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.
How to finish your book when you're running out of time
Published 2 days ago • 6 min read
The Manuscript Works Newsletter
Essential knowledge on scholarly book publishing that every author should have
Hello Manuscript Workers!
At the last meeting of my Book Proposal Accelerator earlier this month, one of the participants asked an age-old question: “I’m on a tight timeline to finish my book and get it published. What advice can you give me to make the most of the time I have?”
Most authors I know are working under time constraints. Even those who aren't on a tenure clock don’t have unlimited time, because we all have other work duties, care obligations, and community commitments. The most immediate temptation may be to pull time away from your own self-care, but infringing on your mental and physical health to finish your manuscript is not something I'd recommend.
Instead, I say, adjust expectations. Figure out the minimum viable job you need to do with this particular manuscript, and let everything else you can get to be a bonus.
This isn’t about settling for mediocrity! It's about being strategic and understanding what the expectations really are when submitting a manuscript for publication. Then it’s about saving yourself from squandering your precious time on aspects of writing and revision that are not going to give you the greatest return on your investment.
“But!,” you might reasonably say, “how can I adjust expectations when I don’t even know what my expectations should be? How will I know my manuscript is good enough to have a shot at getting published? I’m willing to let go of perfection, but I do need to publish.”
Well, I happen to have a new book that spells out eighteen of the most common writing problems that keep manuscripts from advancing through the publication process. Even if you only address the top five issues—and I tell you what those are in the book—you’ll greatly increase your chances of success with editors and peer reviewers.
The book comes out on August 5th, but if you preorder now and fill out this form, you can download a free workbook to get started with right away.
My advice about doing only as much as you need to in order to get published isn’t meant to suck all the pleasure out of the writing and revision process by applying a transactional attitude to it. If you have the leisure to write for enjoyment, please do that and enjoy yourself! But if you’re still reading this message, it’s probably because you relate to being stressed out by needing to get something done and published under less than ideal conditions. And let’s be real, academic publishing often is transactional, and I think it’s best to be honest about that when it’s true. Then we can invest (or withhold) our labor accordingly.
If you’re feeling the crunch because you’re rapidly running out of time to work on your book (or any writing project that might be on your desk right now), here’s what I’d do:
Take an hour to get back in touch with your goals and why you are writing this text in the first place.
Decide on a date when the manuscript must be finished and sent off to the publisher (or journal or conference submission portal or whatever it is).
Account for competing demands on your time between now and that date. You’re not going to have twelve or even eight hours a day to write and revise, so how much time is really available to you between now and your due date?
Assess your manuscript in its current form. What does it need from you in order to be ready? How much more do you need to write? Is what you’ve written already suitable to be shared with peer reviewers or does it require revision?
Write down all the revisions you want to make. A quick bullet-point list is fine.
After completing these steps, you could just dive into writing and revising, and simply hope that you’ll be able to get it all done in time. Yet for most people, that’s not realistic. A better approach is to return to your accounting of goals and capacity and decide which writing and revision tasks absolutely must be done now, and which can be put off until a later point, perhaps after peer review or even saved for a future manuscript. Then you can tackle each task that remains on your list in order of priority so that by the time your deadline comes, you'll have made the best progress possible (even if you couldn't get to everything).
You might be nodding along at this point, thinking “yes, carrying out these steps and making a realistic plan for getting my project done sounds like a good idea,” but you might also be thinking in a quieter part of your brain, “but I know I’ll never actually sit down and do that. I’m probably just going to keep plugging away and stressing out the way I always do.” If that’s you, I can help.
In my upcoming Manuscript Development Workshop, you’ll be guided through all the steps above, from clarifying your goals and capacity, to assessing your manuscript, to deciding which additions and changes you truly need to make in the time you have left. You’ll be doing it alongside a group of other writers in the same boat (though there’s no required sharing or group work). And I’ll be there to help you determine which goals are realistic, which problems your manuscript actually has, and which revisions will get you the most mileage with your target publishers.
The course runs from July 21 to August 18th, because I’ve seen that a month is a realistic container of time for scholarly writers to do this work for a full book manuscript. However, the curriculum (and I) will be fully available on July 21, so you can work through the steps as quickly as you want to. In addition to those working on full books, I welcome those writing journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, and sample chapters to be submitted with a book proposal. You can even be working on a dissertation that you need a plan to finish.
You will likely not leave the course on August 18th with a fully revised manuscript ready to submit to publishers. You will leave with a realistic plan to get there on whatever your personal timeline is. If that sounds like what you need right now, I’d love to have you in the course.
Thanks for reading, and keep scrolling for more resources for scholarly authors!
This newsletter is coming to you from Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, professional developmental editor and publishing consultant. 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.
Use my time-tested curriculum to bring structure and motivation to your book writing process. The Book Proposal Shortcut takes the guesswork out of writing an outstanding pitch for university presses and other academic publishers. Once you register for the Shortcut, you'll be eligible to join my next Book Proposal Sprint from September 8–12, a week of daily online coworking & live Q&A to help you make meaningful progress on getting your first (or next) book published.
Following the Sprint, you'll keep complimentary membership in the Manuscript Works Author Support community, a private hub for ongoing support in your scholarly book publishing journey. Inside this community you'll get honest advice about publishers, peer review, offers and contracts, as well as join live Q&A sessions with Laura Portwood-Stacer and your fellow Manuscript Works authors.
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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.