Description
We are inviting individuals and project teams to submit proposals for experimental, long-form scholarly book projects.
As part of the COPIM project, COPIM’s experimental publishing group published three experimental book pilot projects in collaboration with authors, designers, coders and tool providers, documented on the COPIM pubpub. We are delighted to announce a second round of experimental book publishing pilots as part of the Open Book Futures project (OBP) starting in May 2023.
In the autumn of 2023, we will launch a call for three experimental publication projects open to individuals looking to collaborate and to already formed project teams of authors, publishers, Open Source technology and software providers, developers, librarians, and designers.
If you already have ideas for a potential book project, we’d love to learn more about it anytime via a short email outlining the project and any partners. If you apply as an individual author, we might be able to connect you to a publisher and might have suggestions for which platform or tool might be suitable for your project.
Leading up to the call, please email Janneke Adema ([email protected]) and Julien McHardy ([email protected]) with questions, proposals or if you want to be notified when the call goes up.
Book projects will have to be published by April 2026. Book pilot projects will be supported by Open Book Futures’ Experimental Book Publishing working group, which consists of scholars, developers, editors, designers, and publishers, all experts in experimental publishing. Pilots will also receive funding (up to £8-15K, depending on the project’s needs) to support labour, design and development costs. These costs will be funded via the Open Book Futures Collective grant scheme. The funding scheme is still being developed, and we will share assessment criteria and processes as part of the call.
In the spirit of developing open infrastructures for experimental book publication, we will document pilot projects to allow other presses and authors to adapt workflows, guidelines, infrastructures and best practices.
Our Experimental Publishing Compendium offers a selection of tools, books and practices for experimental publishing, our Book Contain Multitudes Report expands further on the potential of experimental scholarly books, and our project blog documents the previous round of experimental book publishing pilots.