UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Welcome to the University of Massachusetts Press. We look forward to working with you on turning your manuscript into a book. To help expedite the process, we ask that you read and follow these guidelines for preparing the manuscript for editing and production.

If you have any questions, please address them to me—Carol Betsch, Managing Editor, betsch@umpress.umass.edu, (413) 545-4991 (direct line). Thanks.

To jump to a section below click on one of the following:
Organizing the Files
Permissions
Formatting
Epigraphs
Notes and Bibliographies
Tables
Illustrations
Guidelines for Submitting Art
From Manuscript to Book: The Journey

GENERAL INFORMATION
Except for the occasional edit done on paper, our editors work onscreen in Microsoft Word, using the Track Changes feature. When you submit your manuscript, please let us know what platform (PC or Mac) and version of Word you are using. (Word 2007 for Windows and Word 2008 for Mac files are problematic; please save them as Word 97-2003 files.) Use the same platform and version for the entire manuscript.

If you are the volume editor, it is your responsibility either to make sure that all your contributors submit their essays in the same version of Word or to take care of having the files converted.

Files can be submitted via e-mail attachment or on a CD labeled with your name, platform, version of Word, and date.

Please send one double-spaced, single-sided, unbound hard copy as well. The hard copy must match the electronic files exactly. In other words, do not make any further changes to the computer files once you’ve printed them out. If you must make corrections on the hard copy, use bright colored pen or pencil and provide a list of page numbers with changes.

PERMISSIONS
By contract, you as author are responsible for securing all permissions to reprint all material owned by others, textual and visual, including your own previously published work to which you do not hold copyright.

We strongly suggest that you read the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, Chapter 4, “Rights and Permissions,” particularly Sections 4.66–4.98, “The Author’s Responsibilities,” which gives information on the principles of copyright, the doctrine of “fair use,” and securing permissions, including a sample letter.

The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) has posted “Permission FAQs (Author Responsibilities and Copyright Guidelines)” on its website, which includes sample letters as well: http://www.aaupnet.org/aboutup/issues/copyright/permfaqs.pdf

ORGANIZING THE FILES
Create a new file for each chapter and major element of the book. Do not put the entire manuscript in one enormous file; we cannot work with it.

Name the chapter files by chapter number (e.g., Ch01) not by title; name the remaining files according to their contents: front matter (title page, dedication, epigraph, table of contents, list of illustrations, acknowledgments [or preface, including acknowledgments at the end]); introduction; conclusion; epilogue; afterword; appendix; works cited; tables; captions. Part title pages should each be a separate file.

Chapters should be numbered consecutively using arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.). Introductions and conclusions should not be numbered and should have a descriptive title if possible. Chapter titles should be typed Headline Style, NOT all caps. Use a colon to separate subtitles from titles. Chapter number, title, and epigraph should be typed at the top of the first page of the text, not on a separate page.

Number pages sequentially throughout the manuscript. If you don’t know how to do this, number by chapter (e.g., 1-1, 1-2, etc.).

FORMATTING
DOUBLE SPACE EVERYTHING. That means epigraphs, extracts, notes, works cited, tables, captions, list of abbreviations. Everything.

Margins should be set at 1.5 inch all around. Set left justification (ragged right margin). Let lines break automatically according to the margin setting.

Use hard returns only at the end of a paragraph, section, subhead, and block extract.

Indicate new paragraphs with a single tab indent. DO NOT insert extra line space between paragraphs or to set off block extracts.

Indent all extracts one-half inch by resetting the margin at the beginning of the block. DO NOT use tabs and hard returns to indent each line. Shorter quotations (fewer than c. 8 typeset lines) are generally run in to the text. Type poetry with line breaks as they occur in the original; if special formatting is required, please provide a photocopy of the original poem with the manuscript.

DO NOT insert Word’s section breaks or manual page breaks in the manuscript. Insert the word “<SPACE>” on a separate line where you want to indicate a section break without a subhead. (Use of ornaments for this purpose is the designer’s prerogative.)

We prefer 12-point Times New Roman throughout, including chapter titles, headings, extracts, and notes.

