Open University Press Existing Authors

Open University Press will undertake promotion of your book in a range of ways to ensure that we reach the widest possible market for your book. However, as an author active in the academic or professional community, there are many ways that you can promote the book yourself and your role as an author has a crucial part to play in its success. Writing the manuscript is only the beginning! We look forward to working with you to pool our expertise, resources, academic and professional contacts and maximise the exposure and sales of your book to our mutual benefit. The first step is to complete your Marketing Questionnaire and submit it prior to your book being handed to our Production team. Timing is critical, and we would not advise that you start actively promoting your forthcoming book until approximately three months prior to publication. However, there is a lot you can be thinking about as you work on the book to prepare the groundwork for a successful publication.

• Set up your Amazon author page – extra information is always useful for tempting browsers to find out more and allows you to bring together your previous titles as well. There is more guidance on this here
• If you have your own website, do set up an account with the Amazon affiliates programme to make the most of any referrals made there. You can find instructions on this here
• After publication, do encourage students or colleagues to leave reviews of the book online
• Inform us about any prizes in the area so that we can support the book’s application – often these are only advertised to members so can be hard for publishers to learn about

Dissemination is a crucial part of the publication process and allows you to reach students directly, get feedback from readers and ensure that the field knows about the excellent resources that you have just created.

• Flag the book to your librarian so they are aware and can make it available for students. We can also offer licensing agreements to benefit courses with widespread adoption
• Share your course details with us so we can ensure that it is supported by our Academic Consultants
• Share details of your conference or event attendance (including virtual events) so that we can coordinate when Open University Press have staff in attendance or provide remote assistance
• Create an email signature mentioning the book, including the cover image when finalised
• Blog posts – either on your own website or on relevant websites within the field. You can also approach us to discuss blog post ideas and where they could find a home
• Endorsements – these are a great way to build some buzz around your book. There is space in the Marketing Questionnaire to indicate suitable contacts that may be willing to endorse your book and your Editorial Assistant will be in touch during the production process to discuss contacting these people and editing any resulting comments

Social media is a powerful tool for interacting with your readers and for hearing about the challenges they face in the field. However, these networks can feel intimidating to use if you are not familiar! Below are some tips to help you dip your toe into the social media waters:

• If you are new to a network, take some time to explore and see how people post or share content. Follow people that interest you but don’t feel like you have to post straight away if you are not sure what to say as you will feel more comfortable with time. Doing this exploring will also mean you can also see whether the platform is right for you – not all fields are as active across different types of social media!
• Interact with other people online, even if this just involves liking a post, as this will help you to feel embedded in the community. As with any conversation, you need to listen and learn as well as share your own news. Building an audience on social media can take time, so see this as a long-term investment, which offers you a new perspective.
• When posting news about your book, it is likely that your followers will also be excited as they follow you because they are interested in your work after all! Some ways of celebrating the book with them could include; sharing the cover design when it is finished, posting a picture of the print books when they arrive, making a hashtag of the book (e.g. #InquiryLearningBook) to collate any information you share on the network over time or highlighting favourite chapters from the book.
• Social media can also be an excellent place to celebrate the network of contributors you have brought together if the book is an edited collection – make sure they are tagged in posts about the book so they can also share the news with their networks.

Follow our editors on Twitter at @E_Christie_, @SamCrow62841233 and @Beth_Summers_

You can find out more about your first point of contact at Open University Press for editorial or marketing queries here

It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce ALL items originally prepared by someone else, including quotes, tables, figures, illustrations etc. Please note that this also applies to material taken from the internet. If permissions are not supplied, we cannot accept your final manuscript, so it pays to start the process early and well in advance of your submission deadline. Open University Press takes the clearance of copyright very seriously and if there is any doubt as to whether permission has been obtained we will suggest that this material is cut from the manuscript. All permissions correspondence needs to be delivered with the final version of the manuscript and all permissions need to have been finalised by this stage. Please do note that all for permissions you are applying on behalf of McGraw Hill Education as a commercial publisher. If you have any questions on what permissions are required then please do get in touch with your Editorial Assistant.

As part of McGraw Hill, Open University Press benefits from a wide range of sales and distribution channels across the globe. Within the UK and Ireland, our sales team works with bookshops, online retailers (including Amazon), wholesalers and library suppliers and encourages them to take new books, core stock and academic adoption stock. The academic sales cycle is a key reason why it is so important to try to keep books on schedule as bookshops will be expecting delivery of stock in certain months. The list below includes some of the activities we complete on behalf of your book to help the title reach its readers:

• Promote on the website, in subject catalogues and via eMarketing
• Discount offers - all our authors are entitled to 25% discount on any purchases they make of Open University Press books. In addition, we can provide you with a promotion code that you can share with your contacts to allow them to purchase your book (and other Open University Press books if relevant) at a discount via our EMEA website. We also sometimes arrange bespoke discount promotions with relevant membership bodies or teaching institutions.
• Stands at Conferences - each year, our marketing and editorial staff attend a number of key conferences, both in person and virtually. We display the books, take orders and offer lecturer examination copies. If an author is attending, we are sometimes able to launch new books at these events.
• Book Flyers and Remote Support- we send flyers, display copies of books and catalogues to many more conferences, and our international offices often support us with reaching conferences that are further afield. With advance notice, we can arrange to provide you with book flyers and the local bookshop may take stock of your book if you are speaking at an event or workshop.

The Reading List Collections from McGraw Hill and Open University Press have been created to help provide easy access to the core textbooks and recommended reading your students need to be successful on their courses.

Within these collections, we offer a wide range of titles that should give your students the confidence they need to master and learn all they need to in their area of study. We are currently offering five collections covering Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy, Nursing, Social Work, Education and Study, Writing and Research Skills. More information is available here.

Contact your Editor

You can find out more about your first point of contact at Open University Press for editorial or marketing queries here.