Any academics or publishers out there? question about book proposals

[Eggfrog]

Not a feminist topic sorry, but I've noticed a few academics on here

When you submit a book proposal do you generally send it to one publisher at a time and wait for the response? I would like to target 2-3 publishers but am thinking this could be bad form.
I'm in a very specialist field so it's possible that the publishers have reviewers in common too. Not ideal. But then neither is waiting 2-3 months for a potential reply

What do others do?

I'd send to all. They might not even get back to you for 6 months and you'd waste a lot of time waiting for them.

If they want it, they won't be offended you sent it other places as well.

Probably depends on each publishers policy. Not sure about book proposals, but when I submit journal articles I normally have to declare that the work is not under consideration elsewhere

I work for a publisher, I'd say it's not a problem to send it to all three but be upfront about it - if we decide to take it further something we actually pay the reviewers so it's a waste of a lot of time and money if you're then going to publish with a competitor. If it were me I would contact my favourite and say that you're keen to publish with them but will be sending it to xxx publisher if you don't hear anything by xxx date. It might get you a quick decision if they like the look of it!

It seems to be different for journal articles - one submission at a time - and books where you can send to more than one publishers.

Practically it also depends on what you have. If you have just the proposal with brief chapter outlines it's more reasonable to send it to numerous publishers as considering it is limited work for reviewers. If you have the entire manuscript go for one publisher at a time as it is a lot of work for reviewers. In a specialist field with limited reviewers people will get annoyed if they are asked to review the same book for numerous publishers at the same time and with no revisions based on their original comments.

Also it's worth taking as targeted an approach as possible to choosing a publisher. If you are not pressed for time it might be worth going to the top publisher for your field (OUP?) even if they take a long time to get back to you (in my field OUP take 1-2 years to make a decision) as you will gain in prestige by a final acceptance. Another approach is to find a publisher who already has a commissioned series in your area and argue that your volume would be a useful addition to the others already in print. This gets you a 'foot through the door' and the commissioning editor will be a specialist in your general area and more likely to appreciate the merits of your volume.

Thanks everyone.I thought the replies might all be no its bad form so this is helpful