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Articles

Are you feeling literary? Do you want to share your killer app with the world? Do you carry the secret to unlocking the magic of Ajax or debugging .NET? InformIT is always looking for article writers with something to say. If you have a good article idea, please send us your article title, brief description, and previously published writing samples to Jennifer Bortel.

Books and Digital Products

If your writing goals are more ambitious and you'd like to write a book, we can put you in touch with leading technology publishers, including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall Professional, Cisco Press, IBM Press, Que, and Sams.

Submissions Guidelines • Prospectus • Table of Contents • Sample Chapters • Curriculum Vitae • Editors

Submission Guidelines

To ensure that each project receives the fairest possible review, we request four items for evaluation and consideration:

After reviewing these materials, we will decide whether or not to seek outside peer review of the proposal prior to a decision to publish the work. Should we decide to seek further review, we may request additional material or changes in the proposal to ensure that your ideas are presented in the most favorable manner. Reviewers of your proposal will come from the targeted audience for the work, professionals or academics like yourself. Properly done peer reviews take time, depending on the amount of material in your proposal. Pearson's reputation is built on publishing quality books, and peer reviews are an important quality control tool for both author and publisher. In almost all cases we will share with you any peer reviews commissioned.

Prospectus

Your prospectus should include the following information:

A Brief Description
In several paragraphs, but not more than one page, describe the work, its rationale (what problem is this work solving?), its approach, and the target audience. Begin with a one to two sentence summary of the book. As appropriate, follow this with a short explanatory paragraph on the topic to put the book in context for non-technical readers of the proposal. (Ex: Software Testing deals with X and is useful for Y. All programmers should test their programs but many don't for Z. This book will address overcoming Z.) You should then elaborate on these ideas individually and at greater length making sure you address the following items:

Outstanding Features
Supply a brief listing (but at least five points) of what you consider to be the outstanding, distinctive or unique features of the work. These are items that you would use to sell the book to a bookstore buyer. Who is and why this author? What problem does this book solve? What's unique about the book? What's different compared to other books on this topic? (Include: organization, examples, case studies, software included, experience of author, ties to leading products, etc.) What is going to grab someone's attention and encourage them to examine the book more closely?

Competition
Consider the existing works in this field and discuss specifically their individual strengths and weaknesses. This material is written for reviewers and not for publication, so please be honest and direct. You should describe what advantages your book has over the competition, and how your book will be similar to, as well as different from, its competition, in terms of level, style, topical coverage, and depth. If significant books are now available, you should explain why you chose to write another book in this area. Please mention all pertinent titles even if they compete with only a portion of your book.

Include a more specific discussion of the pedagogical elements. Will the book include examples, cases, learning objectives, questions, problems, glossaries, a bibliography, references, or appendices? Is the book primarily descriptive or quantitative, elementary or rigorous, etc.?

Audience/Market

  1. Who is the book's intended audience (end users of applications, software architects, application developers or designers, project managers, IS managers, CTOs, CEO's, theorists, undergraduate/graduate students, etc.)? Provide example affiliations, disciplines, titles and responsibilities of this audience.
  2. List at least five benefits the target audience will gain from reading the book and learning the material. What can they do with this knowledge? How are they better off with it? (Ex: code more concisely or solve problem X)
  3. What prior knowledge or skills will the audience need to understand this book? What other books should they be familiar with?

Promotion/Sales

  1. If you are aware of professional organizations, user groups, or mailing lists that would be useful in promoting the book, please list them.
  2. Would this book be appealing to corporations as an item to bundle and sell with their products or for use in training programs? Why or why not? (Please include any potential sales leads or special sales opportunities)
  3. Estimate the size of your target audience. Describe for a non-technical person (such as a bookstore employee) why this topic is of considerable market interest and why the book will sell well.
  4. Under what category would this book be shelved in the bookstore?

Support Material
If the work is for a professional audience, do you plan to provide supplementary material to accompany it? (For example, program code, figures or diagrams, software or discounts on other products.) Please provide a brief explanation of the content/functionality and rationale for each item. Consider how such material might be made available. Is it suitable for posting on a (secure) FTP site or website? Would this be a free supplement or do you see it as a revenue item? If software is to be included, please state the minimal hardware and software requirements necessary to operate such software. If the software comes from a third party, please provide background information and contact information for the source.

Status of the Work

  1. What portion of the material is now complete?
  2. When do you expect to have a completed manuscript?
  3. How long do you plan for the book to be? Specify if this page count is the number of double/single-spaced word-processed manuscript pages or a final published length target.
  4. How many and what type of figures do you plan to include? Specify separately the number of photos, screen captures, and the amount of line art (diagrams, tables, charts, etc.

