You may have questions, for example, about how to submit a proposal or preparing your manuscript. Answers to the questions that authors most frequently ask are given here.
Submitting a proposal
Preparing your manuscript
The production process and getting your book into the market
Contracts, advances and royalties
Submitting a proposal
Can I get feedback on my idea before submitting a full proposal?
Yes, you can submit an outline proposal to us and we will give you feedback as soon as possible.
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Who do I submit my proposal to?
Please submit your proposal to the relevent
Editorial Assistant.
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What should a proposal contain?
Please
contact us in order to find out what must go in the proposal document.
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Preparing your manuscript
How should I deliver my manuscript?
The simple answer is that we need two hard copies, both double spaced and a copy on disc with no design. You also need to include any diagrammatical material, figures or charts. Click
Manuscript Delivery for a fuller answer and a Manuscript Delivery Checklist.
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Do I need a photo of myself for the book and if so, in what format do you need them?
Sometimes we use author photos and sometimes we don't. It all depends on whether you, as the author, want us to, what kind of book it is and whether the jacket design allows for it.
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When do I have to obtain permission to use third party materials?
It is your responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce in your text any copyright material in which you do not control the copyright. It is best to start obtaining permission as soon as possible, ideally while you are writing the manuscript.
For very small abstracts or excerpts, authors and publishers may allow you to use the items free of charge but you must still obtain written permission. Permission must always be obtained in respect of material (no matter how little) which has been adapted in any way.
You should bear in mind that publishers or individuals could charge exceptionally high fees for the right to reproduce their copyright work. Unless your contract with us states otherwise, you are ultimately responsible for paying the permissions fees. If you apply for permission early enough, but the fee is too high, there may be time to choose an alternative, less expensive figure or piece of text.
Permissions should all be cleared by the time you deliver your manuscript. If the permissions have not been cleared in time, publication may be delayed while the outstanding permissions are obtained and the acknowledgments copy completed.
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The production process and getting your book into the market
What happens after I deliver my manuscript?
- Your manuscript is allocated to an in-house development editor who will see your book from manuscript, through the whole production process, to final bound copies.
- The manuscript is copy-edited by an external copy-editor. You will probably receive some editorial queries at this stage via the development editor.
- The copy-editing stage is the last stage at which material can be added to or deleted from the typescript, so any last minute amendments must be made now.
- The copy-edited manuscript and disks are handed over to production.
- The book is designed and any artwork commissioned.
- The manuscript is sent to be typeset.
- About 2-3 weeks later your editor will send you proofs to read. You'll usually have 1-2 weeks to read them and make any essential corrections (no rewriting at this stage).
- At the same time the proofs will be read against the manuscript by a professional proofreader. The designer will also check the proofs for any design inconsistencies.
- Also during these 2 weeks the index will be prepared - either by you or a professional indexer which you will pay for (please discuss this with your publisher).
- The development editor will collate all the corrections onto one set of proofs, which will be sent back to the typesetters for correction.
- The typesetter will provide postscript pages and the development editor will check that all corrections have been made.
- When the pages are approved, they will be sent to the printer. The printing process takes approximately 3 weeks.
- A few weeks later you will receive advance copies of the published books.
- The above process usually takes between five and six months (longer for 2 colour books).
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Why do books have to be a specific number of pages?
Printers print onto large sheets of paper which are folded in a certain way before the pages are cut apart to make sections of a book which are then collated. The size of the sheets of paper used and the page size determines whether the sections are 16 pages or 32 pages long. Therefore the extent (number of pages) of all books is generally divisible by 16 or 32.
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Why isn't my book on the bookshelves on the publication date?
Books are generally sent from the printer to our warehouse 3-5 days before the publication date. We get a few advance copies just after the day that printing finishes and will send you some copies of your new book directly from here.
Once the books arrive at our warehouse they are unpacked, checked and booked in. Only then can stock start to be picked, packed, invoiced and sent out to the shops. Once they arrive at the shops they have to be unpacked and booked in before being taken onto the shop floor and shelved. At certain busy times it is possible that this may take more than the week we normally allow.
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What's the deal with other parts of Pearson elsewhere in the world, e.g. USA?
This information is for english language books only. Please see below for information on foreign language rights.
We now have our own sales forces in many countries around the world such as USA, Australia, Singapore, South Africa and in Europe. If a territory decides that they can sell a book, they take a quantity from us as a stock transfer (please note that in theory, some of this stock can be returned to us later, just as a bookshop can return unsold stock). They pay us a fee on the book and the author gets the percentage specified in their contract of their net receipts (i.e. more per copy sold than when we used to use the distributors). We also have the huge advantage of having our own dedicated sales forceas well.
If you have any questions on this issue as a whole, the best person to speak to is your publisher. If you have any concerns over your book being represented in a particular territory or if you are partaking in some promotional activity outside the UK, please contact your Product Manager.
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I'm going to appear at a conference. How do I go about promoting my book?
Many authors expect us to be able to support a conference appearance with a person manning a stall displaying their book. Regrettably, this means taking a sales representative off the road for a day and in our experience, this just does not make economic sense. However, there are things we can do for any appearance if you let us know in time.
We can produce flyers for you with order forms promoting your book for you to give out.
We can get copies of your book to the conference under a lot of circumstances, but again, please do bear in mind that it can take as much as 3-4 weeks to get books across Europe.
