BiLD Law Books include books from across the entire spectrum of law and legal arena. The Books will initially focus on academic, practicing and research books that provide an overview of established and emerging fields, academic and practitioner level books and books devoted to the field of legal research. At BiLD, we are pleased to be working with you, whether you are just thinking about submitting a proposal or you already have a contract. Here you will find support and guidance for every step of the publishing journey. If you have any questions, please take a look at our FAQs or get in touch with us.
Submitting Proposal
We are very pleased that you are considering writing for BiLD. What follows is a brief description of what we might expect of a proposal for a new book and how we will consider it for publication. These notes are full but not exhaustive, since many projects will be presented and evaluated in rather different ways and possibly at different stages. Do feel free to contact us for advice or information at any stage. We will always be pleased to hear from you.
The Outline Proposal
The first thing you as an author should do is to prepare an outline proposal for your new book and send it to us. The outline proposal should be as full as possible to enable the most effective evaluation and feedback on the project. Ideally this would include 1. provisional title of proposed book and 2. brief synopsis of the book. This should be about 500 words long and summarize the topic, your aims, scope, general approach, and intended audience.
Topic: Subject of proposed book
Aims: Why is a new book needed? What do you think the readers will gain from it? Also, why do you wish to write the book?
General approach: What is the purpose of the book and how will this book achieve its aim? How would you summarize your approach to the subject?
Scope: What is included? What is left out, and why? What prior knowledge will the book assume?
Please also give your estimate of the total number of words/printed pages, and the total number and type of illustrations.
Ancillary material:
Please summarise any ancillary material (website, CD-ROM etc) that you think should be provided alongside the book to increase its educational value. (We offer companion websites with many of our academic, practicing and research books).
The Market
Please summarise what you consider to be the market for your proposed book:
- What is the primary readership? (for example, ‘undergraduate students’, ‘practitioners’, ‘researchers’, etc)
- What are the secondary readership groups? (for example, ‘postgraduates in land law’, ‘constitutional law practitioners’ etc)
- Other readership (for example, ‘professionals’, ‘policy makers’, etc)
For which areas will your book be appropriate? Suggest areas where:
- the book could be the sole or principal required book
- the book could be one of several required books
- the book could be supplementary reading material
In case of academic book, please give an indication of where, to your knowledge, such courses are and how many people take them. If you believe that there are few applicable courses at this time, but that the book will fit an emerging market (i.e. where courses are likely to start appearing in considerable numbers over the next few years) then please indicate this.
Where do you see the principal markets for the book (e.g. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, South Asia, Asia, Africa, Europe and/or other) and where are the secondary markets?
Where possible, please provide names, positions, work addresses and e-mail addresses of people currently teaching courses or practicing at courts for which this book would be appropriate.
Information on competing books
Please give a list of books (with as much information on length, date of publication, publisher, price, etc. as possible) that might be considered as ‘competing’ with your proposed book.
- What are their strengths, weaknesses and availabilities
- How will your book differ from each?
- What are the advantages of the proposed book over these titles?
- If you had to come up with three unique selling points for your book, what would they be?
Full outline
Content
Please provide a list of chapters including the main subheadings of each, a short paragraph for each chapter summarising its contents, and an estimate of the number of words or printed pages in each chapter.
Artwork
Assuming illustrations are a major feature of your proposal, please specify the types (photographs/diagrams/tables) and approximate number in each chapter.
Pedagogical features
Please summarise the main pedagogical features that you anticipate including (for example, chapter summary, problems, glossary, further reading, web links etc).
It is also useful to see some sample material which illustrates the writing style and the features within the text [not essential, but if you have already drafted material it would be interesting to see this].
Ancillary material
Please provide details of any ancillary material that should be provided alongside the book, together with an explanation of why these materials would add to the value of the book. For example, do you think it would be useful for the book to be supported with a companion website? If so, what material would you envisage including on the site? How would this be integrated with the book itself?
Please also give an indication of the extent to which you would be involved in the development of this material. (Please note that we don’t expect our authors to get involved with the technical aspects of producing supplementary material. For example, in the case of material presented via our companion websites, we have a web editor whose job it is to construct the individual web pages based on the basic content supplied by the author(s) or other individuals. Generally, this content need not be submitted in a form that is any more complex than the manuscript itself – i.e. as Word documents, or similar.)
Likely schedule
Please indicate your expectation of the time required from the present stage to delivery of final typescript. Also, how quickly will the book date? How often would a new edition be required?
Curriculum Vitae
Please send a brief CV including:
- Full name and qualifications of authors
- Work address, telephone and e-mail
- Present appointments
- Career to date
Evaluation of Proposal
Evaluating the proposal is a two-step process:
1. We will invite comments on your outline from a number of academic advisers teaching in the area. These referees will remain anonymous, unless they wish otherwise. This process will usually take from two to three months. We will be in touch summarizing the referees’ comments as soon as they are complete and you will be asked for your reaction to these comments and whether you wish to amend your outline in response to them.
It is also possible that, at this stage, you will be informed that BiLD cannot publish your book.
2. If reviews are broadly positive then costings for the proposed book (examining likely production and manufacturing costs, likely sales, and predicted revenue) will be drawn up.
It is possible, at this stage, that we will come back to you with queries relating to the costings before the proposal can be approved.
Putting the Proposal to the Review Committee of BiLD
If we feel that the proposal is likely to make a successful BiLD publication, it will be submitted to the Review Committee of the BiLD for consideration. All proposals must be approved by the Review Committee before a contract can formally be offered.
We will let you know the Review Committee’ decision about your proposal as soon as possible.
The Contract
If the Review Committee encourage publication, we will send you a draft contract. You should check that all the details of the contract (for example, details of authors, addresses, delivery date, division of royalties, payment for contributors) are correct before returning it to BiLD so a final version can be drawn up for your signature. At this stage, we will discuss the development of the typescript and illustrations with you.
The Writing Process
We appreciate being kept informed of your progress and will be happy to give advice at any stage. As chapters are written we are keen to read them and gain feedback from lecturers which we hope will be useful to you as you progress further with the project. We advise that authors also have the material reviewed by colleagues and peers. We will probably arrange meetings with you periodically to discuss progress, and answer any queries that may arise during manuscript preparation.
Submitting your Proposal
Please send your proposal to the following address:
Bangladesh Institute of Legal Development (BiLD)
KR Plaza (Level 6 & 7)
31 Purana Paltan, Dhaka- 1000
Bangladesh
Email: book@bildbd.com
Even if you have yet to produce a proposal we would be delighted to hear from you to discuss the ideas that you have on an informal basis.
We look forward to the prospect of working with you!