Submissions

Prospective Authors

What We Publish
Submitting a Proposal
Revising One’s Dissertation

What We Publish

LSU Press is one of the oldest and most prestigious academic publishers in the South. In addition to scholarly monographs, we also publish general interest books about Louisiana and the South.

Please note that our poetry lists are full through 2012 and we are not considering unsolicited manuscripts at this time.

Areas of interest include:

African American studies
American history
Atlantic World history and literature
Civil War studies
Cultural anthropology
Environmental studies
European history
Fiction (two titles a year)
Geography
Literary studies
Louisiana archaeology
Louisiana history and culture
Media studies
Poetry
Southern environmental history
Southern foodways
Southern music
U.S. South

Click here for a list of series.

Our Acquisitions Editors:

Rand Dotson • U.S. History & Southern Studies Editor
Slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, Nineteenth- & Twentieth-Century South, Louisiana Roots Music

John Easterly • Executive Editor
Poetry, Fiction, Literary Studies

Margaret Hart • Trade Editor
General Interest Books

Alisa Plant • European/Atlantic World History, and Media Studies Editor

Joseph Powell • Environmental Studies and Geography Editor

Send general inquiries or questions to M. K. Callaway at:

LSU Press
3990 West Lakeshore Drive
Baton Rouge, LA 70808

Please note that we have filled the available slots in our poetry program for the next two years. We are reading poetry manuscripts at this time, but we must be very selective.

Submitting a Proposal

If you plan to write or have written a manuscript that fits our publication list, please submit a proposal to us by mail. LSU Press does not accept unsolicited submissions by email attachment.

Proposals for everything except fiction and poetry should include a cover letter, working title, table of contents, sample chapters, information about competitive titles, and a resume or curriculum vitae.

For general interest trade books, also give a descriptive summary of the project, its aim, its intended audience, and suggested marketing methods; and samples of proposed illustrations if applicable (photocopies are fine). For photography books, please send sample prints or a disk with digital images.

Fiction proposals should include a cover letter, a one-page summary of the work, a brief sample from the work, and a current resume.

Please note that our poetry lists are full through 2012 and we are not considering unsolicited manuscripts at this time.

In short, give as much information as is useful to help us evaluate your proposal, but do not send the entire manuscript at this stage. Enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope if you would like your sample materials returned to you. Please note that due to the high volume of submissions we receive, it may take up to two months before we respond to your proposal.

If we wish to consider your proposal further, we will ask to see the entire manuscript. Print it in standard manuscript form: 8 ½ x 11–inch paper, one-inch margins, printed on one side only, all text doublespaced (including excerpts, footnotes, and bibliography). If your manuscript has illustrations, include photocopies of representative art but do not send original illustrations (photographs, negatives, etc.). Be sure to keep a copy of your manuscript.

Initially the manuscript will be considered in-house. If we agree that the work has potential for our list, we will notify you and send the manuscript to outside anonymous readers for review. The review process normally takes four to six months. All positively reviewed manuscripts must be approved by the University Press Committee before we can proceed toward publication.

Revising One’s Dissertation

LSU Press does not consider unrevised Ph.D. dissertations. Considerable differences exist between a dissertation and a book, and even the best dissertation will need to be revised before being accepted for publication. Most commonly, scholars seeking to publish their revised dissertations will need to do the following:

•	Eliminate or drastically reduce the “review of scholarly literature” section. While a standard feature of dissertations, such a review is superfluous in a book. You are no longer writing for your committee in fulfillment of degree requirements; you are writing as an authority on your chosen subject matter. Cite to appropriate authorities in the notes, not the text.
•	Pare down the notes, and eliminate discursive notes. Most dissertations have roughly twice as many notes as necessary. Again, you are now the authority. As such, exhaustive notation is overly defensive, not proof of sound scholarship.
•	Likewise, pare down and streamline your bibliography.
•	Weed out “scaffolding.” Many dissertations are highly structured: authors might begin each chapter with a statement of what is going to be argued and conclude with a statement of what has been argued, or they might divide each chapter into excessive headings and subheadings. Recast your manuscript to improve its narrative flow.
•	Cut, cut, cut. At every possible turn, tighten your prose. Sharpen your argument. Trust your readers to remember what has gone earlier in the text. Repetition and wordiness only weaken a manuscript.
•	Eliminate irrelevant detail.

Prospective authors may find the following books helpful in the revision process:

Derricourt, Robin. An Author’s Guide to Scholarly Publishing. Princeton: Princeton
     University Press, 1996.

Germano, William. From Dissertation to Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
     2005.

———. Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about
     Serious Books. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Harman, Eleanor, et al., eds. The Thesis and the Book: A Guide for First-Time Academic
     Authors, 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Luey, Beth. Handbook for Academic Authors, 4th ed. New York: Cambridge University
     Press, 2002.

———, ed. Revising Your Dissertation: Advice from Leading Editors. Berkeley:
     University of California Press, 2004.