THE MAIN BUSINESS OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY is educational publishing. The employees of the company devote their resources and energy to this socially important business and work to succeed at it in every respect. For most, it is a vocation and a passion as well as a business--a fundamental commitment we believe we share with our talented and hard-working authors.

"Every individual has the right to be educated" is a guiding principle of our company. The materials we publish must therefore be designed to communicate effectively with their student audience. Toward that end, we have prepared this guide to help you create a book that is well written and appropriately illustrated. We also emphasize throughout the guide the importance of market considerations: understanding, targeting, and, ultimately, leading the market for your work. Finally, this guide was written to help you do the hard, creative work of writing efficiently as well as effectively and to help us publish your book in a timely manner.

As of this writing, the printed word is still, arguably, the most accessible medium for delivery of educational information. Information, in general, has become the currency of our society--accessible, current, even customized information. We recognize that many of our authors and readers of this guide will work in electronic media. We have found that many of the same development principles apply across different media, and you may find the suggestions herein helpful as you develop materials in a variety of media. We are eager to collaborate with you and we urge you to be in touch with us throughout the publishing process.

As a new Houghton Mifflin author, or perhaps a prospective author, you have probably opened this guide looking for suggestions about how to proceed and a glimpse of the journey you are about to begin. Many people will be involved along the way, but you are at the center and we cannot succeed without you. We look forward to a long and happy collaboration.

A BRIEF HISTORY

THE DISTINGUISHED IMPRINT of "Houghton, Mifflin & Company" first appeared in 1880. Its genealogy, however, dates back to the publishing company associated with Boston's Old Corner Book Store, established in 1832, and The Riverside Press, founded by Henry O. Houghton in 1852 in an abandoned Cambridge almshouse along the Charles River.

Another famous ancestor, Ticknor & Fields, brought to the company's list a galaxy of celebrated American authors including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. Under that imprint the company also brought to American audiences the works of Tennyson, Browning, Thackeray, and Dickens.

Incorporated in 1908, Houghton Mifflin Company now comprises seven divisions: College Division, McDougal Littell, School Division, Riverside Publishing Company, Trade and Reference Publishing Company, Houghton Mifflin Interactive, and Great Source. In 1995, the company acquired D. C. Heath and Company, a very successful and highly respected Boston-based publisher of school and college textbooks. This acquisition resulted in a greatly augmented list of publications in science, math, history, and foreign languages.

Since its inception, Houghton Mifflin Company has maintained and expanded its commitment to the advancement of the arts, of knowledge, and of scholarship. Now a major force in educational publishing in every discipline, the company produces and distributes textbooks, multimedia materials, tests, and a wide variety of teaching and learning aids for every instructional market, from preschool through elementary, secondary, community college, college, and graduate levels.

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THE PUBLISHING PARTNERSHIP

AS A HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COLLEGE DIVISION AUTHOR, you become our partner in a joint business venture. The business of college publishing has many dimensions. It involves current, scholarly information that is accurate and appropriate for its intended audience. It also involves knowledge of how a particular discipline is widely--or about to be widely--taught. It requires lucid, logical, and graceful exposition of ideas. It involves strategic and appealing packaging. And it demands constant sensitivity to the intellectual and practical needs of both student and instructor.

As your partner, Houghton Mifflin shares a firm commitment to an accurate reflection, both visual and textual, of the cultural diversity of society today. In addition, we encourage frank acknowledgment and fair examination of a variety of social, political, and economic questions, whether historical or contemporary.

