One of the largest and most respected university presses, MIT Press was founded in 1962 and continues to be a leading publisher of books at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design.
MIT Press is open not to direct submissions of proposals, but to inquiries sent first, via post or email to the appropriate editor. The inquiry should “describe the project, the author, and the reasons for writing the book- in a few paragraphs”. They are not open to direct submissions of manuscripts, sample chapters or attachments with images. If they are interested in learning more, they will ask for that information.
That being said, if you are interested in working with them or other academic presses, it is still important to have a proposal ready to go on request, and they do have specific guidelines about that here. At the bottom of that page, they have excellent reading suggestions for potential authors.
The list of editors and their subject areas is available here. As with most academic presses, you should not query unless you are a qualified expert in the appropriate field. As appropriate to MIT, most but not all of the editors focus on work intersecting with science or math.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2024 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
