Essential knowledge about scholarly book publishing that every author should have. Get weekly tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book from developmental editor and publishing consultant Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD.
DON'T write your dissertation as a book
Published 1 day ago • 5 min read
The Manuscript Works Newsletter
Essential knowledge on scholarly book publishing that every author should have
Hello Manuscript Workers!
What's in this edition:
Why "write your dissertation as a book" is worse advice than it sounds
Now booking institutional workshops for the upcoming academic year
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This newsletter is coming to you from Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, professional developmental editor and publishing advisor. I help scholarly writers navigate the book publishing process with more ease and agency.
I hope you'll stick around for practical tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book, but if you'd like to adjust your subscription settings, you can do that at the bottom of this message.
I’ve never been a fan of the advice to “write your dissertation as a book.” I think the people who give this advice are well-intentioned: they are trying to help the beleaguered doctoral candidate skip a few steps down the road. The logic goes that if you write your dissertation as a book in the first place, it will be easier to publish because you won’t have to completely overhaul the dissertation to turn it into a publishable manuscript. But here are five reasons why the advice to write your dissertation as a book is not as helpful as it might seem on the surface:
It’s vague. You don’t know how to write a book yet, and your graduate training is likely not preparing to do so. Unless the person telling you to write your diss as a book is going to teach you in very concrete terms what they mean by “book” and how to write one, you’ll likely be confused about what you actually need to do.
It’s too much pressure. It’s hard enough to conduct your first major research project and write it up even partially coherently. Do you need the pressure of it also being readable and marketable? No. The stakes of completing the diss are high enough without raising them higher.
How your advisor defines a book and what your eventual publisher expects from a book could be very different. Sometimes “write your diss as a book” means “write three chapters on the same general topic.” A set of chapters that relate to a central topic are a good starting point if you want to publish a book from your diss, but there’s a lot more that goes into making a manuscript attractive to publishers. (I’ll be going into all 9 features that your book project needs at my free webinar on August 14.)
Dissertations and books have two different purposes and two different audiences. The quickest way to suck the momentum out of a writing project is to try to make it do too many things. Without one clear readership and purpose in kind, you are almost guaranteeing yourself to lose direction and motivation, because it becomes impossible to make decisive choices about what to write and how to write it.
Even if you write the most beautiful, marketable, publisher-ready dissertation in the world, university presses may still not want it. If your dissertation is accessible via databases that most university libraries have access to, readers and purchasers of scholarly books (such as university librarians) may not see a need to acquire the book too. Sales projections aside, it will be hard to make a case to mission-driven scholarly publishers that their limited resources should be spent on bringing your scholarship to the world if readers can already get it elsewhere.
The good news is that if you’ve written a very imperfect dissertation (who hasn’t?) you aren’t behind! You are actually well-positioned to make the pivots needed to persuade publishers that your first book is worth publishing.
My free webinar on August 14th will spell out what scholarly publishers are really looking for when they acquire new books. I’ll explain what transformations will be needed to turn your dissertation research into an appealing book project, and I’ll answer any questions you have about approaching publishers with a project that began as a dissertation.
In addition to offering my free public webinar this month, I’m also currently scheduling institutional workshops for the upcoming academic year. I can come to your campus (either virtually or in person) and teach your faculty and graduate students how to write and publish scholarly books. I offer a number of different session topics depending on your needs, including but not limited to:
How to Write an Outstanding Book Proposal
How to Land a Scholarly Book Contract
How to Publish a Book from Your Dissertation
How to Revise a Book Manuscript for Publication
Surviving Peer Review for Scholarly Books
Clarify Your Book Goals
How to Publish an Interdisciplinary Book
These topics can be booked as standalone one-hour workshops or combined for a longer event or workshop series. All workshops come with a dedicated webpage for your event where attendees can download the workshop slides and supporting materials; I can also post a recording link if you want your people to have access to the workshop for up to 60 days following the live event.
There’s more info on the workshops page of my website, and you can get in touch directly with Molly Grote at Princeton University Press (molly_grote@press.princeton.edu) with questions or to discuss further details.
If you’re not the person who coordinates such things at your institution, please feel free to forward this info on to the person who is!
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Essential knowledge about scholarly book publishing that every author should have. Get weekly tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book from developmental editor and publishing consultant Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD.