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.
Her job is email
Published about 21 hours ago • 9 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:
Meet Rebecca, the client support specialist at MW
Upcoming events: Book Proposal Accelerator
Free resource: How to Publish a Book from Your Dissertation
Frequently asked question: How do I tell a publisher I want my book published as a trade or crossover title?
As always, if you have a question or suggestion for a future newsletter, you can reply directly to this message. Thanks for reading!
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.
Next month marks eleven years since I launched this business as a freelance developmental editor and publishing advisor for scholarly authors. For a long time, I worked entirely alone. But as I worked with more and more clients over the years—and as I became visible beyond my personal networks—a perfectly natural thing happened: I got a lot more email!
Some of these emails could only be answered by me because they required my expert knowledge of scholarly writing and publishing. But a lot of them had to do with administrative paperwork, technical issues with accessing materials, quick questions about an upcoming program, or requesting referrals to other developmental editors. It got to where I had to tell myself it was OK to ignore some of the messages I got because there simply wasn't enough time to answer them all.
But I know how frustrating this can be when you are the sending end of an email! Especially if you have a question you need answered urgently or an issue that must be addressed before you can accomplish something you need to get done. If you've ever sent a message about your book project to an acquiring editor and felt like a lot was riding on their response, only to never receive a response at all, you know this pain.
That's why I'm so grateful to have Rebecca Hughes on my team. She joined Manuscript Works nearly three years ago as my Client Support Specialist, and her job is to make sure none of your messages or needs fall through the cracks. She also does a lot of administrative work behind the scenes to keep Manuscript Works organized so that when questions show up in the inbox, she has answers! Got a problem? Rebecca knows how to solve it.
Since pretty much anyone who works with me will be communicating with Rebecca at some point, I thought it would be nice to introduce her here in the newsletter so you can put a person and a face to the name on the support@manuscriptworks.com email address.
Laura Portwood-Stacer: What do you do in your role as client support specialist at Manuscript Works?
Rebecca Hughes: My work falls into two broad categories:
1) Help past, present, and hopefully future clients as they seek support in their academic writing. In this capacity, I help authors tap into the wealth of resources that Laura and Manuscript Works offer: paid and free programs, writings (books and articles both), and so on, but I also make referrals to developmental editors and coaches for those who need 1-on-1 support with their writing and publication journeys. If you’ve reached out to us for assistance anytime in the past few years, we’ve likely interacted! And if not, or if you need a little more help, please shoot me an email at support@manuscriptworks.com. I’d love to hear from you!
2) Tackle behind-the-scenes work to keep the gears turning. This involves uploading content to the newsletter, enrolling participants in programs, working with institutions to get program payments processed, fixing broken links, resetting passwords to our program platform, setting up programs and communities, etc., etc. You name it, I’ve probably helped with it. Just like with above, never hesitate to reach out to me if you see anything I can fix or tweak on the back end!
LPS: What is your day job? How does your work/life experience inform your work with Manuscript Works clients?
RH: My day job is working as the Grant Development Specialist in the College of Education at Purdue University. In this capacity, I assist education faculty to identify and apply for grant opportunities to fund their research and programmatic pursuits. Prior to this, I worked at Grinnell College in a similar role but supporting a broader range of faculty: humanities, social sciences, STEM.
There is a lot of overlap between my day job and my work with Manuscript Works. I was born and raised in the world of higher education, so while never faculty myself, I am very familiar with the demands of academia and how challenging it is to keep afloat. The familiar phrase “publish or perish” is very real and even more challenging today, particularly with cuts to federal funding to support the research needed to publish, the resulting intense competition for private foundation funding, the industry trend to reduce tenure-track lines in favor of adjuncts or non-tenure roles, and so on. My goal, in both of my positions, is to help faculty and researchers succeed in their careers—and continue to put food on the table!
My work here with Manuscript Works and my job with grants at Purdue mutually inform each other. I support faculty to navigate both ends of the research and publication spectrum: the process needed to fund the pursuit of academic research as well as the process needed to get the research out into the academic world as a published book. As someone with a finger on the pulse of grants, I am intimately familiar with the demands of seeking research funding and work to help my faculty as they navigate the strange world of grant writing. (Quick shout-out to Betty Lai’s The Grant Writing Guide (2023) for an outstanding how-to guide for social scientific and humanist grant writing—and guess who helped Betty with her book proposal?) I also edit the grant narratives that the faculty I support write, so have picked up a lot of tips and tricks of developmental editing that Laura has perfected!
LPS: What do you like to do when not working?
