Copyediting
When you have carefully packed and sent us your MS (front matter, text, back matter, tables, and illustrations captions--two copies plus disk), illustrations (originals labeled on the back and two sets of photocopies; graphics disk as appropriate), and photocopies of letters of permission for both text and illustrations, our work at the Press continues in earnest. Your acquisitions editor reviews your final revisions and double-checks the completeness of material. The original MS is then conveyed to the managing editor for assignment to either an in-house MS editor or a freelance copyeditor; the copy of the MS is conveyed to the Production Department for estimating and preliminary design.

The MS editor or freelance copyeditor handling your project will proceed with all due care and speed, and the completely edited MS will be sent to you for your final review. Treat this as the first stage of page proof: all final changes should be made, all additions made, all errors corrected, all quotations verified, and all queries answered, without exception. The MS editor is likely to ask you to make changes and insertions on separate sheets or on sticky tags rather than on the MS itself; if your MS has been electronically edited, he or she might instruct you to write directly on the "redlined" MS pages. It is expensive and time-consuming to make changes once type is set, so it is crucial that your changes at this stage be complete. If you wish to make changes after this stage, we must charge you for them.

After you have reviewed the edited MS, you will return it to the in-house MS editor or the freelance editor for the "cleanup" stage. During cleanup, the editor incorporates your changes, editing any new copy to be consistent with the style used elsewhere in the MS. The editor may well contact you if she or he has further questions or discovers an infelicity. If your MS has been edited out of house, after cleanup the freelance editor returns your edited MS to the in-house liaison, who scans the work.

We strongly encourage authors to begin work on their index (if the book is to have an index) soon after their review of the copyedited MS is complete. It can take several months to prepare an effective index. If you cannot create your own index, we recommend that you engage a professional indexer for this important task.

Although you cannot complete the index until you have page proofs, you should select the terms to be included in the index and set them up in a word-processor file beforehand. Bear in mind that terms, names, and titles corrected during editing should be corrected in your index, as well. Once you have the page proofs in hand, you need only add the page numbers and print the final index copy. Our guide for indexing is the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition (offprints of the indexing chapter, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993, ISBN 0-226-103-889, can be ordered from your local bookstore for a minimal fee). Please note that the final printout should be in Courier or another typewriter font (like this, not like this) and fully double-spaced in a one-column format; we prefer the run-in or continuous style for subentries. We would also like the electronic file for the index on a disk. Refer to the Press's pamphlet, Handling Proof and Creating the Index, for details about index style and formatting.

Your MS editor should review at least one draft of your index, which you can send as soon as you like after you have reviewed and approved the copyedited MS. When the page proofs arrive they will demand our full attention--and yours--so it is important to resolve possible problems with the index well before then.

Design and Composition
From the editor, the MS moves into our Production Department for design and composition. We nearly always go directly to page proofs from the edited MS, which means that production time is faster but the emphasis on accuracy is greater. Galleys are reserved for the occasional, design-intensive MS. You will be sent a tentative proof schedule soon after your MS is transmitted to the Production Department so that you can reserve time for proofreading the typeset pages (three weeks) and finalizing the index (an additional week). We will share sample pages with you. Your MS editor will send you the Press's pamphlet, Handling Proof and Creating the Index, to assist you in proofreading and styling the index; the pamphlet is also posted at our web site. Please note that the Press does not arrange professional proofreading for typeset pages: authors are responsible for comparing the page proof character by character with the MS to ensure that all text has been set correctly and accurately. Do not underestimate the time required to proofread the typeset pages.

If your book has illustrations, bear in mind that the illustrations you see in the page proofs are "For Placement Only" (FPO) and do not represent the illustration quality in the final book. Textual illustrations such as tables will, of course, look as they will in the finished book.

Revisions or corrections in proof are expensive and time-consuming. Printers correct their own errors, but they charge for further revisions or corrections by the author (author's alterations or AAs), which can also delay the book production schedule. We do allow authors a percentage of the original cost of composition for such changes, billing you for any alterations in excess of that amount. For example, if composition costs $2,000 and if the allowance stipulated in your contract is 5 percent, we absorb the costs of such corrections up to $100, but you as author will be billed for changes in excess of that amount. Typesetters' rates vary, but a single, minor change will cost several dollars. It is wise to remember that even a small insertion may require resetting an entire paragraph and may even cause repaging (which in turn wreaks havoc with the index).

Changes in proof are expensive, labor-intensive, and time-consuming. Thus, it is in the interests of all that AAs be kept to a minimum.

Final Production Stages
Although page proofs are the last you see until you receive the finished book, our work on your book is far from over. Your MS editor, who acts as your liaison, examines and approves all stages of corrected proof, index proof, and bluelines (generated at the final stage of production before printing begins). He or she sends you a photocopy of the jacket or cover sketch to you around the time page proofs are sent to you. The MS editor checks jacket copy and other material regarding the publication and marketing of your book.

Return of the MS and Art
Your MS editor will return all original art to you shortly after your book appears. However, if you do not instruct us otherwise within three months after your book is published, we will destroy your original MS (hard copy and disk) and all proof sets.