Answering Your Questions

Here are some common questions we get about our publishing program. Feel free to leave us a comment if you have your own!

Can I buy [book title] as an ebook for my Kindle/Nook/iPad/etc.?

We hope to have our recent books (2010 and newer) available in popular ebook reader formats within the next few months. It’s a mixed bag for most of our older titles, especially if we don’t have digital files for them (not uncommon for titles published before the mid-1990s). We’re slowing working our way through the backlist, assigning the ebook isbns necessary to sell them in that format. In the meantime, we have a few titles for sale at the Google eBookstore and with library vendors Ebrary and Ebooks Corp.

I have a great book idea. Would you publish a book on [topic]?

We’d love to see your project. Just make sure to follow our proposal guidelines. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: international development, international relations, NGOs, globalization and economics, women and gender, environmental sustainability, peace and conflict resolution, and works that link the shared problems faced by both the North and the South.

Bear in mind that the market for books and information is highly competitive, and that as authors and publishers we need to focus on filling real needs, such as providing new ideas, information, solutions or concepts that have value for our audiences in their scholarly and professional capacities.

How are you guys related to Stylus Publishing?

Kumarian’s founder and long-time publisher Krishna Sondhi decided to enter a well-deserved retirement in 2008 and hand the reigns over to the capable hands of Stylus Publishing. Stylus was a great fit – it’s also a small publishing company but also distributes books on international development for publishers around the world including Practical Action and IDRC. We’re still a distinct entity with our own unique mission, list and staff: it’s just that we now have the ability to reach more people as an imprint of Stylus.

Why does it take so long to publish a book once I send in my completed manuscript?

It takes a lot of folks to polish that Word doc you send to us into the final glossy book that arrives many months later. Each book gets a cover designer, typesetter, proofreader, indexer, copyeditor, and an in-house production manager to shuttle it around to everyone. Some tasks take more time than others, but 2 weeks here, 4 weeks there ends up adding up to about 6 months. Much of the communication and editing is done without putting pen to paper these days using digital methods such as Adobe Acrobat’s markup tools.