General information for prospective authors
After having prepared a dissertation within one of the LOT institutes, the author may wish to publish it in the LOT Dissertation Series. Any eligible author must first contact the PhD coordinator of the LOT institute involved. The coordinators all are well informed about how to start and what information is needed.
If the author is a PhD candidate of a LOT institute (regular or external), they can contact LOT. LOT will then send all information regarding the procedures to the author.
Production process
The entire production process (from signing the contract to the delivery date of the books) takes an average of 30 working days (6 weeks). Please note that official holidays and anniversaries such as Christmas, Easter, Ascension Day are not considered working days. The LOT office is closed for 2 weeks for the Christmas holidays and for 3 to 4 weeks during the summer period, so please keep in mind that the printing process will take longer during this period.
The ‘Beadle Date’ (Pedeldatum)
We encourage prospective authors to contact the LOT office in an early stage, preferably when the manuscript is being sent to the doctoral examination committee. Check your university’s doctoral degree regulations to find out the ‘beadle date’, the official date at which you need to hand in the books. The ‘beadle date’ is usually three to five weeks before the defense ceremony, so your books should be delivered the day before this date at the latest. In practice, this means that you should make arrangements with LOT at least 3 months before your defense date. A rush processing service is available for requests that reach the LOT office within 2 weeks of the first deadline of the production schedule; candidates will be billed an additional 100 euros for this service.
After acceptance as LOT author
- Make sure you are well informed with respect to the guidelines of your university with regard to your defence as well as the guidelines related to the dissertation.
- You will get a message from LOT containing all information needed, including a questionnaire and a manual.
- After LOT has received your answers to the questionnaire, the procedure can be started. LOT will calculate the deadlines and prepare the contract. Put the deadlines in your calendar. Note that these deadlines are the end dates. If your thesis is ready before the deadlines set by LOT, LOT and the printer (Hollandridderkerk) might be able to get everything ready sooner, so that you will have the books at an earlier date.
