Take account of the word count stipulated by your editor. The chapter should not exceed the agreed length. Figures and tables should be included in the word count with each figure counting as 500 words and each table as 300 words.

If you think you may miss this, then please contact your editor as soon as possible to discuss the implications. 
Please also be aware that this deadline refers to delivery of the whole chapter and that it won’t be possible to make more than very minor changes to the files once you have delivered them. We need to receive all the chapters at one time so be aware that if you are late in delivering your material you will be delaying the whole book.

Please check with your editor which referencing style you should use.

If your editor has provided you with a list of spelling conventions and/or other style instructions please adhere to it. It will improve the readability of the book if it looks like a coherent whole. 

If you are unsure about these points please check with your editor.

This is a contractual agreement between you and the book’s editor. Please ensure that you sign the agreement and return it to your editor promptly. 

Today readers and researchers discover books through a myriad of online search engines, websites, databases and indexes.
Please consider the key terms that you think interested readers will use in literature searches and incorporate them into the chapter title, abstract and key words in an appropriate way.  This will help researchers find your work and increase readership and citations.


Researchers using online databases often first discover a chapter of a book before discovering the book itself.  The chapter title should make sense in isolation.  For example, it is better to have ‘Introduction to Small Business Economics’ than merely ‘Introduction’ as the book’s first chapter.  

A good chapter title is concise and gives a clear indication of what the chapter is about.


We require an abstract of up to 200 words and a list of up to 6 key words/terms for your chapter(s).  This is a requirement for the chapter to be indexed by Google Scholar. This information is included in the book’s metadata and has an important impact on the visibility of individual chapters in online searches as well as the discoverability of the book as a whole.

For each chapter please supply a chapter specific abstract, keywords and the chapter author(s) ORCID number(s) at the head of the chapter file, following this format:

Title of chapter

Author names in full 

Abstract: This is the abstract for Chapter X in this Made Up Book. It should feature no more than 200 words explaining the chapter, for readers, potential readers, librarians and other bookbuyers as well as for metadata purposes. The abstract should relate to this specific chapter and its content, scope and themes. Abstracts over length will be edited down by our copyeditors.

Keywords: Capital Letters; Semi-colon Separating Each Word/Phrase; Maximum of Six Words or Terms

Author ORCID i.d. numbers: please list these in the order of the author names above, separated by commas

Maths should be prepared using Word's Equation Editor software in your manuscript Word files. Using Word's Equation Editor software, the tools are already in the Word toolbar.

Distinguish carefully between superior and subscript characters and use italic type for any characters to be set in italic. Equations should be numbered consecutively within chapters. Please send a PDF of your chapter with maths so this shows clearly how the maths should look.

More Information

Update April 2024. Images also now require Alt text and (in the case of complex tables, short table summaries). To find out why and for advice on how to prepare and supply Alt text and table summaries please click here.

Before including these, please think about what each is adding to the reader’s understanding of the material (particularly if you have taken photos yourself). A photograph that does not look entirely professional can cheapen the look and feel of the book. Over-use of figures and photos can be distracting to the overall message.

Figures, graphs, maps and photographs that you submit to us must adhere to the following criteria. This ensures that the images that we publish in our books are legible, professional and of high quality. 

We may have no option but to remove figures, graphs, maps and photographs that do not adhere to the 8 criteria below:

1. Do not copy and paste your figure into a Word document, instead provide them as a separate file in their original format.

• Copying and pasting images into Word files immediately reduces their quality. 
  
  

2. They must be submitted as an EPS, PNG, PDF or JPEG file. We will also accept Excel documents, Powerpoint and Illustrator files.

• We cannot accept any other formats, so please ensure that your figures, graphs, maps and photographs are saved accordingly

3. They must be submitted in greyscale only and should be sharp, clear and legible.

• Any colour coding should be distinguishable in shades of black, grey and white. Different patterns could also be used to distinguish between different sections. Use only up to 5 shades of grey as a maximum.

4. They should be at least 300dpi (dots per inch).

• The resolution of an image is critical to its quality in print. Images of at least 300dpi are considered high resolution and will look better in print. Please refer to the hyperlinked flowchart below for more information.

5. Their location in the chapters must be clearly indicated. All figures, graphs, maps and photographs must be given a title, number and caption. Please also ensure you acknowledge the source and make any necessary acknowledgments.

• Simply indicate a point in the chapters where the figure should appear. Most of our authors write ‘INSERT FIGURE x.x HERE’ in a large font. They must be numbered consecutively within chapters. The first number refers to the chapter number and the second to that figure's appearance within the chapter.

6. Photographs must not include recognisable faces of any person/persons unless prior permission has been obtained.

• GDPR restrictions clearly state that reproducing the image of a person without their permission is against the law. As such, we cannot reproduce these photographs in our books.
  
  

Copyright

Please refer to the Elgar copyright policy carefully regarding figures and photographs. Permission may be required.

Tables and boxes

Update April 2024. Images also now require Alt text and (in the case of complex tables, short table summaries). To find out why and for advice on how to prepare and supply Alt text and table summaries please click here.

Much like figures and photographs, the tables and boxes in your submitted chapter must adhere to our criteria. This ensures that the tables and boxes that we publish in our books are legible, professional and of high quality. 

We may have no option but to remove tables and boxes that do not adhere to our 7 criteria outlined below from your chapter. 

Tables and boxes must adhere to the following criteria: 

1. They must be set within the text where you want them to appear.

• The easiest way of doing this is to create the table using the Word Insert>Table tools in your manuscript file.

2. They must be amendable and any text must be editable. 

• Screenshots or images of tables/boxes that cannot be edited or manipulated will not be accepted.

3. They must be numbered consecutively within chapters and referred to within the text as Table 2.3, Box 4.1 etc.

• This is our house style and we will amend your numbering to match this style.

4. They must have their own title and caption.

• The title should summarise the content of the table. The caption can describe the table in more detail or reference any data
  that you consulted when creating the table if necessary.
  

6. Tables must not feature any shading. 

• We advise use of bold or italic to highlight different key areas in table text, and avoid highlighting the whole cell/row/column as this can look cluttered or be difficult to read

Live hyperlinks can be included in the ebook version of your book if the links are present in your submitted Word files. The easiest way to create a basic hyperlink in Word is to press ENTER or the SPACEBAR after you type the address of an existing webpage, such as www.e-elgar.co.uk. Word then automatically converts the address into a link. For more detailed information please click on the following link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-or-edit-a-hyperlink-5d8c0804-f998-4143-86b1-1199735e07bf

If you are concerned about link-rot (when links change, for various reasons and no longer point to the original or intended page/file) there are systems available which allow for future-proofing of your links. We would suggest you discuss the options with your librarian, who will know your institutional arrangements. 'Perma' is one such service and is free for academic use. Perma provides a new URL which you would use in the chapter to ensure that the record will be available regardless of the change to any web address/site.

For more information see: https://perma.cc/libraries. 

EEP has no affiliation with Perma.cc 

Deliver your files directly to your book editor, as the editor will wish to make their own checks and may wish to review the material before they collate the chapters and submit them to us.

Ensure that you have finished work on the chapter before you contemplate delivery of the material to your editor. 
Your book editor needs to deliver all the material to be included in the book to Elgar at the same time.  Once they have passed the files to us there will be no opportunity to make changes to the text other than to make minor copy-editing corrections.

If any of your material is under copyright to a third party (including your own work) you will need to provide documentation to your book editor confirming permissions has been granted to reuse the material. 

Please see our copyright guide in the Author Hub for more information on what material requires copyright permission.

All our edited books contain lists of contributors in a consistent format. 

Please check with your editor on the convention they have chosen, either:

• A brief affiliation only, or; 
• a short biographical paragraph, ideally a maximum of 80 words long.

Please check that your name appears exactly as you would like it to appear in the book and in exactly the same format in your chapter file.

1. The use of Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Claude to generate substantive content, such as the analysis of data or the development of written arguments, is not permitted.
2. If authors choose to use Assistive AI tools to assist in their research for a book, chapter, or article, they must disclose this in the manuscript and on submission. An author's final written text should be their own and reflect their own ideas, arguments, and conclusions, and for this reason AI and LLM Models may not be listed as an author.
3. The publisher reserves the right to verify the use of Generative AI and to reject manuscripts that violate this policy.
4. Use of AI should in no way invalidate the warranties the author provides in the publishing contract including ownership of copyright, originality and factual accuracy. It is worth bearing in mind that in highly specialised research areas Generative AI tools draw from a small number of published sources and there are real risks of unoriginality, plagiarism, copyright infringement and factual inaccuracy.
5. This policy does not refer to spell and grammar checking tools (such as Grammarly) which may be used without acknowledgement.