Information for Authors under Contract

Top 10 Tips to Preparing Your Michigan ESL/ELT Manuscript

Please send us one paper copy and an electronic version in Word docs (no pdfs, please) that matches paper copy (for more on this, see #4). Double-space everything, including text, contents, maps, excerpts, table text, chart text, and etc. Whether or not an answer key will be included in the book, you must submit the answers (plus any material for an instructor's manual) at the same time you submit the textbook manuscript.
Each chapter must be in its own Word file.
If at all possible, please use Microsoft Word. If you do not use Microsoft Word, or you use it for Mac, please let us know when you submit the manuscript. If you are using Vista or Word 7, please send us a sample chapter. We may ask you to save your files to a lower version of Word for us.
We now prefer to receive the manuscript via email attachments. You may, however, also save your files on a CD. Make sure the files aren't read-only. Use a standard size font. Before you send your manuscript via email attachments, please contact ksippell@umich.edu.
Send a sample chapter to us prior to formatting/unformatting the entire manuscript. This helps us to troubleshoot for possible formatting issues, and this will save you time in the long run. Those of you who have published with us before may remember taking out all the formatting—we no longer want you to take all the formatting out. Now, if you want material boxed, put it in a box; if you want it in boldface, keep it in boldface; if you want space for students to write in places, leave that amount of space in the manuscript.
If you're going to use a photograph or an image of any sort, please check with us to confirm the appropriate dpi resolution (but strive for 300 dpi). For general photo taking tips, email esladmin@umich.edu—this will save you time in the long run. If you hire an illustrator, you must get a sample and send it to us before all the illustrations are finished so that we can make sure the way they are being drawn will reproduce well. Please send prints (of photographs) or the original illustrations—please do not save to disks. Send also photocopies of the original photos and illustrations with the manuscript. Remember photos taken from the Internet are unusable; they are at a resolution that does not reproduce in printed material. Save all electronic versions of art in separate files. And remember, just because we are in the digital age doesn't mean it often isn't easier and a time-saver to send us an original copy in the mail.
Please do not include any unnecessary page breaks within each chapter. Please do not set up the text to be right-justified.
Grids/charts, student writing examples, realia, and reading text items should be left in their proper place within the text part of the manuscript—in other words, put them where you want them to appear. If you aren't sure if something in your manuscript qualifies, contact us. Line drawings, tables, photos, screen shots, or maps MUST be placed in a different file and not in the chapter document itself—with an identifier in the ms. (e.g., Insert Figure 1 here).
Your manuscript pages should be numbered sequentially, starting with the title page. If you have trouble doing this on your computer, please number the manuscript by hand before you send it to us.
If you used anything from another source like text, an image, or a poem, please write for permission. In our experience, most things authors believe don't require permission—whether because it's public domain, fair use, an adaption, etc.—actually do require permission. If we determine permission is needed once the final manuscript is received, your manuscript may be delayed going into production while we wait to see if permission will be granted. To prevent this, once you determine the content of your book but before you finalize supporting material, please send us a list of any material you will include that will be attributed to another source (this includes photos, tables, figures, songs or poetry [even 2 lines]). Please include the original date of publication and the copyright holder (be sure to check this—in most cases, it is not the author).