The press publishes a rich backlist of diverse titles, but its current editorial program specializes in six content areas.

• African American Studies
• Arkansas and the Region
• Art and Architecture
• Poetry and Literature
• Food Studies
• Sports Studies

In many of these areas, we accept general submissions, and proposals are accepted at our submission manager. For more information on the suitability of a manuscript project, queries are accepted at upeditor@uark.edu.

You can find more information on building a proposal at our submission manager, but you will  find that the following elements are required:

• A title and the names of the authors/editors of record,
• contact information,
• an abstract (50 words),
• an project description akin to jacket copy (200–300 words),
• short author bios,
• a description of the audience and market for the book,
• production details,
• date of completion,
• a table of contents with chapter summaries (100 words each),
• some sample content (an introduction or chapter),
• a CV or résumé, and
• a bibliography (for scholarly works).

We do not, but we do encourage the submission of collections of original poetry for our poetry series: the Miller Williams Poetry Series and the Etel Adnan Poetry Series, both of which offer cash prizes and publication. More information may be found at our submission manager.

After the acquiring editor confirms that your works meets the requirements in our manuscript delivery guidelines, the book is transmitted to the editorial/production department where it is slotted in our schedule. A project editor is assigned to the book who will manage the process until the end. If your book has multiple authors, editors, or contributors, then you too will need to assign an individual to be the press’s single contact for the rest of the publishing process.

Manuscripts are word-processor documents that are minimally formatted and lack final pagination. They are an easily edited version of your book that includes all the text and instructions necessary for designers and digitizers to do their work. The manuscript stage is the author or editor’s final opportunity to make changes to the content of the work.

Pages are proofs of the final pages of the book. They are typeset and paginated by designers only after the manuscript has been finalized. Final formatting has been applied and illustrations and tables have been designed and placed. At this point in the process changes are costly and difficult, and corrections may be charged to the author if the errors are not the press’s. Even the smallest changes can create reflow, so only typographic errors and egregious mistakes can be fixed.

The project editor works with a single author contact. It is the responsibility of that contact to coordinate with his or her partners or collaborators.

Your project editor will schedule the copyediting of your manuscript as soon as the manuscript is delivered to him or her. Copyeditors usually work on manuscripts undisturbed for about six weeks, going over it several times line by line and marking it up with the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word. When they have questions, they will insert queries directly in the document to which you will respond. If your book contains illustrations and tables, these will also be checked to make sure they correspond correctly with the callouts. Editing decisions will conform to the standards in The Chicago Manual of Style and Webster’s New International Dictionary as well as to the house style of the University of Arkansas Press.

The marked-up manuscript, called redlines, then goes to you for review as a Word document. The author has two weeks to accept and reject the edits, respond to queries, and make changes to the manuscript. This is the author’s last opportunity to alter the text. (Poets should remember that indents, spacing, and line breaks at this stage are minimally indicated. When the final manuscript ultimately goes to the designer, your original manuscript will be used as a guide. You will have the opportunity to review the treatment of these elements at the proof stage.)

Depending on the complexity of your book and the demands of our publication schedule, you will see page proofs within six weeks of finalizing the manuscript. We will also include a copy of the final copyedited manuscript.

At this stage, you’ll proof the pages very carefully—word for word against the changes shown in the redlines.

• Look carefully at the front matter, including the copyright page, and make sure that the table of contents matches the chapter titles and subheads, if applicable.
• Replace the page numbers in the table of contents, which will read •••.
• Review the running heads or feet, making sure that they are correct and match the chapter titles.
• Check that the display pages, subheads, and section breaks are properly formatted.
• Ensure that all illustrations match their captions and that illustrations match the references to them in the text and are appropriately located.
• Check that the endnotes are in correct sequence and correspond to the proper reference numbers in the text.
• In the notes section, replace the page numbers in the running heads or feet, which will read “Notes to Pages •••–•••.”
• Review the ends of lines and pages, looking for bad breaks.
• At this stage, poets should review the indents, spacing, and line breaks.

• Printer’s errors (PEs). When the proof does not match the manuscript.
• Editor’s alterations (EAs). When the proof does not reflect a change you asked for in the manuscript.
• Author’s alterations (AAs). When you are making a new change.

Remember that alterations at this stage are very costly, both in time and money, and should be confined to fixing printer’s errors and factual errors. If you make more than a very few AAs, you may be charged for them. Even the smallest change may affect pagination, so please resist the urge to fine-tune or rewrite.

• indicate the insertion of new text,
• indicate the replacement of selected text with new text,
• mark text for deletion, or
• insert a sticky note anywhere on the page.

A small pop-up appears when you use these tools (except when deleting text). There you can place the corrected text. Contact your project editor if you have trouble indicating a change.

After the designer has made the changes, the editorial department checks to make sure that the changes have been made properly and that no new errors have been introduced. A set of corrected page proofs (sometimes called revised pages) will only be sent to the author for indexing or if necessary to confirm complicated changes.

After the pages are proofed and the pagination is final, you can make the index from the revised pages. Follow the guidelines in the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style for a run-in index alphabetized letter by letter. Be sure to use Chicago’s system for inclusive numbers.

