Word: sisler
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Upwards of 90 percent of submissions never make it past the proposal stage, according to Sisler, and most that make it on to the next stage have been actively solicited by editors. “The majority of things we publish don’t come in over the transom,” he says. “The value of an acquisitions editor is in her or his contacts...
...Sisler says he has reacted by emphasizing what he calls “scholarship plus”: academically credible books with popular appeal. Today, these books constitute up to 40 percent of HUP’s catalogue. “A place like Harvard is uniquely positioned to bring scholarship to a general audience that readers who are not specialists can trust,” says HUP Humanities Editor Kathleen McDermott. “Yet we do it in ways that they can access—books that they can read without having to keep up in the field...
...While Sisler has strengthened HUP’s position in the industry, he inherited an operation that, like its namesake, was accustomed to standing on top of the academic pyramid. In fact, Adams says, its affiliation with Harvard is one of the most influential factors in its preeminence. “People take us very seriously,” he says. “That’s the one thing I suppose we have a leg up on other companies around is that Harvard is a great brand name. The brand, if you get crass, is a good thing...
Editors working under Sisler harbor no illusions about the academic life-and-death consequences of the decisions they make, along with their colleagues at a handful of other top presses. But they’ve steeled themselves to the necessity of saying no 10 times out of 11. “It’s certainly in mind that it’s important to these young scholars, to assistant professors to Ph.D.’s on the job markets, that a prestigious press would publish their book,” McDermott says. “That cannot...
...draft is finished, HUP sends out a copy to a few experts for review. “It forces the author if it’s done right to really think about what his peers are going to say before the book is reviewed out there,” Sisler says. “Instead of getting whacked when the book is published, we can fix things before the book ever sees the light...