Margaret

Margaret

Editor at PragProg

Call for new PragProg Proposals Committee Members

Hello DevTalk Community!

Once again, The Pragmatic Programmers are looking for developers who’d like to help shape the future of our book lineup. Our Proposals Committee is a group that reviews incoming book proposals and offers recommendations. While this is an unpaid role, we recognize contributors on our About Us page.

Our goal is to provide constructive feedback to prospective authors. Even if a proposal isn’t the right fit for PragProg, we want to ensure the author walks away with valuable insights—whether that means refining their pitch for another publisher or strengthening their approach for self-publishing.

What we look for in feedback:

When reviewing a proposal, we encourage committee members to consider questions like:

  • Who is the audience?
    • Does the author clearly describe the ideal reader?
    • Will the book engage novices without frustrating them?
  • What is the author’s tone?
    • Is the writing engaging and approachable?
    • Does it feel like a tour guide or more like a roadmap?
  • Does the book solve real challenges for developers?
    • Does it address key pain points in the topic area?
    • Could a developer easily find this information elsewhere?
  • How does it compare to existing books?
    • Is it too broad or too niche?
    • Does it provide a unique perspective?
  • Is the author connected to the intended audience?
    • Can they actively engage with the developer community?

You don’t need to answer these questions directly—just keep them in mind when reviewing a proposal. The best feedback comes from your own perspective and expertise. We do ask that each review includes a recommendation: Yes (with reasons), Maybe (with suggested improvements), or No (with constructive feedback).

:bulb: It helps if you’ve read a few PragProg books and are familiar with our hands-on, practical style.

If you’re interested in joining the Proposals Committee, send a message to margaret.eldridge@pragprog.com, and I’ll send over a sample proposal to review.

Feel free to post any questions here or reach out via email.

Thanks for considering this opportunity to help shape the future of PragProg books!

Most Liked

alvinkatojr

alvinkatojr

Hello Margaret,

This looks interesting.

I’m curious, how long in terms of word/page count is a typical proposal? And do you have timelines for when proposals should be reviewed?

Thanks!

Margaret

Margaret

Editor at PragProg

Great questions, @alvinkatojr.

Proposals are typically 2 to 3 pages in length, with a writing sample of 7 to 10 pages. We ask committee members to respond within 1 week.

alvinkatojr

alvinkatojr

Thanks for the reply @Margaret! I’ve just send you an email.

Where Next?

Popular General Dev topics Top

Devtalk
Reading something? Working on something? Planning something? Changing jobs even!? If you’re up for sharing, please let us know what you’...
1036 18873 386
New
AstonJ
Thought it might be worth having a dedicated thread for standing desk treadmills (for those interested, here’s our general thread on stan...
New
AstonJ
Just been adding some more portals, currently have the following languages: Apache Groovy C C# C++ Clojure CoffeeScript Crystal ...
New
AstonJ
The dev world doesn’t sit still, in fact it is probably one of the fastest paced industries around - meaning to stay current we are conti...
New
jss
What do people think about Data-Oriented Programming, like this book tackles? https://www.manning.com/books/data-oriented-programming Ho...
New
jamiedumont
This is all going to be a bit hand-wavey and straight off the top of my head, so bear with me, but it’s a thought/debate that’s been ratt...
New
jaeyson
Hi all, does anybody tried Shankar Devy’s Phoenix Inside Out book series? Also, will there be a big difference (aside from context prior...
New
New
AstonJ
I’ve been watching Prag Dave’s Elixir course and I noticed he uses tree: Tree is a recursive directory listing program that produces a ...
New
OvermindDL1
Maybe we need a thread of hosting providers we like and for what reasons. I personally like OVH, they are a very low level host (they re...
New

Other popular topics Top

siddhant3030
I’m thinking of buying a monitor that I can rotate to use as a vertical monitor? Also, I want to know if someone is using it for program...
New
DevotionGeo
I know that -t flag is used along with -i flag for getting an interactive shell. But I cannot digest what the man page for docker run com...
New
New
AstonJ
Just done a fresh install of macOS Big Sur and on installing Erlang I am getting: asdf install erlang 23.1.2 Configure failed. checking ...
New
AstonJ
Do the test and post your score :nerd_face: :keyboard: If possible, please add info such as the keyboard you’re using, the layout (Qw...
New
AstonJ
In case anyone else is wondering why Ruby 3 doesn’t show when you do asdf list-all ruby :man_facepalming: do this first: asdf plugin-upd...
New
First poster: joeb
The File System Access API with Origin Private File System. WebKit supports new API that makes it possible for web apps to create, open,...
New
CommunityNews
A Brief Review of the Minisforum V3 AMD Tablet. Update: I have created an awesome-minisforum-v3 GitHub repository to list information fo...
New
AstonJ
This is a very quick guide, you just need to: Download LM Studio: https://lmstudio.ai/ Click on search Type DeepSeek, then select the o...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Fight complexity and reclaim the original spirit of agility by learning to simplify how you develop software. The result: a more humane a...
New