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Oxford University Press, recent experiences?

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 13–A COUPLE OF COMMENTS WERE CAUGHT IN THE SPAM FILTER, AND HAVE NOW APPEARED

A number of readers have wondered why Peter Momtchiloff is leaving.  I do not know his reasons, he only told me he is not, at present, taking another full-time job.  30 years is a long time to work for any employer, of course.  Still, some folks have speculated, not implausibly, that changes in the academic publishing houses, including OUP, may have made the job less appealing than it once was.  One senior philosopher, for example, shared this:

Production on [my book] was appalling. Over two hundred catches on the proofs, with many repeated errors on the same point, often accompanied by "it's fixed and you can't review it again."

Of course that's the luck of the draw with the subcontractor you get, but marketing is in house, and they were equally appalling.  As usual, I filled out the tedious form about where to send it, and only after I checked with a couple of folks, and asked OUP why they didn't get it, did they say they hadn't sent it anywhere.  Apparently, they just send around a "newsletter" with a list of titles.  I had to beg them to send a few copies around.  Basically their marketing is non existent, but condescending.  

I can imagine it must have been tiresome for Peter M. to field complaints about problems like this.  I do think it's clear OUP marketing is not as good as Princeton U Press (or Routledge, the other one I know well), but I will say the copy-editing on my 2019 Moral Psychology with Nietzsche with OUP was excellent.  But I've heard similar complaints to that of my correspondent from others over the last couple of years–and more complaints recently than in the past, although these are just anecdotes.

Perhaps readers might share their recent experiences with the Press.   Even if you don't use your full name, please use a valid email address, so I can confirm the authenticity of the reports.  I'm especially curious whether authors with long experience with OUP think things are noticeably worse now.  Please also note whether your experience was with OUP in Oxford (Peter M's terrain) or OUP in New York (Peter Ohlin's domain).  Also, if you weren't publishing in philosophy but another academic field, please note that as well.

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15 responses to “Oxford University Press, recent experiences?”

  1. Tenured professor at an R1

    I have published two books with OUP in the past few years, a monograph with the US office and an edited collection with the UK one. I had no problem with the copyediting in either case — indeed, the copyeditor responsible for the production of my monograph did an incredibly good job, very thoughtful and meticulous and also quite easy to communicate with.

    My experience with their marketing, however, was about the same as Brian's correspondent: OUP seemed to do approximately nothing to promote the book in either case, despite my taking the time to fill out that stupid form with a wide range of suggestions. This was incredibly frustrating.

    (Having said this, my experience with OUP was much better in both cases than the absolutely horrible experience I had working with Wiley-Blackwell on a textbook.)

    Speaking for myself, the biggest concern I have about OUP arises from the way they handled the recent books by Alex Byrne and Holly Lawford-Smith, as well as the collection of interviews with Richard Marshall that was apparently scotched due to controversy of its interview with (iirc) Kathleen Stock. I wrote to both Peter O. and Peter M. after the news about Alex's book, and did not a sufficient response from either one. This, coupled with growing discomfort over the cost of so many academic titles, has me thinking hard about finding an open-access publisher for my next book.

    Of course, the fact that I am publishing this comment anonymously is evidence of the difficult situation that we academics are in with respect to these presses ……

    Reply
  2. Paul Schofield

    I published a monograph with OUP New York in 2021, and Lucy Randall was the editor. The experience was very positive. Reports came in when they were promised, with plenty of communication the one time something was late. Lucy was helpful and response both in the early stages (I hadn't written a book before and didn't know how any of it worked) and later on. Copy-editing was fine. Everything came out on time. I have no complaints I would happily publish there again.

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  3. Neil Feit

    I recently published a monograph with OUP in New York, earlier this year, and Peter Ohlin was the editor. I have the same concerns as "Tenured professor at an R1" above but, as far as the production of my book went, I was very pleased. Maybe I got really lucky but the copy-editing was excellent and quick, and people at OUP and the subcontractor's offices were professional and responsive.

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  4. David Livingstone Smith

    My experience publishing On Inhumanity with OUP was uniformly positive, apart from marketing, which seemed rather weak.

    Reply
  5. OUP NY Author

    I recently published two books with OUP New York, working with Lucy Randall, and she has been a model of professionalism and good sense throughout. She's a Senior Commissioning Editor in Philosophy at OUP New York, so it's no longer accurate to refer to OUP New York as "Peter Ohlin's domain." I now have a third book under contract with OUP New York and look forward to working with Lucy again.