In brief, we share this aim: to create the best possible book--or instructional system--in order to attract, and therefore serve, the widest possible market. You, as author, and we, as your publisher, bring different skills to bear on our mutual undertaking. You are the ultimate specialist in content and pedagogy. We are specialists in presentation--verbal, graphic, and promotional. It is the integration of our various skills that results in the excellent products that bring us all satisfaction.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN GUIDELINES FOR PREPARING A TEXTBOOK PROPOSAL

If you are considering writing a college textbook, it is important at the outset to define and describe your project clearly. Writing a proposal can help you to organize your ideas and is the first step in developing a plan for accomplishing your publishing goals. In addition, the proposal should provide a prospective publisher with sufficient information to assess your project and to make a discerning publishing decision. We suggest that you include the following sections in your proposal:

PROSPECTUS

The prospectus should provide a descriptive overview of your project, including a rationale and a clear idea of your target market. It should tell the publisher why you are writing this text, how you plan to go about it, and for whom the book is intended. Further, the prospectus should clearly outline how your book will be differentiated from currently available texts in the market. A thorough prospectus will include the following information.

The Text

1.CONTENT: Describe your text. What topics will you cover? How will the content be organized? What approach(es) will you use to convey this content? How do the scope and depth of content coverage you propose compare to those of the current market leaders?

2.PEDAGOGY: Do specific teaching or learning strategies underlie the approach your text will take? Will you incorporate innovative tools or ideas (e.g., active learning, cooperative learning, critical thinking) in an effort to enhance student motivation and learning? What other pedagogical features (case studies, boxes, in-text quizzes, innovative use of illustrations, other) do you plan to include?

3.ART PROGRAM: Are there specific aspects of the illustration program that will be particularly unique or innovative? Please describe. How extensive will the line art and photo programs be (i.e., how many illustrations of each kind do you envision)? Will you include cartoons, maps, realia? Can you provide any of these resources and/or suggest other sources for them?

4.FORMAT: Are there special design considerations? How many book pages do you project? What frontmatter (preface, note to students) and backmatter (glossary, appendices) do you plan to include? Are you proposing an electronic version of the text? Will you prepare your manuscript using a word processing program? If so, what hardware and software will you use? Can the manuscript be submitted in camera-ready form?

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The Market and the Competition

5.THE MARKET: For what course is your text intended? At what level is it generally taken (freshman, sophomore, other)? Is it intended for majors or nonmajors? Are there prerequisites for this course? Are there particular current market conditions or trends that your text will address (e.g., reform, use of multimedia)? Is this a growing market? If so, why and how might your project address these conditions? Might this project be appropriate for other markets--international, high school, trade?

6.THE COMPETITION: What are the major competitors and how does your text compare and contrast with them? What are their strengths? their weaknesses? Are you aware of other similar projects in development?

7.YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE: What will be the outstanding or unique features of your text? What needs will your text address that are not currently being met by the competition? What benefits or advantages will your text offer potential adopters that the current market leaders do not?

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The Ancillary Program

8.PRINT ANCILLARIES: What print ancillaries do you propose for instructors (e.g., test bank, instructor's guide)? for students (e.g., study guide, workbook)? Will you write any of these materials?

9.ELECTRONIC ANCILLARIES: What video, software, and/or on-line ancillaries do you anticipate to accompany your text? Will these be designed for the student or the instructor? Will you develop these materials or the ideas behind them? Do you envision an Internet-based ancillary? If so, please describe.

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Other Information

10.SCHEDULE: When do you plan to complete the first draft manuscript?

11.PUBLISHER SUPPORT: What are your expectations/needs from a publisher (e.g, market research, photo research, illustration development, grants)?

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Annotated Table of Contents

A detailed, annotated table of contents is an essential tool for showing your prospective audience your book's scope and sequence of coverage. It not only should convey what is distinctive about the content and/or organization but also should make clear how the textbook will be superior to the competition.

Include in your table of contents all the chapters that you currently envision. Follow each chapter title with a brief rationale for the coverage and a statement of the chapter objectives. Then list all the main headings and subheadings (if you can). Incorporate the titles of any unique pedagogical features that you plan to include, such as special applications, case studies, photo essays, primary source excerpts, and so on.

Preparing a detailed table of contents not only will help you to fine-tune your plans for the text and its features but also will allow the publisher and reviewers to understand the conceptualization and organization of the material, and to assess its pedagogical effectiveness.

