Author Proposal Guidelines

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The author guidelines listed here help us to identify the intended audience for your work and subsequently quantify its sales potential in many different channels. Many book ideas are never signed by publishers because authors fail to describe the book's complete potential. Is your mathematics book only for mathematicians or can it also be used by programmers or engineers? Is your engineering proposal being designed solely for the textbook market or can it also be used by professional engineers who need to be updated on the latest technology? Are there features included in your book that improve on the existing titles? It is important to consider these questions and to describe the primary and secondary audience that will help to determine the best ways to develop, produce, and promote your work to anyone who can use it.

Please complete the guidelines below and submit as a Microsoft WORD file to info@infinitysciencepress.com or mail to:

Infinity Science Press
11 Leavitt Street
Hingham, MA 02043

Upon receipt, your proposal will be acknowledged and you will receive a decision within two weeks. Thank you for considering Infinity Science Press in your publishing plans.

1. Contact Information

Please list your name, affiliation, contact address, e-mail, and phone number(s).

2. Project Overview

In a few paragraphs (details will be given later) provide a brief description of the project. Include the intended audience and/or course title, purpose, general content, and approach. This section should be written as if you were writing a description for the back cover of the book.

3. Market / Intended Audience / Sale Channels

Describe in detail the markets (subject areas, course titles, such as Mathematics, Civil Engineering, Digital Signal Processing, etc.) and the audience (the people) that will use the book (e.g., upper division engineering students, programmers, mathematics faculty teaching numerical methods courses, physicists in industry, etc.). It is important to outline these in terms of the primary and secondary markets and audience, and to list all that might be viable for your project. This includes any information you can provide on training courses, corporate libraries, e-books, international courses or opportunities, etc. For example, a textbook designed for a college course on artificial intelligence might be listed with a primary audience of electrical engineering or computer science majors, but a secondary audience could include game developers in industry. If you know that competing titles have sold in various channels, e.g., retail stores, book clubs, societies, academic libraries, etc., please mention them.

Provide any information you have on user groups, organizations, societies, general market size, or other market research you have done e.g., installed-base of users (if specific hardware/software-related).

4. Textbook Issues

For textbooks or professional/reference books with textbook potential it is important to include information on course title(s); course prerequisites; description of majors taking the course (e.g., 40% engineers, 20% business, 20% CS, etc.); level issues (e.g., algebra-based vs. calculus-based); pedagogical aids (chapter outlines, summaries, case studies, tutorials, graded exercise sets, etc.); has any of the material been class-tested?

5. Key Features

Please list three or four features of your book. These cannot be abstract and should be content-oriented and/or specific as possible. Features such as "Most complete coverage," "Readable," or "Includes better exercise sets" are not viable features. Features should encourage readers to review your book because it offers something deficient in the competition or because it includes new content, approach, etc. If possible, features should be presented in a "feature/benefit" style, for example:

• Includes Matlab projects at the end of each chapter. These projects allow students to implement conceptual material by building practical applications that will be used in industry.

• Includes an optional chapter on Robotics. Located in the appendix, this chapter allows the instructor to introduce material on an applied topic if time permits.

6. Supplements, CD/DVDs, Web Sites

Do you anticipate any supplements to the main project? Describe in detail. Will there be a CD-ROM or DVD? Platform? Applications or demos needed to run the programs or do you assume the reader will have the version required? Instructor manuals? Power Point Lecture Slides? Solutions Manuals? Answer Books? Companion Web Sites? If so, Infinity Science Press to host and maintain or just link? Content to be included on the site? Do you expect to have Infinity Science Press find authors to prepare any of these supplements?

7. Competition or Market Spotters

Please list at least three direct competitors or market spotters (books on a similar topic and intended for the same audience but with markedly different characteristics in terms of approach, content, technology, organization of topics, etc.— two books might be called "Differential Equations" but if only one covers Boundary Value Problems and engineering applications, the two books would not be considered direct competitors). You should research competing titles by visiting publishers' Web sites, Amazon.com, etc. for the latest editions, updates, or new versions, before completing this section.

Please discuss each competing title separately, and briefly compare your project to it.

It is better to say positive things about the competitors and how your project will improve on them, rather than to list all negative information about a best seller in its eighth edition. It's more helpful to compare and contrast.

In addition, list the key publishing information for each competitor: the title, author, publisher, edition, price, ISBN, publication date and retail price (not used book price).

8. Production Issues

What is the estimated page count of the book (printed book pages)? Use direct   competitors as a guideline. How many photographs/illustrations/figures will be included? Will any of the figures need to be redrawn? Will there be any four-color illustrations? Color inserts? Do you expect to have Infinity Science Press prepare or obtain any of these items?

9. Scheduled Completion

Please provide a realistic estimate for the completion of: a) two sample chapters, b) one-half of the manuscript, and c) final manuscript with any accompanying CD-ROM files. Note that books are promoted months in advance and advertising dollars are wasted, orders canceled, or adoptions lost, when titles are not published according to schedule. The publisher would prefer that you are conservative with schedule estimates.

10. System/Software Requirements

List minimum and recommended operating system(s), processor(s), software applications (exact versions), RAM, hard drive space, graphics cards, any required hardware devices (e.g., DVD drive) or any other technology that will be required to use with this title or its supplements.

11. Table of Contents (Tentative)

The Table of Contents, although tentative, should be carefully constructed and include all of the chapters and their key sections, appendixes, answer sections, etc. TOC's without section titles cannot be considered. Whenever possible, please include an approximate number of book pages for each chapter. This will provide information on the importance of the respective chapters as they relate to the entire book.

12. Permissions, Previously Published, or Previously Under Contract

Has any of the material been previously published (in any media—including on the Web) or was any portion of it previously under contract to another publisher?  Have you written and created all of the material in the book or will permissions be necessary? Generally describe any permissions that will be required for content, images, contributed chapters, etc.

13. Reviewers

The manuscript will be reviewed at various times during development. Please list a few names of key faculty in the subject area or professionals in industry that would be able to comment on the quality of the manuscript. Otherwise we will select from our own list of reviewers.

14. Resume or CV

A proposal cannot be considered without a resume or curriculum vitae. If applicable, include information about publications, courses taught, your areas of interest, dissertation topic, professional affiliations or activities (e.g., IEEE member, conference presentation, etc.).

Please include any other information that you think will be helpful in evaluating your proposal. Thank you.