You may be interested in this two part interview "Inside Oxford University Press," with Niko Pfund, who is Vice President and Publisher of the Academic and Trade division of OUP in New York. Niko addresses questions like "If my book is available online, will this hurt or help sales of the print edition?”
What really caught my attention was this question from today's installment: "How do you decide what to publish and what not to publish?” Niko has a detailed set of answers. Then his hummor comes through in this part of his interview:
Being on the receiving end of unsolicited book submissions gives you an interesting perspective from which to view certain human tendencies. While the majority of proposals we receive represent serious and important work, perhaps the most frequently received type of unpublishable submission is the “save the world” manuscript. This can take the form of a professionally presented work that follows that standard submission protocol to the scribbled ravings of what is clearly a fevered mind finding release on whatever writing surface presented itself at the given moment. Regardless of the presentation, however, most of these proposals put forward a unifying theory intended to a) end all war, b) protect the environment, c) assist the reader in reaching a higher, or even supreme, level of consciousness, or d) all of the above.
A few years back I wrote a little bit about my advice (such as it is) to authors of monographs over at propertyprof.
Also, you definitely want to check out Mark Osiel's advice on shopping a trade manuscript in the latest issue of the Journal of Legal Education.
Alfred L. Brophy
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