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Sample Chapters

Your sample chapters should showcase the high quality and distinctive aspects of your textbook. Submit two or three chapters of the work--more if they are available. Ideally, the chapters should be consecutive to show how they build on and flow from each other. The sample chapters should include all the features of your textbook, including such elements as the chapter introduction, chapter objectives, problems, questions for review, and so on. They should also contain representative examples of line art (pencil sketches, photocopies from other sources modified to reflect your text's needs, and/or a preliminary list of illustrations); suggestions for photographs and/or cartoons (if applicable); and samples of the unique pedagogical features that you're planning to include.

If you have already prepared chapters for one or more of the ancillaries that will accompany your textbook, please also submit samples of these, to help the publisher and reviewers see how the textbook and ancillaries will work together to form a complete teaching and learning program.

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Curriculum Vitae

We would appreciate receiving an up-to-date c.v. that summarizes your academic degrees and your teaching and research experience, as well as your prior publications and any awards of professional recognition you have received.

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Special Note

It is in your best interest to submit clear, legible originals of your sample manuscript and supporting materials as these items will be photocopied and distributed to a number of people during the project-evaluation process. Because your prospectus is the first effort on your part to convince the publisher and the academic community of your abilities as an author, you should also carefully check the spelling, grammar, and punctuation in all the items you submit.

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PREPARING A TEXTBOOK PROPOSAL

THE PUBLISHING VENTURE

WE WROTE THIS GUIDE not only to help you but to enlist your help. As you write your book and prepare the final manuscript, many questions about form, style, and procedure are likely to occur to you. You will need to know what to expect of us and what we expect of you. In these pages, we try to identify and to answer the questions authors most often ask. This material, however, only supplements the specific help your sponsoring editor can give you on problems unique to your book, your discipline, and your market. Please feel free to question any instructions in these pages that seem puzzling or incomplete in relation to your own manuscript.

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The Publishing Process

The process your book will follow at Houghton Mifflin can be divided into two phases: development and production. Development is the process of writing and refining your manuscript to make it pedagogically sound and suitable for the market. Production is the process of turning your finished manuscript into a bound book (or a disk or some other final product). Throughout both processes, your sponsoring editor is the leader of the publisher's book team--the person who establishes the overall goals and helps keep everyone on target to meet them. What follows is a brief description of the process your book will follow and the roles of the sponsoring editor and other members of the team.

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Development

When you signed a contract with Houghton Mifflin, you and your sponsoring editor agreed on the goals for your project: its pedagogical reason for being and its position in the market. Development is the process of testing those goals and making sure the finished product meets them. Several factors determine the type of development support your text may receive. At Houghton Mifflin there are two types of development editors.

A basic book editor is most likely to be assigned if you are writing a first-edition text for a large market, such as general chemistry or U.S. history. Like the sponsor, the basic book editor is familiar with trends in the discipline. He or she knows the competition your book will face and, through a close reading of your manuscript, will help answer questions about coverage, length, organization, level, style, art, features, and so on. The basic book editor reads from the perspective of a student and looks for undefined terms and unclear explanations that might not bother reviewers but could trip up student readers. He or she knows your goals for the book and helps ensure that the finished manuscript accomplishes what you set out to do.

An associate editor is usually assigned to all other first editions and to books that are undergoing revision. This editor, with the sponsor, plans a reviewing strategy for your text and is responsible for planning the ancillary package for your book. In many of the markets for which we publish, ancillaries that really help both teachers and students are key to the success of a project. The associate editor knows what ancillaries other publishers are offering and often knows too what ancillaries are available in other markets and thus can bring new ideas to the planning of your book's package.