NO STYLES. Repeat: NO STYLES.

Please DO NOT apply Word Styles or use different fonts or ALL CAPS for chapter titles, headings, and subheads. Type Them with Headline-Style Cap and Lowercase.

Different levels of subheads can be indicated with tags: <A> for a first-level heading, <B> for a second-level head, <C> for a third-level head.

Use either italics or underlining for emphasis, titles, foreign words, any text that will eventually be set in italics.

Use bullets only with the understanding that lists may be designed without them. DO NOT use Word’s automatic bullet or autonumbering feature. If you can’t highlight a bullet or number and delete it in the usual way, it has been applied with the auto bullet/numbering feature. This can be turned off with the Autoformat command on the Options (Windows) or Preferences (Mac) menu.

Turn off the autohyphenation feature; the only hyphens that should appear should be in hyphenated compound words.

If you use accents or special characters that are not available in your software, provide a list of them and let us know how you have marked them on the hard copy and indicated them on disk.

Use only one space after periods and colons. Commas and periods go inside closing quotation marks; semicolons and colons go outside.

Use two hyphens--without space before, between, or after--for a dash (or Word’s —).

EPIGRAPHS
Epigraphs are separate elements, not tied to the text. DO NOT cite epigraphs with a text note. Brief source citations are given at the end of the quotation. Full bibliographic information is not required.

If you include chapter epigraphs, for design consistency please supply them for all chapters, not just for some. We discourage the use of section epigraphs; they can create difficulties in page makeup.

NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES
For reasons of economy, we generally prefer that full bibliographic information be given in the notes rather than include a bibliography in the book. (There are exceptions, of course. Please consult with your sponsoring editor if you believe a bibliography is a critical element for your work.) An alternative system is to use a reference list (Works Cited) and parenthetical references in the text. See Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, for complete information on documentation systems (MLA style is acceptable as well). To view or download our complete style guide, please click HERE.

Generally we set notes as endnotes at the end of the book (with running heads that give the span of pages covered). In edited volumes, they appear at the end of each essay. (If you have a strong preference for footnotes, please let your sponsoring editor know.) In manuscript they should be gathered at the end of each chapter. They should not be printed at the bottom of the text page.

Use Word’s Insert Footnote/Endnote command to insert endnotes. DO NOT type an extra paragraph return at the end of each note or reference list entry. Type each entry as a single paragraph—DO NOT indent the second lines of entries by typing a paragraph return and a tab; these are very time-consuming to remove.

PLEASE NOTE : If you have used a bibliographic software program, such as EndNotes, ProCite, or Reference Manager, you MUST strip out the embedded fields these programs place in your documents. It's not enough simply to expand the citation tags so that the full citations appear; you must also run the command that removes hidden field codes and turns the entries in to plain, unlinked text. For specific directions, consult the user's manual or help file associated with your program.

TABLES
Tables should be created with Word’s Table feature. If you create a table as a text file, keep the formatting very simple; do not use boxes, shading, or other effects, and avoid snaking columns and nested cells.

Tables are separate elements and carry their own source credits and notes; table notes must not be included within the sequence of text notes.

Number tables sequentially throughout the text, except in edited volumes, where they should be numbered by chapter (e.g., table 1.1). Give the table a title that fully and clearly explains what it’s about.

Tables should carry parenthetical in-text references: “(table 1)” or “(see table 1).” In addition, please insert “callouts” to indicate placement: “<table 1 near here>” and provide a list of manuscript pages where tables fall.

Print out each table on its own page. Gather all tables into a single file rather than integrating them into chapter text.

ILLUSTRATIONS
Please consult your sponsoring editor first if you wish to include illustrations in your book.

DO NOT EMBED IMAGES IN YOUR MANUSCRIPT FILE. Submit all graphics on a separate disk. We cannot use graphics created in Word and embedded in the text.

As author, you are responsible for securing all permissions and paying all permissions fees; all permissions must be in hand before we can proceed to production with the manuscript.

