If you are producing work for the site, please read the below:

Style

As noted in How to Submit, we run essays based on reading, not book reports. For reviews, we want you to synthesize the book(s) or other art work (tell us what it’s about; give context about it and the author; pull out the most interesting details and quotes) but then springboard off it to make an argument of your own about the topic (i.e engage with the point/theme, saying something original) so that readers learn something new about China or the Sinophone world. It’s OK to evaluate the book or art work, but with substantive engagement with its content. Think NYRB — informed, insightful, with personal flair and a “smart casual” writing style.

Conflicts

You should not review a book if you are close friends with the author, are thanked in the acknowledgements, or have a close relationship with the publisher. Let us know if you blurbed the book (which doesn’t necessarily disqualify you), or any other potential conflict. It is fine to mention a book that falls into the above categories in a broader context, or to recommend it in a list, with due disclosure as appropriate.

Diligence

If you review a book, we expect you to read it. We also expect you to familiarize yourself with the author’s biography and other works. Quotes must be double checked against the final book (not ARC). We expect you to research topics that you write on, and provide sourcing or links for statements of fact. For profiles, we expect you to interview the subject, familiarize yourself with their work and life, and talk to at least one other individual about them.

Plagiarism

You should not plagiarize work in any form, or infringe on any other intellectual property rights. Quotations must be clearly marked and credited. The same goes for self-plagiarism. Work written for us should not have appeared elsewhere, including in a modified form that shares major similarities, without our permission. In all cases, we appreciate you sending us links to your and others’ previous writings on the same topic.

Deadlines

Work should be delivered on or by the agreed deadline, within the agreed word count (which we tend to give as a range, as we have flexibility online; going a few hundred words above is fine, as it can be cut or run at longer length; filing less than the minimum word count is less than ideal). Deadline extensions are generally forthcoming: just ask! But don’t let deadline day go by in silence; write in to let us know if you need more time.

Formatting

Don’t worry too much about this, but if you want to make our lives easier, please deliver:

• A word doc, or a link to a Google doc.
• U.S. spelling, AP style, Em dashes. No double spaces or extra spaces at the end of paragraphs.
• For main book(s), provide Title: Subtitle (linked to publisher page) by Author (Publisher, Month, Year).
• For all other titles mentioned, provide Title (linked to publisher page) with (publication year) after.
• No need for page numbers after quotes, or other academic reference footnotes.
• For special Chinese words (e.g. names, terms) give the 简体中文 in brackets after.
• Block quotes from the book under review are welcome.
• Image ideas (copyright free) are welcome, but please link to/note the source.
• Include a 3-4 line bio (links welcome) and small headshot at the end.

Revisions

Edits will come back as a separate Google doc. Contributors should make themselves available for rounds of revisions after submitting their work, before giving final approval for the finished form. Please note there is an editing queue, and only one core editor, so you may have to wait some weeks or months before we get to your piece, but endeavor to minimize the wait.

Withdrawals

After a piece is submitted, it should not be withdrawn. On closing edits, we will endeavor to publish it without too long a delay, and to indicate when that will be, but currently we have a long queue for some article categories, and there is no ‘expiry date’ after submitting. Please also bear in mind that scheduling changes can happen, due to time sensitivities. Once published, we can make corrections but cannot take down the piece unless there is a compelling concern.

Payment

The agreed fee will be paid on publication, within 15 business days or according to the limits of our payments platform (Rippling). For new contributors, we will provide a link to upload your bank and tax details into that platform, when edits are closed.

Kill fees

If a submitted work is commissioned but not published, we will pay a kill fee of one quarter of the agreed rate if spiked after the first draft (or rough sketches for illustrations), and one half if spiked after the second pass (or color draft for illustrations). If a commissioned work is not submitted, partially submitted, withdrawn after submission, diverges significantly from the commission or breaches our standards as above, there will be no kill fee.

Expenses

We do not reimburse for expenses incurred in the course of writing a piece, unless otherwise agreed specifically in writing. We can however arrange for publishers to send review copies of books, digital or hard copy — just request one from us.

Competition

If you are commissioned to produce a work with us, you should not offer it or a modified version of it (i.e. in the same format or genre) to other publications. Material from research conducted for us, such as quotes from interviews, should not be re-used elsewhere without credit to our original publication.

Copyright

Contributors retain copyright for their own work, but should request permission for re-use or cross-posting (almost always forthcoming, with a credit to our original publication), and wait one month after publication to do so. We will request permission for any re-publication requests beyond our website.

Contributor status

All contributors are independent contractors, not employees. They are not entitled to benefits, and are responsible for reporting income to applicable government agencies. We do not carry liability on behalf of contributors.

Contracts

We can provide a very simple contract on request, with the deadline and fee you have been given on email. For simplicity, we prefer that your reading this page, and agreeing to the deadline and fee in our email, constitutes that understanding. If you or your agent prefer to draft your own contract, we can also sign that.

Corrections

If you want us to make a change to your article after publication, we can make small revisions (words here and there) directly, just let us know. If it’s a larger change or a significant error that is being corrected, we will note the correction as a footnote.

Breaches

We reserve the right to reject, spike, correct or take down any work that breaches these understandings. Write to info@chinabooksreview.com with any questions. ∎