Many of the same considerations for scholarly publishing that apply to journals also apply to books, with the following qualifiers that may affect scholarly impact:
- Time to publication is typically much longer for books (up to a year or more from final submission of the manuscript).
- Cost of publication is much higher, whether subsidized by the publisher, the author, or another organization.
- Books and book chapters don't always go through the same outside peer review process that journal articles do.
- Books and book chapters take longer to receive citations than articles, so more time is needed to gauge impact.
- It is often difficult to get accurate citation counts for individual chapters if they have different authors, unless the chapters are indexed separately.
- Books available in electronic editions may be more likely to be acquired by some libraries, depending on acquisition policies.
- Some disciplines, particularly the humanities, may require a monograph for promotion & tenure review; it is less common in the sciences and social sciences.
You may want to talk to your publisher about their review process, electronic publishing options, marketing plan, indexing arrangements, publication agreement terms (including options for open access or shared copyright), and what statistics they track for their publications.
Keep in mind that publishers are typically more interested in sales numbers and demographics than in "usage" statistics, citations, or scholarly impact metrics.
For more information on how to find scholarly impact metrics for scholarly books, see the "Determine Your Scholarly Impact" section of this guide.
