Throughout the ASK books we tell the stories of anonymised individuals drawn from real life to illustrate how the particular points we are making might be experienced. | Publishing Books and in Books 91 may need to see draft chapters before reaching a final decision on acceptance. We have written above about draft chapters and journal articles. The same things apply here. If you have something in reasonably good shape it s sensible to send it with an indication of the relationship it has to your final book manuscript. What you send does not have to be in its polished final form. Publishers know they are drafts but want an indication of your style approach and abilities. However don t send the publisher writing that is scrappy or unintelligible to anyone except yourself. Once you ve polished your proposal you need to send it to your targeted commissioning editor. If you ve prepared the ground thoroughly they will be expecting your proposal and will send it out to readers who are usually well established academics working in your field some of whose names you may have suggested. This part of the process can take some time as invariably the readers of book proposals will be busy people. If the referees comments are favourable and the publisher is quite interested in your proposal you may have to enter a period of negotiation over the precise nature and shape of the book. It s important to be both flexible and persuasive in such negotiations. Remember that yours and the publisher s best interests are served by producing the best possible book and that publishers will have considerably more experience and expertise on matters such as what will sell than you are likely to. This doesn t mean that you have to agree to everything the publisher suggests but you must enter into a professional dialogue in which everyone respects the other s experience and expertise. If your proposal is ultimately rejected then you need to learn the lessons from this process incorporate any useful feedback from referees and find a different publisher. Remember that rejection may not be a consequence of a poor proposal it may be that the proposed book was just .
