Downloads for Authors
The Editing & Production Process
Click to download an overview of how your manuscript becomes a book in our editorial and production process.
Guidelines for Authors
Click to download guidelines for submitting for submitting your manuscript to your acquisitions editor for copyediting.
Illustration Guidelines
Click to download our guidelines for submitting photos and illustrations.
Securing Permissions
Click to download guidelines on obtaining necessary releases to include illustrations and text in your book.
Map and Driving Instructions
Click to view a Google Map displaying the location of our office.
Please submit your book proposal using our online submission form, which will direct you to the appropriate acquisitions editor (AE).(Note: We do not consider unsolicited proposals for poetry or fiction.) Do not send submissions by postal mail. Do not email proposals to editors, as they will not be considered. Please submit your proposal only once, even though it may be multidisciplinary.
We discourage simultaneous submissions. As nonprofit organizations, university presses seek to avoid allocating scarce resources in competing with each other for the same manuscript. Nonetheless, we understand that authors may have valid reasons for submitting projects to more than one press. If you submit your manuscript or proposal to more than one press at the same time, please notify the AE at the outset and explain your reasons for doing so.
We will review your proposal internally for up to two months after receipt. Please do not query press staff via phone or email until that time has passed. If we decide to pursue your prospectus further, we will notify you that we are sending the proposal out for external peer review, or we will request the complete manuscript from you.
Acquisitions editors evaluate proposals and manuscripts and determine whether to seek peer review of the project. An AE may decide to develop the proposal or manuscript further with the author before initiating peer review. Peer review is the process by which university presses enlist comment and criticism from respected experts in the field on the project’s contribution to knowledge and the discipline, strength of its research, and the quality of its presentation and writing. This process can take up to 8 weeks. Peer reviewers prepare thoughtful reports on the project and may mark up the manuscript or sample thereof with detailed feedback. The AE shares the reports with the author, who is then invited to respond to the readers’ suggestions and criticisms. The reader reports and author’s response are then included in the information presented to our in-house Publishing Committee and our Faculty Advisory Board.
The University of Oklahoma Press ensures the anonymity of peer reviewers in order to encourage an unhindered discussion of a project’s weaknesses and strengths. AEs do not reveal the identity of outside reviewers to authors unless the readers explicitly authorize them to do so. At that point, the AE can decide whether or not to reveal a reader’s identity based on what they believe is in the best interests of a project’s success. The book manuscript review process is generally not double-blind, because maintaining an author’s anonymity throughout a manuscript is nearly impossible and because an author’s overall publication record is a legitimate consideration in readers’ and the press’s decision whether to move forward with the project. Nevertheless, AEs understand double-blind peer review is sometimes required and will consider requests to proceed in that manner. Find more information on the university press peer review process here.
The University of Oklahoma Press requires endorsements from two outside readers before the AE may present an author’s project to our Publishing Committee (composed of administration, editorial, marketing, and production department representatives). If approved there, the project is then put before the Faculty Advisory Board (composed of senior faculty drawn from the disciplines in which the Press has publishing interests). With endorsements from both of these committees, we can offer the author a contract.
For projects contracted on the basis of a completed manuscript, the AE will work with the author to prepare the project components (including text, illustrations, maps, and permissions) for submission to the editing, design, and production department. For projects contracted on the basis of a proposal, authors will need to complete their manuscript by the due date specified in their contract. That full manuscript will then be submitted for outside review. With two endorsements by peer reviewers of the completed manuscript and the author’s response to the outside reports, the AE will report back to the Publishing Committee and Faculty Advisory Board on the status of the completed manuscript. If approved, the AE will work with the author to prepare the project for submission to editing, design, and production.
If you’ve signed a contract to publish with the Press and wish to know what happens next, click on The Editing and Production Process: An Overview. Click on Guidelines for Authors to access instructions for preparing and submitting your manuscript to your editor for copyediting. The Illustration Guidelines link will take you to specifications you can share with museums, archives, artists, and cartographers to ensure you obtain and submit photos, sketches, maps, charts, line drawings, and other illustrations of the highest quality possible. For guidance in determining which illustrations and which text quotations require permission to be reproduced in your book, and how to obtain those permissions, click Securing Permissions.
