Cornell University Press is a non-profit scholarly publisher owned and subsidized by Cornell University. Established in 1869, it was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States - although it lay dormant from 1884 until its re-establishment in 1930, so Johns Hopkins University Press (1878) holds the claim to longest continuous operation. Cornell UP was also the first university press to publish paperback books, in 1955.

Unlike the large journal publishers covered elsewhere on SciSpace, Cornell University Press is book-primary: it produces roughly 150 new scholarly titles a year - monographs, trade nonfiction, and regional books - plus two journals, New York History and Indonesia. If you are considering Cornell UP, you are most likely preparing a book proposal, so this guide focuses on the book workflow: choosing the right imprint, how proposals and peer review work, open access via Cornell Open, and where the Press's journals fit in.

The Press operates seven imprints, each with its own editorial focus. Matching your manuscript to the right one is the first step before contacting an acquisitions editor.

• Books (~150/year) - the core output: peer-reviewed scholarly monographs, edited volumes, course-adoptable titles, and trade nonfiction across anthropology, Asian studies, biological sciences, classics, history, industrial and labor relations, literary criticism, medieval studies, natural history, philosophy, politics and international relations, and regional New York interest.
• Journals (2) - New York History, the long-running journal of New York State history now published by the Press, and Indonesia, a semi-annual journal on Indonesian culture, history, government, economy, and society published for Cornell's Southeast Asia Program since 1966.
• Distribution services - the Press has also served as a North American distributor for partner scholarly presses; its own domestic distribution is handled through Longleaf Services.

Note a common confusion: the preprint server arXiv is operated by Cornell University (through Cornell Tech and the university library), not by Cornell University Press. The Press has no role in arXiv submissions.

Cornell University Press makes a growing list of its backlist and frontlist titles freely available as open-access ebooks through Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open), a portal spanning 24+ subject areas from anthropology to urban studies.

There are no APCs in the journal-publisher sense: costs for OA book editions are negotiated per title with funders and institutions. If you hold an OA mandate from a funder, raise it with your acquisitions editor early - and check the current arrangements with the Press, as funding programs change.

University-press book publishing differs from journal submission in important ways:

1. Proposal first. You approach the acquisitions editor for your subject area with a proposal - typically a project description, chapter outline, comparable titles, your CV, and one or two sample chapters. Full unsolicited manuscripts are not the norm.
2. Editorial screening. The acquisitions editor evaluates fit with the list; initial responses usually take weeks.
3. External peer review. Promising projects go to specialist readers for double-anonymized or signed review of the proposal or full manuscript - expect a few months.
4. Faculty board approval. Like other university presses, final approval to contract rests with an editorial board of Cornell faculty.
5. Contract, revisions, production. After board approval you sign a royalty-based contract (authors are not charged publication fees), revise per reader reports, and enter copyediting and production - commonly 9-12 months from final manuscript to published book.

• Books: identify the acquisitions editor for your discipline on the Press's website and send a proposal following their guidelines. Prepare the manuscript in Chicago Manual of Style - SciSpace's Cornell UP formatting templates at scispace.com/formats/cornell-press can help.
• New York History: submissions go through the journal's editorial team (editors based at the University of Maryland, the New York State Museum, and the Office of the State Historian); see the journal's page for current instructions.
• Indonesia: submit scholarly articles, translations, or reviews per the SEAP journal's author guidelines.

As a mission-driven university press subsidized by Cornell University, the Press follows standard scholarly-publishing ethics: external peer review before contract, faculty-board oversight, and Chicago-style source documentation. It is not a COPE member (COPE membership is journal-centric and the Press is book-primary), but its practices align with Association of University Presses norms. Questions about permissions, rights, and reuse are handled by the Press's rights department at Sage House in Ithaca.