Stanford University Press (SUP) is the scholarly book publisher of Stanford University. Founded in 1892, it is among the oldest academic presses in the United States and was the first university press established on the West Coast. Today it publishes roughly 130 new titles a year - scholarly monographs, serious trade books, and course-friendly short works - and keeps more than 3,500 titles in print. Since 1999 the press has operated as a division of Stanford University Libraries, and it is a member of the Association of University Presses.

Unlike most publishers covered on SciSpace, SUP does not run a journal program: there are no journals, no article processing charges, and no article submission portal. Publishing with SUP means proposing and writing a book. This guide covers the press's lists and imprints, how open access works for its digital projects, what peer review looks like for a book manuscript, and how to submit a proposal.

SUP acquires in a focused set of fields and runs three specialized imprints alongside its core scholarly list. Match your project to the right route before contacting an editor.

• Scholarly monographs across the humanities and social sciences - particularly strong in history, anthropology, sociology, political science, literary and cultural studies, religion, and area studies (Middle East, Asia, Jewish studies).
• Law and society titles, including legal history and socio-legal research.
• Business and economics through Stanford Business Books.
• Trade nonfiction through Redwood Press and short-form works through Stanford Briefs.
• Born-digital scholarship through SUP Digital: interactive, web-based projects that cannot be expressed as print books, peer reviewed to the same standard as the print list.

SUP does not publish journals, conference proceedings series, or textbooks as a primary business, and it does not charge authors publication fees for standard books.

Because SUP is a book publisher, the APC-based open-access economics of journal publishing do not apply. What authors should know:

Always confirm current terms with your acquisitions editor; book contracts are negotiated individually.

SUP follows standard university-press practice: proposals and manuscripts are evaluated by the acquiring editor, sent to expert external readers (typically two), and revised in response to reader reports. Final approval rests with a faculty editorial board, which safeguards the scholarly imprimatur of the Stanford name. Expect the full cycle - proposal, reader reports, revisions, board approval - to take several months. Trade titles under Redwood Press follow a lighter editorial process appropriate to general-audience books.

1. Identify the right acquisitions editor. SUP lists editors by subject area at sup.org/authors - proposals go directly to the editor for your field, not to a central portal.
2. Prepare a proposal package. Typically: a project description, annotated table of contents, comparison to existing books, target audience, manuscript length and timeline, your CV, and one or two sample chapters.
3. Send it by email. There is no online submission system; editors respond to promising proposals, usually within a few weeks.
4. Peer review and board approval. If the editor takes the project forward, the manuscript goes to external readers and then to the faculty editorial board.
5. Format your manuscript. SUP follows the Chicago Manual of Style for most lists (APA is common for business and social-science titles); SciSpace formatting templates for Stanford University Press are available at scispace.com/formats/stanford-press.

In April 2019 Stanford's provost proposed ending the university subsidy to the press, prompting a high-profile protest from faculty and the wider academic community. The university reinstated funding for 2019-20, and the press has continued publishing at full strength as a division of Stanford University Libraries. The episode is worth knowing about because it is the press's most-covered news story of recent years - not a reflection of its editorial standing, which remains strong.

SUP adheres to the norms of the Association of University Presses: external peer review, faculty editorial-board oversight, transparent contracts, and standard academic-integrity practices around plagiarism, permissions, and corrections. Authors are expected to secure permissions for third-party material and to disclose funding sources where relevant.