suggest an image you are responsible for securing permission to use the image in the print and electronic versions of the book, as well as making sure that you can provide a high quality version of the image. (This should only happen after the image has been approved in house.) But the ultimate decision as to what will be the most suitable design lies with us.

An important element of the cover is the copy on the back cover, which serves as important promotional copy for all our other marketing tools. It normally consists of the book description, pre-publication endorsements, and extracts from reviews in the case of later or paperback editions. 

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS FOR THE BOOK COVER MUST HAVE THE FOLLOWING DIMENSIONS:

  • Landscape orientation: 2400 x 1800 pixels or larger
  • Portrait orientation: 2400 x 3200 pixels or larger

 

Please also see our Style Guides under Text Submission. 

Marketing

Publicity Information

Marketing & Sales

When your manuscript is in production, you will receive an Author's Promotion Form, in which you will be asked to assist us with marketing by suggesting suitable journals that may wish to review the book or in which we might place space adverts, teachers who may want it for classroom use and conferences/societies whose delegates/members may be interested in seeing details of the book. For more information on our marketing and publicity activities please see "What to expect when my book is published by Berghahn Books"

Self Archiving & Institutional Repositories

Self-Archiving and Institutional Repository Guidelines

Berghahn Books supports policies that aim at making scholarship available to a broader audience while balancing the sustainability of our publishing programs. Our self-archiving policy permits the posting of publications on online institutional repositories, personal websites, and databases such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate, etc., under the following terms:

  • A Berghahn author may freely upload their work in the “post-print” form (that is, the version of the text that has been peer reviewed, but not yet copyedited and typeset) after an embargo period of 24 months from the date of publication.
  • In the case of monographs, no more than 20% of the entirety of the work may be made freely available online in postprint form.
  • In the case of contributed chapters, authors may make the entirety of their own individual chapter available.
  • In either case, authors must acknowledge the Berghahn Books publication in their posting with a citation and link to the Berghahn Books website (www.berghahnbooks.com). The citation and acknowledgement should appear as follows:
    • For a monograph: “This excerpt is part of a larger work published by Berghahn Books (http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/KingfisherPolicy). SAMPLE CITATION: Kingfisher, Catherine. 2013. A Policy Travelogue: Tracing Welfare Reform in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada. New York: Berghahn Books.”
    • For a chapter in a collection: “This chapter appears in a larger collection published by Berghahn Books (http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/KingMigration). SAMPLE CITATION: Feldman, David. 2013. “Settlement and the Law in the Seventeenth Century.” In Migration, Settlement and Belonging in Europe, 1500s-1930s: Comparative Perspectives, eds. Steven King and Anne Winter. New York: Berghahn Books.”

The author reusage rights outlined in our author agreements are wide ranging with full respect for the intellectual rights that authors retain in their entirety:

Authors are free to republish a contribution to a collection or a chapter in a monograph as an article in a journal, a collection of their work, or an edited volume where the author is an active contributor (the author should acknowledge and cite the Berghahn Books publication source). Authors are also free to make and distribute copies of contributions or monograph chapters for use in teaching.

Funding requirements for Gold Open Access

Increasingly, funder mandates, such as those stipulated by the UK Research Council or the EU Horizon2020 initiatives and a growing number of US government agencies, require public access to the final publication that directly resulted from the research conducted under those grants. In most cases, green open access stipulations cannot be met and so gold open access is expected with funds allocated from the grant to cover open access fees.

It is important for authors to be aware of any mandates they may be subject to at the beginning of the publication process to ensure that the proper approach to meet funder requirements on publication.

Publication access fee models (Gold OA) are available for authors who want, or are required, to post their work upon publication or before the end of the embargo period (as postprint or publisher-produced PDF). Please refer to our Open Access page.

REF Compliance for individual chapters

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK institutions of higher education. Libraries archiving materials for REF consideration can follow the Green Access guidelines:

In line with post-2014 REF compliance guidelines, upon chapter acceptance or no later than three months after the edited collection’s publication, authors subject to the REF may make a closed deposit of the final, postprint version of their own chapter to their institution (or funder) repository. Once the embargo period of 24 months has passed, the postprint version can be made publicly accessible in the repository under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 user license agreement.

If Gold Access status is required for your publication, please contact your Berghahn editor.

