Working with Academic Publishers

This webinar will go over the publishing process for academic publishers when it comes to a book or journal article. Katie Chin, Sr. Acquisitions Editor of Ancient Near East, Jewish Studies, and Dead Sea Scrolls at DeGruyter Brill, will provide tips for finding the right publisher and details about how the process works. She will discuss the differences between book and journal publishing, information about publishing in Open Access, and policies on AI usage. Come ready with questions because she will also save time for a Q&A session at the end of the webinar.

Academic book publishing typically involves identifying the right press and acquisitions editor, preparing a strong proposal, clarifying the project's scholarly contribution and target readership, submitting materials for editorial assessment and peer review, responding to reviewer reports, negotiating a contract, revising the manuscript, and moving through production, copyediting, metadata, marketing, and publication.

Katie Chin has publicly discussed these processes in publishing workshops and interviews, including how scholars should approach an acquisitions editor, what a book proposal should contain, how publishers evaluate a project, when it is appropriate to contact a press, the role of peer review, and common issues that can slow publication.

Katelyn "Katie" Chin is Senior Acquisitions Editor at Brill, now part of De Gruyter Brill. Her current editorial areas include the Ancient Near East and Egyptology, Jewish Studies, and Dead Sea Scrolls / Qumran Studies.

Public professional interviews document that she began her publishing career as an editorial assistant in electrical-engineering publishing at Springer. After Springer closed its Boston operations in 2009, she moved to Brill, initially working as an associate editor in Ancient Near East and Jewish Studies as well as Contemporary China Studies. In 2014 she was promoted to acquisitions editor for Ancient Near East and Jewish Studies. She now serves as Senior Acquisitions Editor at Brill.

Her work involves developing scholarly book projects, working with authors and series editors, evaluating proposals, coordinating peer review, and guiding academic manuscripts through acquisition and publication.