Forerunners and Manifold: A Case Study in Iterative Publishing

Manifold rethinks the print model of scholarly publishing by offering an open-source platform where authors and publishers can produce iterative texts, powerful annotation tools, rich media support, and robust community dialogue. One aspect of iterative publishing is producing ‘grey literature’ texts. At the University of Minnesota Press, the Forerunners series offers authors a space to publish their creative, speculative thought quickly and accessibly. This allows authors to engage with the expertise of a university press at a much earlier stage than usual. In this piece, the authors discuss how this process affects the acquisitions and production workflows, and offer Forerunners as a case study for thinking through iterative scholarship.