Open Access

Open Access

Open access is becoming an ever-present part of the publishing landscape and we regularly monitor the latest developments, mandates, and industry standards to ensure that our policies best accommodate the range of OA requirements and opportunities needed by our authors. Berghahn Books supports open access policies that aim at making scholarship available to a broader audience through two levels of Open Access:

Green Access

Our Green Access allows authors to post the final postprint version of their chapters, which is the final text after acceptance and peer review, but not the Publisher PDF, in their institutional repository, other relevant repositories, or your own website, under the same terms as our self-archiving policy:

  • A mandatory embargo period of 24 months from the date of publication must pass before authors may post their work.
  • In the case of monographs, no more than 20% of the entirety of the work may be made freely available online.
  • In the case of contributed chapters, authors may make the entirety of their chapter available.
  • In either case, authors must acknowledge the Berghahn Books publication in their posting with a citation and link to the Berghahn Books website (www.berghahnbooks.com). The citation and acknowledgement should appear as follows:
    • For a monograph: “This excerpt is part of a larger work published by Berghahn Books (http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/KingfisherPolicy). SAMPLE CITATION: Kingfisher, Catherine. 2013. A Policy Travelogue: Tracing Welfare Reform in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Canada. New York: Berghahn Books.”
    • For a chapter in a collection: “This chapter appears in a larger collection published by Berghahn Books (http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/KingMigration). SAMPLE CITATION: Feldman, David. 2013. “Settlement and the Law in the Seventeenth Century.” In Migration, Settlement and Belonging in Europe, 1500s-1930s: Comparative Perspectives, eds. Steven King and Anne Winter. New York: Berghahn Books.”

There is no cost for Green Access, but please make sure that these terms comply with any funding or institutional requirements. 

Gold Access

Gold Access allows the Publisher PDF to be available immediately upon publication through the Publisher's website and elsewhere as it is needed. This usage is covered under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, which offers the strongest protections for the rights of the Author. Gold Access publications are made available on our website, as well as the following repositories: DOAB, OAPEN, JSTOR, PMC Bookshelf.

Cost for Gold Access is $2,000 per chapter, or $15,000 for the full volume. Often this fee is paid by a university or funding organization. For books older than two years, please contact the publisher for modified pricing. We also participate in initiatives such as Knowledge Unlatched, which provide alternative funding sources for open access publications.

If Gold Access status is required for your publication, please contact your Berghahn editor.

Using your own chapter

Using Your Own Chapter

Berghahn works in close collaboration with its editors and contributors to ensure your rights as an author and the fair dissemination of authors' chapters.

Our contracts and contributor agreements are designed to ensure that priority is given to the best interests of the overall academic community which Berghahn, as a long-time scholarly publisher, serves.

Terms & Conditions

Please refer to the following usage rights for your chapter (in print or electronic format). Use of the PDF file or printed chapter denotes consent to these terms and conditions.

Provided the Work is always identified as having first been published by Berghahn Books, you are assured the following rights:

  • The right to be identified as the author of the Work whenever it is initially published or reproduced;
  • The right to make and distribute copies of all or part of the Work for use in teaching;
  • The right to use and distribute the Work internally at the Author's place of employment for education or research purposes;
  • The right to use figures and tables, prepared by yourself, from the Work for any purpose;
  • The right to republish all or part of the material contained in the Work in a book-length literary work by the Author (if previously a contribution), or in a collection of the Author's work;
  • The right to make oral presentations of material from the Work.

Reprinting Your Chapter

As the author of a chapter published in a Berghahn book, you can reprint your own work without formal permission from Berghahn. As a courtesy, we ask that you acknowledge the original publication of the work (whether as a complete duplication or a revised version of the article) with publication details. This can be done in the form of a foot- or endnote or on the copyright page.

 

For example: "This chapter was originally published as [full citation to original publication]." or "An earlier version of this chapter/Chapter X was originally published as [full citation to original publication]."

 

Please note that third-party publications in which the author is not directly involved, such as anthologies or readers, may require specific permission from the publisher.

Author Self-archiving & Institutional Repositories, Open Access, Etc.

Please see the corresponding sections above or contact your editor for more information.

Publisher PDF

Please note that you are not permitted to post the Berghahn Books publisher-authenticated PDF version of the chapter online.

Author Usage Not Specified

For additional information regarding any use of your printed article or the PDF file not addressed in the above, please contact the Berghahn rights manager directly and we will be happy to advise you.