^^ Look, Routledge will not help your case at a top-25 school in terms of tenure. In fact it will hurt. If that is the best you can manage, it's better to break the study up into articles and try to get them published somewhere good.
Routledge Press
(83 posts) (9 voices)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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Actually, my books are with Cambridge and Michigan. I've written these things because I see as tedious the whole "must be from a top-5 department, must publish in top-3 journals, must publish with Cambridge" snobbishness, particularly given my suspicion that much of it comes from graduate students with CVs too thin to wrap fish.
Posted 4 years ago # -
You prejudge Routledge as unworthy, and then interpret any and all subsequent evidence to fit that judgment
I'm just calling it like I see it. No need for me to interpret the evidence any other way than how it is presented.
Routledge is fairly high up the food chain among commercial publishers, that assistant professors generally should prefer first- or second-tier university presses to Routledge, but that a Routledge book could be a credible addition to one's recor
I got no beef with this claim.
But let's not kid ourselves by saying that Collier and Lijphart reprinted some essays there, so that makes it a quality press. Especially following the question of the OP, who clearly wants to know the answer to the question of "should I strive for placing my book project with an academic press"?
Posted 4 years ago # -
^And I'm fine with the views that 1) the assistant professor should seek a good dozen or more university presses before Routledge, and 2) that a Routledge book wouldn't make a strong centerpiece for a tenure case. My objection is to the position that a Routledge book is worthless, or even less than worthless. As noted above, I'd rank a Routledge book on par with a couple of second-tier journal articles; neither route will get you tenure at top departments, but both are perfectly reasonable elements of a broader tenure file.
Posted 4 years ago # -
^Strong agreement. Do you try to publish with an extremely prestigious university press before a press like Routledge? If you're seeking tenure, the answer is "of course." But Routledge publishes some great stuff--at least in IR--and it is one of the more prestigious commercial (academic) presses.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Routledge = #5 for IR scholars: http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/projects/trip/Final_Trip_Report_2009.pdf
So one might conclude -- it depends.
But Routledge is *much* better than the un-published tools on here believe.
Posted 2 years ago # -
See pages 52 and 54. And then suck it.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The academic press market is going the way of the polar bear, so all of this prejudice should fly out the window soon enough. One hopes.
Many more places are requiring a book for tenure (where the field is a book field), which means there are many more manuscripts out there, all fighting for many fewer slots among a rapidly dwindling group of academic presses, who are growing less and less interested in publishing specialized monographs. Some folks who were able to place at Cambridge/Princeton/California in the past would be thrilled to get a contract from Routledge now.
Those of you dealing with T&P need to pull your collective heads out of your asses. Please recognize that economic factors beyond our control have killed the model we have traditionally used to judge scholarly productivity. Punishing young scholars because the market is killing academic publishing makes no sense.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Which model should such departments move to? A peer-reviewed journal article model or one that encourages publication of commercial press books, or both? Journals, after all, seem to be proliferating, rather than publishing less.
Posted 2 years ago # -
^ I think a peer-reviewed article model is much better. Journals are doing well, and pretty soon we will see everything web-based, which will cut down some (though not most) of the costs involved. Many books ought to have been longer articles. Their arguments would have benefited from being 30 pages instead of 200. Books are being written that have no business being books. The authors are, rightly, doing so only because T&P standards have become idiotic, not because they need a book to make their point.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Does Routledge Press faithfully pay their authors their just earnings.?????
That would be a great character reference.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I was offered a contract offering 5% for royalties. That was half of what I am getting from a university press.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I am tenured at an R1, and at tenure time I would give you credit for publishing with Routledge. Routledge was #19 in the aforementioned list -- which is impressive. Moreover, I am much more concerned with the content of your external letters, then where, per se, you published your book. Thus, if you have an opportunity to publish with Routledge I would certainly grab it. Finally, those who poo-poo Routledge on this board are hypocrites and liars. To the extend they publish, their works are full of citations from publishers like Routledge, Westview, Rowman & Littlefield, etc. Without these outlets of scholarly research, most social science could not proceed.
Posted 2 years ago # -
arguments would have benefited from being 30 pages instead of 200
That may be true of your arguments, but real thinkers need 100 to 200 pages to thoroughly expound their ideas.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Publishers matter a lot less for books than a lot of you people think. For most serious departments, the evaluation of the quality of the book, rather than the ranking of the publisher, matters most. A well-received book that advances knowledge in clear ways from Routledge is worth a lot more than an ill-conceived mess from Princeton or Cambridge (and yes they do exist).