A major component of development is manuscript reviewing. Our best advisers are often your peers--the people who teach the course, use the competing textbooks, and know the discipline as well as you do. We rely on them not only in matters of scholarship and accuracy but also for answers to questions about how best to teach the material. With your help, the sponsor and development editor will determine what kind of reviewers will be best for your project (whether from two-year or four-year schools, what regional mix, etc.) and assemble a panel of reviewers. With help from you and the sponsor, the development editor devises for the reviewers questions that will identify the project's strengths and weaknesses. And the development editor and sponsor later help you make sense of the reviews. Six reviewers may have six different opinions, and the development editor can help you sort them out. In addition to reviewing the manuscript, we may use focus groups or conduct telephone surveys to collect information about the market and your text.

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Production

Once your text is ready to publish, complete manuscript (containing all art and pedagogical features) is transmitted to a project editor, and production begins. At this point, meeting deadlines becomes more important than ever. The project editor guides the manuscript through design, art editing, photo research, copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, and printing, acting as your agent as your manuscript is transformed into a bound book.

During the first stage of production, work occurs simultaneously on two fronts: copyediting and design. The first tangible evidence you will have that your text is in production is the copyedited manuscript, which you will review. Copyediting is the final editorial pass your manuscript receives. Following instructions from the project editor, the copyeditor fixes mechanical errors such as spelling or grammar mistakes and misnumbered figures. The copyeditor also polishes and tightens prose, checks art against text to make sure they match, and makes sure that all terms are defined and that the word choices are appropriate. The review of copyediting is your last opportunity to see your text in manuscript form and your last chance to make significant changes without incurring expense or losing time.

While the copyeditor is working, the design process is also under way. The members of the book team discuss the text's market needs, look at the competition, and determine the look desired to produce a book that is competitive and functional. The project editor works with an in-house production/design coordinator to choose a designer and convey this information to him or her. When the design is completed, the project editor will send you sample pages showing how the various elements of the text will appear when they are typeset.

The outcome of the first stage of production is a copyedited manuscript and set of specifications. Both are sent to the compositor, and typesetting begins. Sometimes the compositor works from manuscript, sometimes from your word-processed disks. For many authors, one of the most satisfying events during production is receipt of the first proofs of typeset manuscript. The first proofs may be galleys, which are roughly paged blocks of type that do not show artwork, tables, or other features in place. For some books with uncomplicated designs, the text is set directly into pages, and your first proofs, with all elements in place or space left for them, will closely resemble the pages of the final product.

Before proofs arrive, the project editor will give you a schedule for delivery and return of proof and tell you how to check it. You will have a copy of the final edited manuscript to refer to. While you are reviewing proof, a professional proofreader reads the master proof set word for word against the manuscript. When you return your set of proof, marked for correction, the project editor adds your changes to the master set before returning it to the compositor.

The various stages of production often overlap. While you are reviewing copyedited manuscript, you also may be reviewing photos selected by a researcher or line art rendered by a studio from the specifications (or rough drawings) you included in the manuscript. Or when you are reviewing the last chapters of copyedited manuscript, you may receive the first batch of galleys and photo choices for selection and caption writing. Your project editor will tell you what to do first to keep everything on schedule.

When all the text is set, proofed, and corrected, when all the art is rendered and the photos have been chosen and positioned in the text, the camera-ready copy or film created by the compositor is ready for the printer. The project editor works with a production/design coordinator and manufacturing coordinator to get all the pieces ready for printing and continues to review various proofs supplied by the printer. The printer first sends us a set of F&Gs (for "folded and gathered") printed signatures. The signatures are then bound, and the eagerly awaited day arrives: We receive the first printed copies of your book.

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Marketing and sales

There are other members of the book team whom you will meet and who contribute behind the scenes during development but more noticeably just before the book is published and thereafter. The marketing manager for your discipline participates in major decisions about the discipline's strategic plan and about your book. He or she will be a key player in presenting your book to the sales force and the market. Sales representatives and sales managers play important roles in implementing the marketing plan, getting your book into the right hands, and influencing decisions in favor of adopting your text. Like the sponsor and the development editor, they work to get the best information possible about the market and to shape your book to meet its needs.

