Perhaps
the most important decisions of my transition from dissertation to book was mine
to publish with the American Society of Legal History’s book series at Cambridge University Press and theirs to
have me. In a word, the reason was: editing. In a person, it was: Sally Gordon. More
specifically, I gained a mentor, a booster, a reader, a quarterback, and a
promoter.
From the
outset, Sally shared and shaped my vision for the project. I first reached out
to her about the book on the suggestion and introduction of my mentor Dan Ernst, himself a former editor of the series. To my amazement, she read my entire
dissertation with her discerning and constructive eye. She saw the same promise
in the dissertation that I did. It already had characters, a narrative, and
evidence that constitutional change sometimes occurred outside of courts. The promising
strands it had left dangling included the place of Reconstruction in U.S.
empire, mechanics and details of who drove what legal change how, the
relationship between Puerto Ricans and both American Indians and mainland women
and minorities, and the shadow that U.S. colonial rule in the Philippines cast
over everything.
An
unexpected (but not surprising) benefit of publishing with the ASLH series is
that it brings instant credibility with society members. At the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History, Sally also introduced me as an up-and-coming scholar with
plans to publish in the series. Anyone
who’s seen Sally in action knows that means meeting a lot of society members.
I’ve always felt welcome at the annual meetings, but since then the meetings
have been a sea of friendly faces.
Joining the series also meant receiving a
level of editing and mentorship that I associate with literary presses of yore,
not the tight margins of modern academic publishing. Almost Citizens was my first book,
so I had no experiences identifying – much less making – many of the decisions
that book writing requires. Fortunately,
as I wrote (and rewrote), Sally read (and re-read)–the book proposal, an annotated
table of contents, individual chapters, and finally the full manuscript. Every major element of the book bears her
mark. Through emails, phone calls, and coffees, she pressed me to specify and
“surface” my biggest claims and to open my geographic and temporal lenses wide
enough to bring those claims fully into focus. We discussed what books I liked,
how they were structured, what writerly voice the authors had employed, who
read those volumes, and who might read mine.
Equally important, Sally was an
enduring source of encouragement. She kept me optimistic and energized
throughout the long and lonely endeavor that is book writing. Our conversations
spanned years. During each she reminded me what I had accomplished, then identified
the further progress now within reach.
As my draft chapters accumulated, Reuel Schiller joined Sally as a
co-editor of the series, to its and my good fortune. Sally and Reuel were a
crack pair of text massagers and arrangers. They also knew how to leverage
their insights. When they saw room for improvement but lacked the time to
provide detailed feedback (the series had other authors; they had day jobs–and
lives), they recommended that I use development editors (a subject of an
upcoming post).
Working with the series also meant
that I had experienced editors in my corner as I navigated the unfamiliar, far-from-intuitive
publishing process. When I negotiated my
contract, Sally knew which details mattered: commit to a number of images and
ask for preapproval; ensure that the series can choose the copy editor and
indexer; choose a publication deadline that can slip a month or two without
endangering your tenure case. Someone
had to pay for editing, indexing, and the like. The series helped me ask my
home institution for the funds by providing me evidence that peer institutions
were already providing such funds to their junior faculty. When I became
concerned with one or another of the press’s decisions, Sally and Reuel helped
me sort out which items were worth raising in what ways. They were always
willing to speak on my behalf to Cambridge, with whom they maintained a strong
and cooperative relationship.
Mostly, the series steered me away
from pitfalls. I never had to contemplate the disadvantages of a machine-made
index because my contract let me hire the wonderful Derek Gottlieb. Where some authors tell horror stories of overseas
copy editors who insert more typos than they correct, the series snagged for me
the excellent Julie Hagen.
With my
book now out under the series imprint, I can add that I am happy being judged
by the company I keep. Cambridge University Press’s august imprimatur makes it
more likely that readers will pick up the book. The American Society for Legal
History is my foremost academic home. It has also published many of the legal
historians that I most admire, including the first books of several of the best
up-and-coming scholars in the field.
--Sam Erman
--Sam Erman
