Parlor Press: Submissions

Submission Guidelines

Parlor Press is an independent publisher and distributor of scholarly and trade books in high quality print and digital formats. The Press will consider submissions from prospective authors or literary agents, subject to the guidelines below or as otherwise indicated on a series node. All submissions should be targeted specifically for one of our existing book series. Each submission accepted for review undergoes peer review by scholars or other acknowledged experts or published authors (in the case of fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry). The review process is rigorous. Turnaround time for initial review is prompt (usually three months or less). Parlor Press's editors may decide that a submission needs further work before it receives consideration for outside review.

The Press is especially interested in considering outstanding new work by emergent scholars and writers, as well as work that takes unique advantage of digital formats enabled by TK3, Sophie, or Acrobat eBook formats. These works should still be targeted for one of our book series.

The Press will not consider work submitted simultaneously for consideration by another publisher.

Subject Areas

We are interested in submissions whose focus and readership crosses traditional boundaries in the humanities. Our existing series cover this range of topics and genres:

writing
rhetoric
communication
philosophy
cultural studies
film and cinema studies
pedagogy
technical writing
literary theory
digital culture
multimedia
literacy
art and visual rhetoric
travel writing
poetry (see Free Verse Editions)

Parlor Press Series

We consider new work well suited to one of our series themes:

Aesthetic Critical Inquiry
Edited by Andrea Feeser

Free Verse Editions
Edited by Jon Thompson

Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition
Edited by Patricia Sullivan and Catherine Hobbs

Lenses on Composition Studies << New
Edited by Sheryl Fontaine and Susan Hunter

Glassbead Books << New
Edited by John Holbo

New Media Theory
Edited by Byron Hawk

Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition
WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press, edited by Charles Bazerman

The Renaissance
Edited by Charles Ross

Second Language Writing
Edited by Paul Kei Matsuda

Visual Rhetoric and Prospects in Visual Rhetoric
Edited by Marguerite Helmers

Writing Travel
Edited by Jeanne Moskal

Format for Submissions

To ensure timely consideration of your proposed work, please provide the information outlined below. Please do not submit unsolicited complete manuscripts. Your prospectus (not counting your vita, resume, or sample chapters) should be no longer than 1,000 words. (Poets, please note that the submission guidelines for Free Verse Editions are somewhat different. Review those guidelines here). This statement, which can take the form of a letter, should cover the following:

the names of the author(s) or editor(s);
the complete title and subtitle;
the length or proposed length;
the content of the book including your aims in writing it; your primary findings, arguments, or themes; its genre; the sources used in your research, if applicable; and the relationship or similarity your work has to other writing in its field or genre;
the intended audience or markets for your book, including courses for which the book might be used as a text or collateral reading and organizations or groups that might be interested in reading it;
the book's competitors in its respective field or genre.
the ways that the book complements or extends the themes or aims of Parlor Press as an independent and progressive publisher;
any features in the proposed manuscript that will require special attention in the design and production of your book, such as photographs, line drawings, or other illustrations; charts, graphs, or tables; technical or foreign languages; complex mathematical or scientific data; and
the status of your manuscript, including how much of it has been written and when you expect to finish writing it.

Please include with your proposal a copy of your current vita or resume, as well as those for any co-authors or editors. If relevant, enclose a copy of the table of contents of the proposed work, preferably annotated. You may include a sample chapter from the manuscript, if available. Please double-space all sample chapters.

Where and How to Submit

You may submit your prospectus and supporting material electronically or in print.

Electronic submissions should be in PDF (Acrobat) format and may be sent as an email attachment to David Blakesley, editor@parlorpress.com. Please combine all materials into one PDF file. You may compress the file using WinZip, or a similar program.
You may send your submission on floppy disk (formatted for PC), Zip disk (formatted for PC), or CD- or DVD-ROM to the address listed below
Paper submissions may be sent to the following address.
Parlor Press
816 Robinson St.
West Lafayette, IN 47906