Editorial Richocets

235 EDITORIAL RICHOCETS 1. The Editor's Resume: This section was initiated in ELT, XXI: 3 & 4- (1978). Responses by two representatives of reprint publishers to my invitation to editorialize were published in ELT, XXII: (1979)· Below, I print responses from two directors of university presses. Other responses, although they have been disappointingly sparse, will appear in future issues of ELT, as space allows. 2. University of Arizona Press: Reply 1: In this era of highly competitive publications, with 114 new books being published in the United States every morning of the year, we at the University of Arizona Press emphasize two basic concepts (hopefully reaching the potential author early in his/her efforts!): a) Write in book form for only one reader. Pick out some real person whom you know, then set down your materials so this person will understand what you are saying. When you have a "target reader ," you effect a single level of presentation, rather than trying to provide information to everyone from the professionals to those who want to delve into the subject just a bit. Choose your level of communication and stay with it—addressing yourself in your writing to only this one person, thereby being fully aware of where you may need to interpolate comments in order to have your reader stay with you. We believe you will find this concept a highly workable one. When you as author WRITE successfully FOR ONE, we as publisher may be able to take your book and sell thousands of copies because each person feels "this was meant for me." On the other hand, if you try to write for thousands, and embrace all varied interests and viewpoints, we may not be able to sell a single copy. Stick to your one-level approach, and we as publisher will take care of informing all readers at all levels of understanding how the book will fit into their respective realms. b) In book form provide what the reader wants to know, rather than simply what "you have available to say." Raise what we call the "inverse yardstick"—under which you evaluate a chapter, a page, a paragraph, a sentence, an illustration on this measurement: "Is the book hurt if this is left out?" If the conclusion is that the book isn't hurt, you should strip out what has just proved itself to be extraneous to a crisp presentation. Here again, you are directing yourself to providing what is needed for the target reader. No more, no less. Restrict yourself to what really is needed, and what a reader would expect to find in your particular volume. The University of Arizona Press Sincerely, Marshall Townsend, Director 236 3· Regents Press of Kansas: Reply 2: As the Director of a small but reasonably successful scholarly publisher (as successful as any university press can be in this time of high costs), it is dismaying to me that so many scholars waste so much time making inexpert submissions. Scholars spend an inordinate amount of time doing research and writing manuscripts and then, when finished, dash off letters wil]y-nilly to those publishers they think might be interested in considering the work for publication. This hitor -miss type of submission causes much loss of time for the scholar and the publisher, to say nothing about the heartbreak involved in rejection letters stating that the subject matter "does not fit our list." a) Selecting a Publisher: The scholar preparing to submit his manuscript to a publisher should spend some time in his library reviewing the types of books published by. each press. A good starting point is William Pell's article.·1- This is one of the most useful articles ever written. Admittedly it is out-of-date, having been based on a survey of seventy-one presses in 1972, but publishing programs and editorial preferences do not change very rapidly. Pell's article discusses journals first; but starting on page 656, he gives a complete rundown of the type of book each press prefers. With leads from Pell, the prospective author can then study the publications of those presses to determine the current state of their interest. The next step is...