Proposal Submission Guidelines

Submit your proposal via email to nup-submissions@northwestern.edu or the relevant acquiring editor. We make every effort to respond to inquiries promptly and will be in touch once we have reviewed your proposal.

Please know that all Northwestern University Press titles must be evaluated by external readers and approved by the Press faculty board before being published. To evaluate your project, we need to know more about you and your book.

General Guidelines:

A scholarly book proposal should contain the following items:

  • A cover letter, including a short abstract of the work; a detailed description of the work’s argument and significance to the field; an annotated table of contents that summarizes each chapter; an assessment of the work’s fit with recent publications in the field and on Northwestern University Press’s list; a comment on its anticipated audience; the total word count (including notes and references) and plans for any illustrative material; a statement of any previously published material included in the manuscript; an estimated delivery date for a complete manuscript; and a current CV or résumé with full author contact information.
  • If the manuscript is based on your doctoral thesis, please provide a statement on how the research material and argument have been further developed and reshared in the current work; note that Northwestern University Press does not publish unrevised dissertations.
  • If your manuscript is an edited collection, please include brief bios for each of the proposed contributors.
  • Do not send full manuscripts unless requested by an editor.

A trade book proposal (fiction, creative nonfiction, or other) should contain the following items:

  • A cover letter; a short description of the work; a detailed description of the work; the table of contents, with chapter summaries (if applicable); a total word count; a summary of any previously published material included in the manuscript (if applicable); a list of comparable books in print with an explanation of what makes your book original; an estimated delivery date for a complete manuscript; a manuscript excerpt of at least ten and not more than thirty pages; a description of any illustrations or figures you plan to include; a current CV or résumé with full author contact information; and whether or not you are agented (and contact information for an agent if applicable).
  • Do not send full manuscripts unless requested by an editor.

A trade poetry book proposal should contain the following items:

  • A cover letter; a description of the work; the table of contents (for completed manuscripts); a total word count; a summary of any previously published material included in the manuscript (if applicable); an estimated delivery date for a complete manuscript if unfinished; your manuscript or an excerpt thereof; a current CV or résumé with full author contact information; and whether or not you are agented (and contact information for an agent if applicable).
  • Full manuscripts are strongly preferred for poetry book proposals.

If you are submitting a proposal for a trade book that includes both prose and poetry, or is otherwise a hybrid work, please follow the guidelines above as most applicable to your specific project.

If you are submitting a proposal for a translation, please provide information on why the author’s work warrants translation as well as information on the audience for the work and the rights status of the work in the original language.

If funding or a university subvention is available for your project, please indicate that in your cover letter.

Keep a copy of your proposal materials. The Press does not keep copies of submissions that are declined and cannot return proposal materials.

If you are unsure which editor to submit your proposal to, you may send it to nup-submissions@northwestern.edu to be shared among the editorial team. Do not send a proposal to more than one Northwestern University Press editor or more than one proposal at any given time.

Please do not call the Press to inquire about the status of your proposal or manuscript. Any follow-up questions may be sent via email, no sooner than twelve weeks after initial submission. We review all material received, and you will be contacted when a decision has been made. Northwestern University Press does NOT accept submissions via phone.

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