Guidance for authors
Book authorsSubmitting your proposal
Editorial and production
Marketing and sales
Follow up
Policy Press Scholarship Online
Journal authors
Policy & Politics
Evidence & Policy
Journal of Poverty and Social Justice
Voluntary Sector Review
Please note: Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to download documents from this page and elsewhere on the site. If you do not currently have Acrobat software, a reader can be downloaded free of charge from the Adobe website.
If you would prefer to receive a hard copy of any of the documents below, please contact Laura Vickers on +44 (0)117 331 4060 or email laura.vickers@bristol.ac.uk.
Submitting your proposal
We welcome proposals for books, series or journals, from both experienced and also first-time authors. Please use the relevant guidelines to structure your proposal (PDF, 104kb). If you would like to discuss your proposal before sending it to us, please contact the Commissioning Editor for your subject area:
Contact Emily Watt on +44 (0)117 331 4058 or email emily.watt@bristol.ac.uk for books in:
Environmental policy
Housing and planning
Public policy and administration
Social geography and urban studies
Social policy and welfare
Sociology and social theory
Contact Isobel Bainton on 44 (0)117 331 4051 or email isobel.bainton@bristol.ac.uk for books in:
Ageing and gerontology
Children, young people and families
Education and lifelong learning
Health and social care
Social work and community development
Contact Alison Shaw on +44 (0)117 331 4095 or email ali.shaw@bristol.ac.uk for books in:
Criminology and criminal justice
Equality and diversity
Evidence and policy making
International development
Poverty, inequality and social mobility
Social justice and human rights
The book you are planning to write should fit into one of the following broad categories.
Monographs
Monographs are works of original scholarly research, engaging with other relevant primary and secondary literature. Publication of significant monograph books that push forward the boundaries of the disciplines in which we publish, is very important to The Policy Press. Monographs may be considered for publication as hardback only, or as dual edition (paperback and hardback) books dependant on the core audience for the book.
Textbooks
A textbook is a book written for a student, whether undergraduate, postgraduate or professional. A textbook must be an essential adjunct to a course and students will be strongly recommended to buy it. Its coverage can be either truly comprehensive or relatively specialised, depending on the type of student or course you have in mind. It may be based on your own teaching, but should be broad enough in its appeal to be suitable for courses other than your own. It is particularly important for textbooks to consider the needs of the audience and how your book relates to the competition.
Multi-author or edited works
Edited works should provide a thorough and structured review of a major subject, in which both the chapter topics and the contributors have been carefully selected by the volume editor(s) to ensure that the resulting book is as comprehensive, coherent and integrated a treatment of that subject as possible. We do not publish conference proceedings so if you are proposing to edit a book arising out of a conference or workshop, it is essential that all chapters are written specifically for the book, that you have selected only the very best contributions from the meeting, and have, where necessary, supplemented these with specially commissioned chapters to ensure that the book is fully rounded and cohesive.
Policy books
The Policy Press also publishes policy review and polemic books that aim to challenge policy for, or thinking about, a certain field of policy or practice. Such books should be written in an accessible style, as they are likely to be aimed at a broader audience. They must still be academically sound and appropriately referenced. It is important to clearly consider your audience for a book in this category and to ask who needs to read it to effect change as a result.
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What we don’t publish
We do not publish conference proceedings, autobiographies or fiction. Everything we publish must make a difference!
Proposal guidelines
Proposal guidelines for new books (PDF, 104 kb)
Proposal guidelines for a new journal (PDF, 69 kb)
Proposal checklist for authors
To make sure that your proposal is dealt with as efficiently as possible, please ensure you include:
• Proposal: an outline of aims and objectives, intended market and the competition
• Chapter plan: one to two paragraphs on each chapter, detailing the content, argument or any features
• Up-to-date cv for yourself, co-authors/editors and contributors
• Sample chapters (if available)
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Editorial and production
Once your title has been contracted, we will send you a copy of our Editorial and Production guidelines (PDF, 171kb). This is a detailed guide to the publishing process with information on sending in your completed typescript, including reference style, preparing images, copyright issues and sensitive language.
You may find the following websites useful:
www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts.htm for checking details of government Acts
http://library.curtin.edu.au/referencing/harvard.html for guidelines on Harvard style references
You can also download a copy of our Indexing guidelines here (PDF, 70kb).
When you submit your final typescript to us, we also ask you to complete the Editorial checklist (PDF, 76kb).
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Marketing and sales
To give your title the best chance of succeeding in an increasingly competitive market, we will be asking you to complete a number of forms at various stages of the publishing process. We see marketing as a partnership between author/editor and publisher and the information you provide will contribute to the marketing of your title. You will be sent the relevant forms at the appropriate time. For more information see our Marketing and sales guidelines (PDF, 701kb).
Conferences
You will have the opportunity to let us know about relevant conferences in advance of your book being published, but if you are attending a conference, please let us know. If we are attending, we can ensure that your book is displayed on our stand. If we cannot attend, we can prepare flyers for you to distribute yourself, or we can investigate other promotional opportunities at the conference.
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Follow up
Feedback form
We are continually working to improve our current service to our authors, and will send you a Feedback form with your final printed title. The information that you provide on these forms will be used to monitor our performance, and to seek new ways of making improvements, where necessary.
Royalties
Your royalty statement will be sent to you annually after the end of each financial year. This will detail the sales of your book(s) and the royalties due to you. Any sum due under £50 will be carried forward to the next statement.
Policy Press Scholarship Online
“What a wonderful resource! Nice layout and ready access to chapters and descriptions. So many tempting books to purchase or access via library subscription.”
Ros Burnett, University of Oxford, co-author of Where next for criminal justice? (Policy Press 2011)
We are delighted that Policy Press Scholarship Online (PPSO) is now live: http://policypress.universitypressscholarship.com/ on OUP’s University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) platform, with nearly 300 digital titles across three major subject areas: sociology, social work and public health and epidemiology. Responding to increased demand for online scholarly content, UPSO streamlines the research process by making disparately published scholarship easily accessible, highly discoverable, and fully cross-searchable via one online platform. PPSO greatly enhances the ability for The Policy Press’ scholarly publishing to be found and used by academics globally.
For academics, researchers and libraries in the field, it has the following benefits. You can:
• Filter results to view your subject specializations or to find the latest scholarship in the field
• Save time with at-a-glance keywords and abstracts at both book and chapter levels
• Quickly build bibliographies with automatic exports citations to RefWorks, Endnote, Reference Manager, Zotero, and ProCite
• Save links to favourite books, chapters and searches within a personalization area to save for a future session
• Use content as you prefer - whether on screen, printed, downloaded to PDF, emailed, or shared via social sites
• Make use of the attractive design for readability, functionality, and ease-of-use
Keywords & abstracts:
The discoverability and searchability of the content of PPSO is facilitated by author or editor-generated keywords and abstracts which users and librarians have indicated are a highly attractive feature of the platform.
- 1. 5 keywords for the book
- 2. An abstract for each chapter of 150 words (3-5 sentences)
- 3. 5 keywords for each chapter. If you are an editor, you may wish to liaise with your contributors over points 2 & 3
- We also need to supply a book abstract of 200 words, but we will take this from the blurb we agree for your book.
View a video on YouTube about how UPSO works for authors
You can find out more about our e-books here.
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