Reviewer
We will use reviewers of our own choosing, but we will also try to include individuals whose opinions you feel will be valuable. Can you suggest any? If the book has several distinct markets, try to recommend at least one reviewer from each.

Naturally, we do not reveal the names of our reviewers without their permission. If you desire, we will submit the material to the reviewers anonymously.

Table Of Contents

The blueprint for your work
The TOC is the blueprint for your work; it should be complete and detailed. Explanatory notes should be included as necessary. This enables the reviewers to understand the structure of the manuscript.

Sample Chapters

Show us your work
The material you submit should reflect your writing style and the book's pedagogy in the best possible light. Although the sample chapters need not be in final form, they should be sufficiently polished to allow for a valid assessment of your abilities. You should try to submit at least several representative chapters if possible, but the chapters need not be in sequence. We advise you to submit any chapter that is particularly innovative, and we need to see rough sketches of all necessary figures. Since the first and ending chapters often are not representative of the core concepts and ideas of the work, these usually do not make good examples for review.

Curriculum Vitae

What are your qualifications?
Please include a vitae with your submission. We would like to know about your professional experience including organizational memberships, education, awards/honors, and previous publications.

With this material in hand, we can make an informed decision on your proposal, and if contracted for, both you and Pearson as your publisher can be certain of the type of work to be produced.

Editors

Contact our editors who cover the following areas:

  • Brett Bartow: Cisco Press—Cisco Certification, General Networking, Security, IP Communications, VoIP
  • Katherine Bull: Social Media, Business & Technology, Gadget Marketing, Leadership
  • Greg Doench: Sun Microsystems Press, UNIX, Open Systems and related technologies, Java – J2SE, J2EE, J2ME, The Java™ Series, Eclipse
  • David Dusthimer: Cisco Press and Certification Business Development, CompTIA Certification: IBM Press Business Development
  • Bernard Goodwin: Communications engineering, Wireless Communications, Signal Processing, Multimedia Technologies, Semiconductor Technologies, Electronic Devices & Systems, Six Sigma, Quality Engineering & Process Improvement, Instrumentation and Measurement, LabVIEW, Chemical Engineering, Science, Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology
  • Peter Gordon: Software Engineering, Software Development, Software Management, SEI/CERT Series; C++ Programming, General Programming, Computer Graphics, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Typesetting, Algorithms, Computer Science
  • Chris Guzikowski: Software Engineering, Software Development, Software Patterns, Software Project Management, Programmer Productivity, Object Technology (including UML), Agile Software Development (including Extreme Programming and Scrum), Networking, Security
  • Rick Kughen: Microsoft Windows Vista and XP, Windows Home Server, PC hardware, Social Media, Business & Technology
  • Laura Lewin: Android development, Game design and development, HCI/UX/Usability, Graphics, and Web development.
  • Joan Murray: VMware Press; certification and IT books. Microsoft developer topics; tools, languages, frameworks, best practices, ALM, Azure, and Office programming—targeting the intermediate to advanced professional developer
  • Michelle Newcomb: eBay, Social Media, Business Objects Press
  • Laura Norman: Mac OS and related technologies, Graphics, and Web Development including Expression Web and Dreamweaver
  • Mary Beth Ray: Cisco Press—Cisco Networking Academy, CCNP Certification, Cisco Networking Technology: Wireless, Storage, Data Center; IBM Press
  • Neil Rowe: Microsoft Technologies and Game Programming
  • Mark Taub: Unix, Linux, and Open Source Technologies – including Linux kernel, Linux application development, and the Linux desktop. Scripting languages, including PHP, the Unix/Linux shell, Tcl/Tk, Open Source (Linux, Unix, Scripting Languages) & Emerging Technologies, Networking and Communications and Security
  • Trina MacDonald, Senior Acquisitions Editor: Mac OS X development and administration (Cocoa, Core frameworks, Mac OS X Server, etc.), Adobe development (Flex, ActionScript, AIR, Flash), and PMP
  • Debra Williams-Cauley: OpenGL graphics programming, Open Source technologies, including the Perl, PHP, and Python scripting languages and the Linux operating system
  • Loretta Yates: Microsoft products including Office, Expression Studio, Windows, Dynamics, and Home Software

If we do not contact you regarding a writing or editing position of your choice, your submission will be stored for a minimum of 6 months. Unfortunately, due to the large volume of e-mails, we are unable to respond to every proposal we receive. We thank you for your interest in technical reviewing or book proposals.