If you are near one of our major accounts we can notify the local sales representative and they will try to get extra stock of your book into the shops nearby.
Please let us know of forthcoming events in your calendar that you would like our help with by contacting your Product Manager.
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Why does Amazon have my books as dispatched in 2-3 days or 3 weeks?
Internet bookshops are like normal bookshops. They buy books from us and hold them in a warehouse and they occasionally run out. When this happens, the screen may say that the book will take a little longer than usual to be sent out to the customer.
Occasionally we go out of stock and need to reprint a book. In this case the message from Amazon will say that a book is temporarily unavailable.
Like a high street shop, occasionally Amazon will not stock a book, but we have a good working relationship with Amazon and if you notice that something is not as it should be then
click here
to let us know and we will do our best to put it right.
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Bognor Regis Waterstones doesn't have my book. Why?
There are several reasons why this could be:
- Bognor didn't feel the need for
Strategic Analysis Competition and they didn't buy any.
- They bought some copies and didn't sell them, so after a few months they returned them to us.
- They bought copies, sold them all and haven't got round to re-ordering it.
If there is a reason why that particular shop should stock your book then let us know and we'll get our sales representative to do their best. If they had copies and returned them, there will generally have to be a new reason for us to try again with them. If they haven't got round to re-ordering it, we will definitely get our sales representives on the case. Whatever the reason, the best way to get your book stocked is to ask for it in the shops. Then at least shop staff will be aware of the fact that it's available and in demand!
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Contracts, advances and royalties
Do I need to send an invoice to get my advance?
No. As soon as we receive the signed contract we will raise any payment due to you then and likewise when you supply your manuscript, as per the terms of your contract. This needs to be authorised and then sent to our Authors Accounts Department, based in our head office who will raise a cheque for you and post it to you 1st class. Please bear in mind that it may take longer to send a cheque abroad, and that it takes longer to raise a payment in currencies other than pounds sterling. If you would prefer to be paid by BACS bank transfer, please supply your bank details.
If you have any concerns, queries, or just want to check on a payment, please don't hesitate to contact us, and we will be happy to chase up any outstanding payments for you.
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How do I read my royalty statement?
This is something that confuses a lot of our authors and there are two main points to make.
If you are paid a royalty advance, this will show up as a minus figure until you have earned it back through book sales.
The income on the statement is split into several categories such as 'export special' etc. We are currently in the process of getting a full and sanitised explanation from the Royalties department and will hopefully be able to post it soon. In the meantime, if you have any queries please don't hesitate to contact either the person in charge of your royalties, whose name appears on the top right of your statement along with their direct telephone number, or us.
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What does the legal jargon in my contract mean?
For a detailed guide to the more confusing issues raised by our contracts and always feel free to discuss your contract with your publisher.
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What is copyright and why do publishers ask for it to be assigned to them?
Copyright is literally the right to copy.
In writing your book you have created a copyright work and by law in order for us to publish the work you must grant us the rights to do so. It is our policy to acquire the entire copyright to your work throughout the world for the full term of copyright. We can then manage all aspects of the commercial exploitation of the work for you so that you do not need to spend time dealing with such things as the sale of the translation rights, permissions requests or instances of copyright infringement.
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What are moral rights and what do I need to do with them?
Moral rights are separate rights to that of copyright and belong to the author of a work. The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 gives creators of copyright works four moral rights, these are:
- the right to be identified as the author of a work ('the right of paternity')
- the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work ('the right of integrity')
- the right not to have a work falsely attributed to him/her as author
- the right to privacy (in respect of certain photographs and films only).
As publishers, we respect these rights and comply with the 1988 Act by asking the author to assert his/her right of paternity and undertake to ensure that the author's name appears on every copy of the work produced by us. We also undertake to ensure that the content is not subject to derogatory treatment. This means that, aside from the normal editorial process, we will do our best to ensure that the work is not altered or adapted without the approval of the author.
Another definition of derogatory treatment is 'distortion' of the work. It is with regard to distortion of the work that the Act can cause problems for publishers and authors. Technically the act of digitisation and manipulation of a paper work necessary to convert it into an electronic format is a 'distortion' and consequently derogatory. We ask our authors to waive their moral rights in relation to the exploitation of the work in electronic form.
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Warranty and indemnity: why do publishers need this?
Our author contract, in common with those of most commercial publishers, contains a warranty and indemnity clause. The reason we require authors to sign up to such a clause is because we as publishers have no independent way of knowing whether or not a work is the author's own original work.
The author is the only one who can give an absolute warranty, that his/her work does not violate or breach any existing copyright or contain defamatory or libellous material and that it is an original work. We, therefore, need to include a clause in the agreement to ensure that the author takes responsibility for the content of the work. An author who knows that he/she has gained the necessary permission to use third party material, or that his/her work is original and contains nothing defamatory or libellous has nothing to fear from the warranty and the accompanying indemnity.
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Will my book be published in foreign languages?
Pearson Education is a global company and we are always trying to build a more co-operative network to make the most of the advantages this affords. We will let our counterparts in Pearson Education Deutschland, France, Spain etc. know about forthcoming opportunities as a matter of course. We also have a very strong Rights team who sell foreign rights to other publishers worldwide and visit all of the major international bookfairs to this end.
Please remember that not all books are suitable for all markets, and that it is up to other publishers whether they want to take something on or not. Click
Foreign Rights for more information on foreign rights, or contact our
Rights Manager.
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