Publish a book

Publishing a book is a significant milestone in a researcher’s career, and can increase your visibility, credibility, and recognition. When you publish a book, you can explore ideas and concepts in depth, and elaborate on your findings and recommendations. 

What does it take to publish your work as a book? Discover our guide covering the various stages and requirements, as well as tips and advice, templates, and more. 

Book publishing essentials

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Step-by-step guide to book publishing

1. Develop your idea

  • See what already exists in your field and think about how you can offer a fresh perspective.

2. Research your options

3. Submit your proposal

  • If your idea is considered, you'll need to submit a proposal. If further information is required, you'll need to submit a comprehensive proposal. Read our tips for submitting your proposal here.
  • You’ll need to include a detailed description, intended audience, co-author names and the expected timeframe.

4. Proposal review

  • Your proposal will be reviewed by our editors and may also be externally reviewed.
  • This usually takes a few weeks.
  • If your proposal is rejected, we'll give you feedback.
  • If your proposal is accepted, we'll ask you to sign a publishing contract. Learn more about contracts.

5. Consider open access

  • If you plan to publish your book open access, then you'll need to pay a fee.
  • Funding may be available from your organisation or a government group. Get help with funding.

6. Submit your manuscript

7. Manuscript review

  • Your manuscript will be reviewed by 1 or more experts.
  • This takes an average of 60 days.
  • Our team will let you know if your manuscript is ready to publish, or if they have any feedback to share.

8. Proofreading and publishing

  • We'll send you a draft of your book with 10 days to proofread.
  • We can be flexible around your availability.
  • Learn more about the post-submission process when we begin producing your book.

9. After publication

  • We'll distribute your book through a variety of channels and campaigns for the greatest reach and impact. 
  • Your book will be featured in our online shop.
  • Learn more about promoting your book.

It usually takes 2 to 6 months to produce your book once we've accepted your final manuscript.

Open access publishing

Our books can be fully open access, paid-for or hybrid, with a mixture of open access and paid chapters.

Publishing your book open access makes it more visible and discoverable:

  • Free for readers to access
  • Reach 61% more countries
  • 2.4x more citations
  • 10x more downloads
  • 10x more online mentions

It's free to publish a paid-for book, but there are fees to cover the cost of open access publishing. Take a look at each publishing brand's guidelines to learn more.

Watch this short video to learn more about publishing an open access book

Get help with funding

Many organisations require you to publish your research open access. It’s worth checking with your supervisor and colleagues to understand your organisation’s approach. They may be able to cover your open access fees.

We also offer a range of book agreements to support authors with open access fees.

To find out if your fees are covered, take a look at our funding agreements.

Choose where to publish

Springer Nature has a family of book publishing brands that cover a wide range of topics: Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, Apress, Atlantic Press, and J.B. Metzler.

L_brandstrip_springerSpringer publishes over 2,900 journals and 300,000 book in English and German, across science, technology, medicine, humanities and business.

Learn more about Springer

Contact a Springer editor

L_brandstrip_palgrave_macmillanPalgrave Macmillan is a world-class publisher of books and journals with more than 175 years’ experience in the humanities, business and social sciences.

Learn more about Palgrave Macmillan

Contact a Palgrave Macmillan editor


Atlantis Press © Springer Nature 202Atlantis Press is a global open access publisher of scientific, technical and medical content. Atlantis Press has launched and developed several book series containing more than 120 books (co-published with Springer Nature) and 17 proceedings series with over 1,200 proceedings.

Learn more about Atlantis Press

Contact an Atlantis Press editor


L_brandstrip_apressApress focuses purely on technology titles and is best for meeting the information needs of IT professionals, developers, and tech enthusiasts worldwide.

Learn more about Apress

Contact an Apress editor


L_brandstrip_jbmetzlerJ.B. Metzler covers arts, media and languages and publishes only in German. It is one of the most important humanities publishers, producing respected and acclaimed reference works, handbooks and textbooks.

Learn more about J.B. Metzler and contact an editor

Get support

We offer editing, translation, data presentation and formatting services to help you at each step.