    OUP Marketing has, indeed, been spotty and not so professional at times. For instance, I listed NDPR as a review venue for my last book, but when I contacted NDPR months later, they said they had never received a review copy from OUP. But OUP Marketing is a separate department, so I don't blame Lucy for their lapses.

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  6. Brian

    I didn't have a great experience with Momters. One problem is that he studied philosophy, and a little learning can be a tiresome thing.
    You don't want your editor issuing philosophical objections – there are plenty of other people to do that!

    Reply
  7. oldster

    "Momters"? Good to see that the Oxford "-er" is still generative.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_%22-er%22

    Reply
  8. Early career philosopher

    I published my first monograph with OUP (Oxford) within the last three years. My experience with both production and marketing was the same as your initial correspondent's.

    Reply
  9. Sam Clark

    OUP published my book in 2021. Like others, I found the editing high quality but the marketing pretty non-existent. I did get a very nice cover based on my suggestion for an image, though.

    Reply
  10. Hilary Kornblith

    I've published four books with OUP: in 2002, 2012, 2014, and 2021. The first three were through the Oxford office; the last one, for reasons having nothing to do with any dissatisfaction with that office, through New York. In every case, I had excellent experience throughout: first-rate copy editing and production, as well as extremely supportive relations with the commissioning editor. I can't really comment on marketing. I've never understood a thing about that.

    Reply
  11. Sebastian Lutz

    I have no inside experience, but I'm sorry for Steven French for OUP's editing on /There Are No Such Things as Theories/: On pages 35-37, for instance, all formulas involving '∈' have their relata typeset as subscripts, a quote on page 232 becomes right-aligned halfway through, footnote 11 on page 36 makes no sense in its context, and typos abound (e.g., '(Tarksian) structures' on page 38, 'epsitemnically' in footnote 34 on page 72, and my favorite, 'Kepler186f-ian' on page 30). My copy also appears to be inkjet printed, which regarding quality (though thankfully not cost) is about the last step down before using potatoes.

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  12. Luke William Hunt

    I published a monograph with OUP New York in 2019 (Peter Ohlin was the editor), and just finished a new one with Lucy Randall as editor. It was a pleasure to work with both and my overall experience was incredibly positive in each case. The project managers and contractors maintained good communication, did excellent work, and stuck to the publishing schedule. Although I have no complaints, I will say that with a tiny bit more marketing those books could have tuned me into the next John Grisham.

    Reply
  13. overseas

    I'm a bit puzzled by the comments about OUP marketing. Not long ago, there was an online discussion on the Other Blog about whether OUP has some kind of "prestige monopoly." The answer was pretty clearly no, but a reason offered for the preponderance of OUP books that get reviewed, as vs. those of other presses, was that OUP sends out review copies to a lot of places and other presses do not. Is this just false?

    Reply
  14. Steven French

    Thanks Sebastian. Fwiw my experience of the production side of things with that book was indeed pretty dire – e.g. I was sent the proofs the day before Xmas Eve and instructed to return the corrections the day after Boxing Day. I swallowed the obvious Anglo-Saxon expletive & told them I intended to spend Xmas with family & friends, not marking up proofs. After I complained Peter M. apologised but even after I returned the corrected copy, typos remained as you’ve noted.

    My experience with my latest book with OUP (plug: A Phenomenological Approach to Quantum Mechanics) was better, although, again on the production side, they were slow to respond to my queries and concerns and demanded corrections pretty close to the publication wire. I’ve yet to read through the published manuscript as I don’t want to spoil the hols spotting typos!

    My overall feeling is that it is the outsourcing that is a problem, although the OUP office could do more to exercise some form of control over the process.

    Reply
  15. Gwen Bradford

    I published my first book with OUP UK and I had a great experience with Momtchiloff. I'll miss working with him.

    However, like others, I had a frustrating experience with the copy-editing. Several rounds back and forth, new errors appearing each time, and, to my horror and embarrassment, in the printed book. (Lucky for me, I was able to make corrections in subsequent printings. But still, oof.)

    I've noticed as well that a lot of OUP's "print on demand" paperbacks are poorly put together – weirdly creased pages, poorly glued binding, or other errors. For example, I received a copy of G. E. Moore's _Ethics_ from the British Moral Philosophers series where Moore's name is spelled M-O-R-E along the spine. I kid you not!

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