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The information presented here is intended for informational purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. If you have specific legal questions pertaining to the University of Michigan, please contact the Office of the General Counsel.
If you require legal advice in your personal capacity, the lawyer referral services operated by the Washtenaw County Bar Association and the State Bar of Michigan may be helpful to you.
Find the right publishing venue for your book project:
University of Michigan Press is part of the Library and publishes over 100 books a year written by expert authors around the world. As well as selecting work for their own disciplinary lists, the experienced acquisitions editors at the Press participate in workshops across the University as well as consulting informally with U-M faculty and graduate students to offer informal guidance on finding the right publishing venues.
When preparing a book proposal, check for a proposal-writing guide on the website of your desired publisher. Many publishers provide guidance in this area, and following it will serve you well.
The articles below provide general advice on writing book proposals.
Thinking about transforming your dissertation into your first book? Hardly any dissertations are published as books without significant work on the author's part to refocus the manuscript for an audience beyond the dissertation committee.
Here are a few resources to help you understand the process of reworking a dissertation for publication as a monograph:
In reading some of the resources listed above, you might encounter discussions of how having your dissertation available online (for example, in Deep Blue) could negatively impact a publisher's willingness to look at your manuscript. Some authors assert that you should not put your dissertation online if you hope to sign a publishing contract. However, please note there is very little evidence to support this view. In fact, research has shown that publishers will indeed consider manuscripts that are revised versions of openly-accessible dissertations.