Manuscript Preparation

The University Professors Press (UPP) is an academic press whose primary mission is to publish scholarly works. We also publish select poetry and fiction relevant to the field of professional psychology and select books intended for a general audience interested in psychology. If you are planning to submit a manuscript to University Professors Press, please review the following guidelines. If you have received a contract from us, please keep in mind that, per our contract, if there are additional copy-editing costs due to the manuscript not being prepared correctly, which includes the considerations below, the additional costs may be deducted from initial royalties. Additionally, please note that we are unlikely to send out submissions for review if numerous errors are evident in an initial skimming of the document.

1. Manuscripts must be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx).
2. UPP requires that manuscripts follow the guidelines in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.) with select minor variations noted below. The most common errors we see are related to changes from the 6th edition to the 7th, particularly with regard to headings (click here for information on headers in APA style 7th edition), book references (i.e., do not include publisher city and state in the 7th edition), and doi numbers (use the doi URL in the 7th edition).
3. Please be sure to use the Oxford comma.
4. Please keep in mind that the APA style manual was designed for the publication of research articles, primarily quantitative research articles. There will naturally be some necessary variations in style and tone when writing a book.
5. Use one space after a period in your manuscript.
6. University Professors Press, consistent with APA Style Manual (7th Edition), endorses the use of the singular “they.” Please avoid “she or he” and use gender-inclusive language (they, them, their) when the individual’s pronouns are not clear. If the singular they is new and confusing, we encourage authors to visit our post endorsing the use if the singular they, which includes links to resources to help individuals understand this transition. When referring to someone’s gender, use their preferred pronouns.
7. Use the first person sparingly and restrict its use to referring to the author(s) of the book.
8. Avoid unnecessary special formatting. This can create errors when the document is opened on different computers or different versions of Microsoft Word.
9. Please do not cut and paste from web browsers, PDF files, or other programs that have background coding/formatting. Background formatting is often introduced to a document when information is cut and pasted from other documents, particularly from web browsers. Like unnecessary special formatting, this can introduce errors when documents are opened on different computers and create challenges when formatting for ebooks. Therefore, it is best to avoid cutting and pasting from the Internet or documents from programs other than Microsoft Word.
10. Do not use programs that auto-populate the reference citations and references in the document submitted. These often create errors and can be difficult to edit.
11. Prior to submission, please review your document carefully to make sure that all references are included and that all references in the reference section are cited in the manuscript. In addition, please use the same format for all references. Correcting the reference section can be one of the most time-consuming and expensive aspects of the copyediting process.
12. Please do not include a running head or page numbers in your document; these will be added during the manuscript preparation process.