| If your query letter piques our interest,
we will request a formal proposal. Your proposal and manuscript
material should look like it's worth a substantial advance.
Use at least 20-pound paper avoiding erasable bond paper. Use
a spellchecker, but more importantly have two or three readers
review your prospectus before sending it out. Typographical
errors, grammatical errors, missing pages or other sloppy mistakes
can be fatal flaws. Use a letter-quality printer using at least
10-pt. type, double-spacing each line with approximately 250
words to a page. Do not justify the right margin.
At the left margin of the page, half an
inch from the top, include your last name/keywords from the
title. On the same line, flush right, type the number of the
page. Number pages consecutively from 1 to the end of your
prospectus.
Package your material carefully. Submit
your prospectus unbound, without staples or paper clips. Use
a Tyvex envelope and include a self-addressed stamped
envelope.
A college textbook prospectus is approximately
30 to 70 double-spaced pages long. Its purpose is to convince
an editor and/or editorial board to approve an investment
in developing your prospectus into a college textbook. Because
this investment is usually substantial, it is important for
a prospective author to be as thorough and persuasive as possible
in this document. Your colleagues during the blind review
process will also evaluate this material.
Title Page
Include the title, your name as it will
be represented on the cover, your college affiliation, a one-line
description (i.e., A prospectus and three sample chapters),
your mailing address, your home and work phone numbers, fax
number and e-mail address.
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