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ProposalBefore submitting a manuscript, send your prospectus or project proposal. When submitting a proposal, provide a covering letter and if you are submitting the proposal to other publishers, state that you are making a multiple submission. We do not expect you to indicate the names of other publishers to whom you have submitted the proposal. Give us a reasonable period (three months) to consider the manuscript and state a deadline for acceptance in your letter. Do not accept an offer from any other publisher until after the deadline has passed, or without giving us the opportunity to make a counter-offer. If the publisher is interested, they will contact you requesting a manuscript submission. We are happy to review book proposals to determine whether a book looks interesting and appropriate for our catalog. We are also happy to answer questions about any aspect of our publication process to help authors decide where to submit their manuscripts. At the proposal stage of the process, we expect authors may be contacting several publishers simultaneously. SubmissionWriters should discuss any questions or concerns they may have with the publisher before submitting a manuscript. Do not submit a complete manuscript to multiple publishers. A firm rule, shared by many other publishers for both books and journal articles, Blue Grama Publications Corp. does not consider manuscripts which are under consideration by other publishers. Asking us to review a full manuscript, entails a large time commitment on the publisher's part and of two or more peer reviewers to whom we send the manuscript. We cannot ask reviewers to carefully read and comment on a manuscript when their work is being duplicated by other reviewers for other publishers. Do not submit an entire manuscript unless requested to do so. We prefer receiving a detailed outline with one or two sample chapters. Do not send original material; send a photocopy, along with a self-addressed post card for acknowledgment of receipt and a postage-paid envelope for the return of your material. It is not uncommon for publishers to take three months or more to respond to your submission. We do not feel obliged to respond to unsolicited manuscripts. If we are interested in your work, we will contact you. ReviewThe completed manuscript must be in the publisher's hands before the review process can begin. Submitted manuscripts must be self-contained and must represent the final draft upon which evaluation is to be made. Manuscripts must be appropriately annotated, and possess an adequate bibliography. Cited sources must be fully documented. Two double-spaced with wide margins, single-sided print copies of your submission on white, 8-1/2" by 11" paper. The title should appear on the top left hand corner of each page. The title page should have the title centered on the paper and in the bottom right hand corner should appear your name, address, and the international symbol for copyright (©) with your name and date completed beside it. One copy will remain with the publisher and one will go to the head of BGP's Editorial Committee for a first examination of the manuscript. If this preliminary assessment is favourable, the manuscript will be sent to an external reviewer. A positive external review must be received before a manuscript will be considered for publication. While the Editorial Committee's decision to reject a manuscript at any stage is final; the decision can be appealed by the publisher. Blue Grama Publications Corp. may consider a revised version of a rejected manuscript for publication. There are times when a manuscript receives conditional approval whereby publication is contingent upon receipt of an adequate response to the reviewers' comments and criticisms. Manuscripts in this category may be revised and resubmitted. Where requests for changes have not been heeded, a satisfactory explanation as to why the manuscript has not been revised must accompany the revised manuscript. The committee will then reassess the manuscript and decide whether to publish it. NegotiationAfter the Committee has accepted the manuscript formally for publication, the author (or editor) and the manager of Blue Grama Publications Corp. will negotiate the terms of the publication agreement. If you have never been published before, we will make a slide show available to you, that our company has prepared which describes various portions of the publication agreement. Negotiable issues or publishing details should be finalized before the production process is underway. Editorial revisions or production work should not be underway until you have signed a mutually satisfactory contract. Remember, contracts are negotiable — clauses can be and generally should be changed. The Writers' Union of Canada provides services to writers considering publishing contracts. Don't feel pressured into signing until you are certain you understand everything in your contract. Publishing is a business arrangement. If you negotiate a good contract you will avoid many problems and misunderstandings later on, and develop a good working relationship. A good contract should result in both author and publisher being compensated reasonably for their services and efforts. Authors should not pay publishers but often negotiate to purchase their title at rates similar to a bookseller. Royalty calculations vary widely and much depends on the perceived marketability of the title by the chosen publisher. As a result, your contract may look very different from one received by the same publisher for a different author. |
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Lethbridge, Alberta Canada