Posted 2 years ago # -
^
I wish this were true. Back in the day many leading scholars published major books on commercial presses. Fenno's most famous books were on Little, Brown. Ken Waltz's "Theory of International Politics" was on McGraw Hill. Rosecrance's "Rise of the Trading State" was on Basic Books, Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" was on Verso. These tended not to be their first book, but often the first book was published more or less automatically by the university press attached to their PhD-granting institution. And there were more well-regarded university presses publishing in polisci than is now the case.But those days are over. I am afraid that at many "serious" departments important people are "too busy" to read an entire book by a tenure candidate -although they won't admit it- and the differing signal of Routledge vs. Princeton will make a big difference.
Note, I am NOT saying that all Princeton or Cambridge books are superior in "quality" to all Routledge books. The placement of a manuscript is itself in part a function of prior advantages/disadvantages. If someone gets a degree from a so-so PhD program and gets a job at a so-so dept they are going to have trouble getting the attention of the top presses. Then their book, being on a less prestigious publisher, is less likely to be reviewed and noticed. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer etc.
None of this means that some books on less prestigious presses are not a greater contribution to knowledge than books on tonier presses or that there is no mobility in the system. Books on less prestigious presses can make an impact. But let's admit that these structural factors and biases are there.
Posted 2 years ago # -
If someone gets a degree from a so-so PhD program and gets a job at a so-so dept they are going to have trouble getting the attention of the top presses.
Do you have any evidence to support this claim? No!
Then their book, being on a less prestigious publisher, is less likely to be reviewed and noticed.
My first book was via a commercial academic publisher, and it received more reviews, and greater scholarly attention, then any of my subsequently published university press books.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Ward's theory is the sort of thing that might be true, but it's also the sort of thing one might suspect is true, then come to believe is empirically well supported through the magic of confirmation bias.
Posted 2 years ago # -
It will be nice to publish a second book with Routledge, after a first one with Cambridge/Princeton already by tenure review time (think about Vreeland). Otherwise, the tenure case would be shaky.
Posted 2 years ago # -
the tenure case would be shaky
Any place where a Routledge book leaves your tenure case shaky is a place that is hostile to awarding tenure.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I almost published my first book with Routledge, but eventually published it with a major university press. From my personal experience, Routledge was so eager to sign up authors that its review process might become less rigorous. It offered me a contract first after only one review without demanding major revisions. I decided to go with the university press later because I felt that I would be writing a better book if I worked hard to incorporate the revisions demanded by its three reviewers.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Agree with the comment about older profs pulling their heads out of their asses, recognizing that it's no longer 1970, and trying to wrap their shriveled brains around the fact that the game of musical chairs features a lot more players and a lot fewer chairs than it did Back in the Day.
Posted 2 years ago # -
^ You're mischaracterizing your opponents here pretty badly.
I'm at a respectable R2 that takes research pretty seriously (3-2 load, good research support, pre-tenure leave). We've denied tenure for lack of productivity recently. One thing no one pays much attention to is what press your book is published with. They'll want it to be well reviewed by external letter writers and in journals, but the name of the press doesn't really matter.
I have no doubt that some rankings-obsessed departments get all worked up about which press a book is published with. But, a) it's not the norm, and b) it's stupid.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Routledge was so eager to sign up authors that its review process might become less rigorous . . . I decided to go with the university press later because I felt that I would be writing a better book if I worked hard to incorporate the revisions demanded by its three reviewers.
The reviewers for my academic trade book where more thorough in positing revisions than were the reviewers for my university press books. It may be that my first book required more revisions, but my experience with an academic trade press was exceedingly positive.
In the end, review processes vary greatly even within presses. That is my experience.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Another factor to consider might be the price of the books. For first-time authors, books from Routledge are sold at above $100 apiece. Even the most outrageous university presses (like Cambridge) might charge only $60-80 per copy. Books from most reputable university presses (Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, and even Princeton) sell at $30-40. In other words, if you publish with a university press, your books sell more, all else being equal.
Posted 2 years ago # -
^ This is a consideration, and generally accurate, although a friend of mine was able to negotiate a $35 paperback release from Routledge.
Posted 2 years ago # -
My academic trade book was released in both paperback and hardcover. Many/most/all university presses only initially distribute a hard cover copy, and may never release the book in paperback. The price for the paperback was $21.95 and $60 for the hardcover.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Most Routledge books for first-timers are hard-cover. Most hard-cover books from university presses (other than Cambridge) cost <$40.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Are you confusing > and < ?
Posted 2 years ago # -
Most hard-cover books from university presses (other than Cambridge) cost <$40.
No way!
Posted 2 years ago #