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Basic Decisions

Early in the planning, before and just after the contract was signed, you and your sponsoring editor agreed on a basic framework for the structure and development of your manuscript. These agreements are usually confirmed in a letter that accompanies or soon follows the contract.

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Length

The intended market and competitive pricing, as well as the nature of what you have to say, determine desirable book length, and all will be adversely affected if your book is too long. The development editor will give you specific information on how to estimate the length of your manuscript in light of the proposed format of the book and will advise you when cuts are necessary.

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Length estimates

As a rule of thumb, three pages of double-spaced typescript generally equal two book pages, exclusive of artwork, in a one-column format.

More precise, but also involving more arithmetic, is the character-count method of estimating the length of manuscript. You can and should roughly estimate the number of characters on the typewritten page by multiplying the number of characters in the average-length line by the number of lines to the page. The number of characters per inch will depend on the typeface you are using. Letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and spaces all count as characters. Let's assume your typeface creates 12 characters in an inch. If you have 25 lines of manuscript and your average line length is 5 inches, you have 12 times 5 times 25 = 1,500 characters to the page. When you are estimating length, it is best not to rely on the document character count provided by your word processor. Often, spaces are not included, and this omission can affect the calculations by a meaningful magnitude.

The advantage of the character-count method is that it can be translated with a fair degree of accuracy into whatever type-page specifications we finally decide on. So if your sponsor or development editor tells you that you should count on, say, 3,000 characters to the book page, you know that 2 manuscript pages, typed as in the example above, will equal one full printed page, without allowance for headings and other design features. Compositors use this method to "cast off" a manuscript--that is, to estimate its length--although of course their techniques are more refined. Remember, too, if you and your sponsoring editor have agreed on a book of, say, 512 pages, that means 512 pages in the whole book. It does not mean that you have 512 pages at your disposal for text. Allowance must be made for the pages of front and end matter; for design features--headings and chapter openings; and for any tables and illustrations that you include.

We will be happy to help you estimate length while you are creating the manuscript--the only convenient time to add or delete content. We may have to reject a final manuscript that varies significantly from the agreed-upon length.

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Publication date

The targeted publication date must allow our sales representatives enough time to promote the book effectively for the coming academic year. Since instructors and adoption committees make their selections early in the calendar year, the preceding September is an excellent month for publishing a college textbook. To achieve that publication date, as a rule we need revised final manuscript twelve months in advance to allow for careful editorial and design work and a realistic production schedule.

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Delivery of manuscript

Your sponsoring editor wants to get your book out in the marketplace as fast as you do, but we also need a realistic estimate of the time you will need to complete your work. The date you both agree on for delivery of the completed manuscript relates directly to the publication date and to the time allocated for development and production. These processes have to be scheduled in advance. We have some flexibility in scheduling in-house editorial work, but we have less control over the schedules of outside suppliers--art studios, compositors, printers, and binders. Failure to meet the manuscript due date, therefore, means a delay in publication and will have a serious impact on the book's potential sales. We cannot bring out books after the prime selling season, so late submission probably means that we must postpone publication for a year. This delay means loss of sales and may mean that you will need to update your material.

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Illustration program

When you signed your contract, you probably had an idea of the number and kind of illustrations that your book requires. If you did not, you and your sponsor should clarify this issue quickly. Photo research and the design and rendering of line art must start early. The ideal time to submit full art specifications is with the corresponding section of manuscript. (See "Preparation of Art and Captions.")

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Ancillaries

Ancillary materials--instructor's manuals, study guides, test banks, lab manuals, software, videos, Web sites--must be available with books if we are to do an effective job of promotion and sales. Often an instructor will refuse to consider adopting a textbook unless the ancillary materials are also published and available. Again, early planning is essential.

The following sections of this guide will answer many of your questions about form and style, copyrights and permissions, and preparation of manuscript and art, among other things. No doubt you still will have questions that you will want to discuss with us. Submission of preliminary chapters as early as possible for review of both content and style will enable us to give you constructive advice and firm guidelines before your work gets so far along that alteration becomes difficult.

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