I've just learned that I've had a journal article accepted for publication in December. In an important social history journal at that, and the first one coming out of my PhD research to be accepted. (Not entirely sure what's happening with the book submission. I emailed the editor my revised proposal a few weeks ago and haven't heard anything yet. How long should I leave it before checking up? Don't want to look like a nagger at this stage of my career!) What I haven't done yet is to open the attached report and see what they want me to do to it. Hopefully, going by the phrasing of the email, not too much. But I'll leave it till the morning so I have the nice warm glow for the rest of today.
One day, if I succeed in finding a permanent academic job, this will no doubt be quite routine. Oh look, another one in the bag, that's my RAE* quota sorted then, now must go mark some essays. But not yet, thankfully. Right now, I'm one very happy bunny.
Except that it's just reminded me that I promised someone a chapter idea for an edited collection months ago, and I still haven't done anything about it. Oops. See, I am turning into a real academic. (Although so far I've avoided the book review industry, I have to admit. And I still only send paper proposals to conferences that I feel my work actually has some relevance to.)
*Research Assessment Exercise, for anyone outside the UK who doesn't know. Loathsome thing. Don't blame us academics for over-production of research. It's the bloody bureaucrats.
Timeline: depends on the press, really. It usually took from 4-6 weeks for presses to respond to my proposal. When the book made it to the "yeah, let's send some chapters to a reader" stage, it then took anywhere from just a few weeks (Ashgate, the eventual publisher) to several months (press I'm going to allow to remain anonymous) for me to get the final response.
ReplyDeleteIf the press has had your proposal for more than 2 months or so, you should feel free to inquire.
Miriam