The Book Proposal

The formal book proposal submission should consist of the following items—please send these as one single PDF file, with the items in the following order:

• An Overview of the book that clearly and concisely summarizes the book’s purpose, the relevance and importance of your topic, and how the book will contribute to the scholarly conversation in its field. This may be the most important part of the book proposal and could serve as the book’s marketing copy once published (1-2 paragraphs, or roughly 200 words)  
• A longer Description of the book, its central argument(s), its scholarly basis, methodological approach, and details about the book’s organization and style. (2-3 pages)
• The Table of Contents with a brief paragraph outlining the contents of each chapter. (1-2 pages) 
• Discussion of Competing Works: A brief description of 3-5 closely related books. Please describe how your manuscript differs from these works and explain how it makes a unique contribution to its field. (1 page) 
• Readership:  Who will want to read your book? Why? Please identify primary and secondary audiences if relevant. (1 paragraph) 
• Details about schedule, length, illustrations: Please include the anticipated length of the manuscript (typically around 100,000 words), anticipated number of illustrations, charts, graphs, and tables; inclusion of any special elements that will require special handling or typesetting (such as multilingual text); and timetable for its completion, typically within 3-6 months of submitting the proposal to our press. (1-2 paragraphs)
• Two sample chapters, one of which should be the introduction.
• The author’s CV. If the work is an edited volume, please provide a brief bio for each contributor. 

Submitting the Proposal 

Please check that your proposal includes all of the above items in the order listed. Send the proposal to us by email as one single PDF file.

Book proposals related to China may be sent to Qin Higley, Editor for China, at qhigley@fas.harvard.edu.

Book proposals related to Japan and Korea may be sent to Daniel Lee, Editor for Japan & Korea, at dslee@fas.harvard.edu.

Book proposals related to Asia in transregional or transnational perspective, as well as book proposals on Southeast Asia, may be sent to Kristen Wanner, Director of the Publications Program, at kwanner@fas.harvard.edu. 

Submitted proposals will be reviewed by the program’s editors and circulated among the members of the Asia Center Publications faculty committees. This stage generally takes a few weeks. If the decision is favorable, the author will be invited to submit the complete manuscript for review. Do not send a copy of the complete manuscript until invited.

We will always try to confirm receipt of your materials. If you do not hear from us within a week or two, please follow up.

Policy on Artificial Intelligence Tools 

The Asia Center Publications Program will not consider for publication any manuscript that has been substantially written or heavily edited by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Prospective authors must attest that their proposed manuscript is an original work of scholarship, fully written and researched by human intellect, skill, and effort. Furthermore, any supportive use of AI tools in text, images, graphs, tables, or other parts of the work must be disclosed and cited. If you have used any AI tools in your writing or research, please provide a disclosure statement in your cover letter.