Ready to get your book project started – or move it to the next level? Our editors are always keen to consider proposals for new books.
We publish five main text types: research monographs, textbooks, handbooks and companions, professional books, and short-form publications (Routledge Focus), with a number of variations in each group. To get a better understanding of where your book will fit, read our text type descriptions and download their proposal guidelines below. If you are unsure where your book fits, contact an Editor.
Monographs are high-level hardback books aimed at researchers and academics in a given subject area, with sales primarily to libraries. Monographs, which can be single-authored or edited books, make an original scholarly contribution to their subject area. In addition to library sales, individuals may want to purchase monographs for their own reading or they may be assigned as further reading on an upper-level course.
Most monographs are placed in one of our Routledge Research series, our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies and edited collections. A glance through our existing series and titles will give you the best idea of the style, breadth, and rigor of the books published by Routledge Research: http://www.routledge.com/books/research.
Proposal Guidelines: Research Monographs (click to download)
We publish textbooks for the newest subject areas as well as the most established, and for use in undergraduate and graduate courses. The two main types are: (1) textbooks that introduce key concepts on a topic and are meant to be the main book used in a course, and (2) supplementary – although not introducing the students to the core concepts and debates of a given subject area, a supplementary text would be assigned as a second or third book or bought as a secondary purchase. Such a book would have appeal to students as well as academics, and may make an original scholarly argument or cover a topic so that individuals may purchase it.
Our emphasis on pedagogy and text development, combined with lively and imaginative design, supports students with all the information they need for their course, and guides them to further study and independent learning.
Proposal Guidelines: Textbooks (click to download)
Handbooks and Companions provide a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research, controversies and debates, and future trends in a subject area or sub-discipline. Each Handbook draws together newly commissioned work from an international team of contributors specifically chosen for their expertise and knowledge in the field, and is introduced and contextualized by leading subject specialist, lending coherence and authority to each volume. Handbooks are primarily aimed at the international academic library market and are used (and sometimes individually purchased) by academics, researchers, and postgraduates. Handbooks are initially published in hardback with possible future paperback publication.
Routledge Handbooks Online is our premium digital reference home that provides institutional access to our handbooks at chapter level, significantly expanding potential readership and discoverability.
Proposal Guidelines: Handbook/Companion (click to download)
Our professional books represent the greatest variation across the publisher, written by experts in a topic to support professionals in their work. They bring together high-level research with the latest scholarship and apply them to practice. For example, they might be books written for mental health professionals, school teachers, photographers, or researchers working outside of university settings. Because there is great variation in the markets for these books, it is best to talk with a subject area editor before you start developing your book proposal to make sure that your book is suitable for our publishing program.
Proposal Guidelines: Professional (click to download)
Routledge Focus is our program of short form publications. These books are 20,000 to 50,000 words and will be published within three months as eBooks, and in Hardback as print on demand. Read on for more on the advantages, format, content, and market, and proposal guidelines.
Routledge Focus Proposal Guidelines (click to download)
Short form titles available very quickly as eBooks and print-on-demand Hardbacks.
Routledge Focus is our program of short form publications. These books are 20,000 to 50,000 words and will be published within three months as eBooks, and in Hardback as print on demand.
We welcome submissions in any of the subject areas within humanities, social sciences, and behavioral sciences where Routledge currently publishes.
Titles published in the Routledge Focus program could include:
Routledge Focus titles sell globally into all our national and regional markets and are valuable reading for scholars, students, researchers, professionals, and practitioners, as well as those working in think tanks and policy circles. The titles will be available for individual or institutional purchase.
Please contact the relevant subject editor and send them a book proposal. The contact details for Routledge editors are on the Routledge website. You can also access the Routledge Focus Proposal Guidelines.
For an overview of academic book publishing click on the highlighted text for our presentation which will cover what to expect throughout the publishing process and offer tips on shaping your project.
Interested in publishing your dissertation?
Download this document, Turning Your Dissertation into a Book, which will help you put together the strongest proposal and know what to expect.