RH: I love to garden and am happiest with dirt under my fingernails! I recently bought a new house with an established but long-neglected garden, so I have started out my spring trying to figure out if newly-sprouting plants are friends or foes, whacking away at overgrown shrubs and trees, and slowly starting on my personal quest to kill as much grass as possible so I can add in native plantings. I live in central Iowa, so I am excited to fill my yard with varieties of coneflowers, milkweed, coreopsis, sedges, asters, little bluestem, and more. With a new home comes a huge variety of projects, too, so I’m about to wrap up some interior painting and then shift to replacing all the doorknobs due in part to some very questionable lock choices. My partner and I have four elementary-aged kids between us, all of whom keep us on our toes with their antics and activities, as well as a veritable zoo of pets (four cats, two dogs, two cockatiels, and a bearded dragon - so far). Let’s just say that “free time” isn’t part of my vocabulary!
LPS: Is there anything else you’d like newsletter readers to know about you or Manuscript Works?
RH: I first discovered Manuscript Works when I was working at Grinnell College supporting their very quintessential liberal arts faculty in their research and grant pursuits. Like many similar institutions, faculty are encouraged to focus most heavily on their teaching with a secondary (or even tertiary) focus on research. However many faculty, particularly more junior faculty, entered academia due to their passion for their discipline and a desire to make a lasting impact on their scholarly community as well as on their students. For those in “book disciplines,” that meant wading into the very opaque world of publishing with university presses, which graduate school does not prepare them for and which small, teaching-focused institutions do not tend to have robust resources via programming or a wealth of experienced senior faculty to support. I know this problem is by no means unique to teaching-focused institutions, either!
Enter Manuscript Works. Laura has managed to create not only invaluable programs that support scholarly authors, faculty and independent researchers alike, but an entire community of scholars across the world. I have been in this role for over two years now and am still amazed by the depth of knowledge about the academic publishing industry that Laura has and her ability to communicate it so clearly. The testimonials you can find on her course pages speak volumes and only represent a drop in the bucket of the feedback we receive - I’d know because I’m on the receiving end of so many of them!
If you’re on the fence about whether a Manuscript Works program is a good fit for you, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly at support@manuscriptworks.com. I’ll help you figure out your fit with our programs and available resources - and I will also tell you honestly if your needs would be better supported elsewhere, and will see if I can help point you in the right direction.
Got a question for Rebecca or need help with something Manuscript Works-related? You can email Rebecca any time at support@manuscriptworks.com. And if you need to reach me directly, you can always reply to my newsletters or drop me a note at laura@manuscriptworks.com. Hope to hear from you sometime!
Read my books 👉 publish your book
Request Make Your Manuscript Work and The Book Proposal Book from your local library or purchase on Bookshop to support indie bookstores (and me, by using my affiliate link). Once you've got your copies, you can download free worksheets to go with them!
Upcoming events
Work with me on your next book proposal! Next session runs May 18 to June 30.
Is your book coming out next month (or was it recently released)? I'd love to feature it in a future newsletter. Send your cover image and publisher webpage to support@manuscriptworks.com. Bonus points: tell us which Manuscript Works resources helped you along the way.
Looking for professional support with your book or article manuscript, but not sure who can help? When you fill out my referral request form, you'll be sent a curated list of trusted editors—matched to your specific field and needs—whom you can contact right away.
Keep in mind that experienced developmental editors may book up months in advance, so if you're even starting to contemplate working with someone, now is the time to reach out.
Frequently asked question
During my Find the Perfect-Fit Publisher for Your Scholarly Book 5-day challenge that happened last week, several prospective authors expressed interest in publishing their research as a trade or crossover book, meaning they want to write a book geared toward broad audiences and not limited to academic readers.
The question that came up was how to tell a publisher that you want your book published as a trade book, especially if you're targeting a scholarly press that mostly publishes books for the academic market.
My general answer is to, first, make sure you understand what a trade book really is and decide if that's definitely what you want for your project. Then, write a book proposal that will convince a publisher that you and your book can do the work it takes to publish a successful trade title.
I know that answer might be a little too vague to be satisfying, so here's a blog post that breaks it all down in more detail:
Whether you want to publish a more traditional academic monograph or go big with a trade book, you need a proposal that makes your case. I can help with that!
Check out my Book Proposal Accelerator if you're interested in a structured program to write your book proposal with personal feedback and strategic support over six weeks this May and June.
Do you have a question you'd like to see answered in a future newsletter? Reply to this message!
If you have a friend, colleague, or student who might enjoy the Manuscript Works Newsletter, could you forward this email to them and encourage them to subscribe at newsletter.manuscriptworks.com? Thank you for reading and sharing!
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.