Please create a separate, single document of illustration captions, including source credit lines. Make sure that credit lines are given exactly as stipulated by the grantor of permission to reproduce the illustration.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING ART
We prefer that visual material be submitted as “reflective” art, that is, true photographic prints (not laser printouts of scans), transparencies (35mm slides, 4x5 transparencies), or negatives.

These days, however, many archives and institutions provide art only in digital form, and if you must submit digital art, it is important that it meet specific requirements to obtain high-quality reproduction in print.

Following are our specifications for digital images. Questions can be directed to our production manager, Jack Harrison, harrison@umpress.umass.edu.

Digital Art Specifications
Resolution: true OPTICAL 300 pixel per inch (dpi) resolution at an image size equal to, or greater than, book page dimension (i.e., if your book is approximately 6x9 inches, the image you supply should have truly 300 dpi resolution at that size or larger).

Mode: Grayscale (256 shades of gray - 8 bits per pixel). (Note: We prefer grayscale but we can work with hi-resolution color files if necessary).

File Format: TIFF preferred.

Scan quality: Professionally scanned with a high-end scanner that yields a good range and balance of gray values faithful to the original reflective art/transparency

Media: Scans can be burned to CD or posted to our university ftp site (for instructions, please contact Jack Harrison).

PLEASE NOTE:
The photo parameters outlined above are predicated on the image’s being printed in the publication at actual size or less.They do not allow for significant enlargement or blown up “details” from digital images.

If your image supplier is scanning transparencies that are much smaller than book size (such as 35mm slides) then the true OPTICAL resolution of the transparency as scanned will need to be considerably higher in order to yield the minimum 300 dpi at a larger size. We routinely scan transparencies anywhere from 1200 to 4000 dpi for this reason.

For digital images that are not scanned from transparencies but taken directly with a digital camera, the same resolution requirements apply (i.e., an image to be reproduced at 6x9 inches or larger must be at least 300 dpi at that final size). The color quality of digital camera images will depend solely on the experience of the photographer who takes them. Snapshot quality images supplied will produce only snapshot quality illustrations in the printed book.

For first-time authors especially, the process of turning a manuscript into a book can be a mysterious one. Here is an overview of what lies ahead.

Once your sponsoring editor (Bruce Wilcox or Clark Dougan) formally transmits your project to the Editing Department, I, Carol Betsch, assign it to one of our freelance editors for copyediting. Most of our freelancers work onscreen using Word's Track Changes feature. (A few veterans edit only on paper with pencil, in which case the editorial process happens on paper throughout.) When the editing is completed, I'll e-mail the edited manuscript files for you to review. If you'd prefer to print them out and work on paper, that’s fine. Otherwise, you’ll continue to work onscreen (I’ll send instructions for how to do this). Generally we figure about 5–6 weeks for an author review. After you return the reviewed manuscript, we’ll do a cleanup edit, inputting the changes, checking with you on last-minute queries, and preparing the final files for design. This stage generally takes a couple of weeks.

If your book is illustrated, all the original art (either photographic prints or digital scans) and permissions should be in hand at this point.

Once I transmit the manuscript to production, it will be in the hands of Jack Harrison and Sally Nichols, our production manager and associate production manager, and assigned to a designer. About 5 weeks later (depending on designer availability and work loads), the designed files are sent to the typesetter. It usually takes about 5 weeks to get page proofs. As author you are responsible for proofreading and making an index (or hiring a professional indexer). You’ll have about 4 weeks to accomplish those tasks. The following stages of corrected proofs are checked in-house.

Production from design to finished books generally takes about 7–8 months (illustrated books take longer). Books slated for the fall/winter season are scheduled for publication from September through February; spring/summer titles are published from March through August. Specific publication months are decided as we weave together schedules for the list as a whole, when the seasonal catalogue is made.

Jacket design happens on a separate track, generally at proof stage. Bruce or Clark is the person to talk to if you have preferences or ideas about it.

Once we're under way, you'll be hearing from Carla Potts, our Web and promotion manager, who'll send you a marketing questionnaire to fill out. Questions about marketing and promotion should be directed to her at potts@umpress.umass.edu.

I'll be your liaison during the editing and production stages, so if you have questions or concerns along the way, please don't hesitate to contact me.

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