You will have two weeks to finish it. When you do, send it as a Word document with minimal formatting. You may use the hanging indent feature in Microsoft Word if you like, but do not use spaces or tabs, and press return only after the end of each index entry.

After we finalize the pages and our marketing department finalizes the cover or jacket, we send all the materials to an offsite printer. Depending on the specifics of the project, bound books arrive anywhere from three weeks to three months later. We will do our best to make sure you get to see the first advance copy. The complimentary copies arranged for in your contract should come not long after.

At the same time they are sent to the printer, the final book materials are sent to digital converters who turn our design files into e-books of various formats. After in-house quality checks, they are uploaded to various electronic content distributors.

Contact managing editor Janet Foxman (foxman@uark.edu) if you have questions.

Marketing efforts begin even as your book is transmitted for copyediting and production. By this point you will have been asked to complete an author questionnaire when you received your contract. The information you provide on the questionnaire is vital, as it is the primary resource for writing succinct selling copy that becomes something of a boilerplate for all our communication about your book. You’ll see those paragraphs show up again and again: on the jacket, at Amazon, our website, and elsewhere. Please take the time necessary to fill out the questionnaire and return it to us promptly. This will be time well spent.

Not every book requires one for the cover or jacket but many do. Digital scans must be at least 300 dpi at 3 × 3″. Please provide a photographer credit line.

The interior of your book is your opportunity to communicate with your reader, and the exterior is our opportunity to sell to the buyer. However, your input is essential to helping us effectively market to the audience. Make suggestions in your marketing questionnaire when asked about cover images and include in that space any other ideas you have that you think will help us connect with buyers.

We are happy to submit your book for appropriate prizes and awards. We welcome your suggestions. We will submit to a number of competitions we have regularly sent to in the past. In the case of national awards such as the Pulitzer or National Book Award, which require substantial fees and multiple copies, we need to be very selective.

There are two types of reviews: those that run in advance of publication and those that run after publication. Advance reviewers receive special review copies called galleys before the final book is printed. However, not all books have galleys done for them. Generally speaking, the more oriented toward the trade market a book is the more likely we are to do galleys. We do very limited numbers of galleys because we only send galleys to places that need a galley instead of a finished book. (Examples are Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal.)

When we do galleys, we send them out months before the book comes out. Immediately after publication, we send copies of your book to a list of reviewers, based on our experience and your input. We send out many more finished books than galleys, and reviews can appear any time before the book comes out to as much as two years after the book comes out. We will email you to tell you about reviews when they become available.

Usually, our marketing budget cannot support author tours. We will, of course, help you organize events at bookstores and other venues.

Absolutely. Depending upon the makeup of your list, we can use it to promote your book signings and let people know how to get copies of your book. Please provide your list as a Word document via email. We prefer email addresses to postal addresses.

If you are comfortable addressing the situation directly, approach a clerk and introduce yourself as the author. Sometimes supply doesn’t keep up with demand, and the store may be out of stock. Your inquiry might encourage them to reorder. You can also offer to come back and sign books.

Book signings are a terrific way for you to meet your public. (Read on for tips on having a successful signing.) Our experience has taught us to be selective in choosing sites for signings. We are eager to assist you with arranging signings, and we can jump in at any point in the process to help with getting books to the site or with publicity.

If you are giving a talk or signing at a venue that doesn’t sell books, you can take books and sell them yourself. You will receive your authors’ discount and can sell books for the price you deem fit.

Bear in mind that one of the main benefits from signings often occur after the event. If store personnel remember you and your book favorably, they will be more likely to recommend your title to future customers. You can also offer to sign leftover copies. There is a strong possibility the bookseller will now hand sell the book to people asking for a title in that category.

We are active on Facebook and Twitter and recommend that authors follow us and share our posts and tweets pertaining to their book.

Yes. Print books are available through all major online retailers, and most books are available as e-books through Amazon and other online retailers and libraries. We recommend that authors consider setting up an author page on Amazon. Visit authorcentral.amazon.com to learn more.

We generally focus on ads for very targeted publications. Please indicate in your marketing questionnaire any possible advertising opportunities you would like us to consider.

Your contract states the number of complimentary copies you will receive immediately after the book arrives at the warehouse. If at any time you wish to purchase more copies as gifts or to sell, just call our warehouse at (800) 621-2736.

This document is an attempt to answer questions you may have about the marketing of your book. However, please keep in mind that each book is unique, and therefore we may make exceptions to some of the policies outlined here. If you have any further questions, please email Melissa King at mak001@uark.edu.

Royalties are based on a percentage of net sales, with net sales being defined as gross sales of the book less any returns.

Royalties are paid annually. The press operates on a fiscal year that runs from July 1 through June 30. Once the fiscal year closes, royalty calculations begin, and all payments are processed by August 31.

Permissions and licensing arrangements are handled by an outside agency. However, the business manager tracks all activity and will include your share of rights income with the annual royalty payment.

No. Complimentary copies agreed to in the contract are entered into our fulfillment system soon after the contract is complete, and the order will process automatically once the book arrives from the printer.

Yes. As an author, you are entitled to 40 percent off any of our titles.