PhD2Published

Getting from

PhD 2

Published

We offer guidance, advice and discussion on:

• Pitching to publishers
• Designing a publishing strategy
• Presenting at conferences
• Writing articles and books
• Writing grant proposals
• Using social media for research and self-promotion
• Understanding the publishing business
• Current and possible future states of publishing
• Academic life

Book Publishing Strategy

If the jobs aren't out there, pour your energies into getting your book pitched and written

Establish whether you should be working towards a book or journal articles or a mixture of both

Prepare for the long-haul, writing your book is going to be a lot like writing your PhD (with the possible difference of now having a full-time job as well)

Start planning your second book

Make your book what you wish your thesis had been

Write the book you wish had been available to you at under-graduate level

Write something that expands upon just one section of your thesis. Or write something that isn't based on your thesis at all

Break book-pitching into short, medium and long-term tasks

Collect a list of courses that would add your book to their reading list and be able to explain why

Book Publishing Business

Beware the part of the academic publishing industry that publishes your book at a cost to you

Take an interest in the publishing industry and learn as much as you can about how it works

Be conscious of all the work your editor is putting in

Consider the way that your book contributes to the identity of the publishing house and make it a covetable feature

Bear the global financial crisis in mind and include as much solid sales evidence as you can

Look at how academic publishing is changing and help your publisher to think ahead about appropriate formats for your work

Don't exaggerate the size of your prospective market. It's far better to indicate the niche to which it clearly belongs

Can you tie your work in with a larger project and add an additional captive audience to your prospective market

Weigh up the pros and cons of big publisher versus small publisher, it's not always clear cut

Ask colleagues about the contracts they've accepted or rejected

Pitching and Peer Review for Books

Don't be coy, pitch to the major publishers if you can really see the gap in their list your book would fill

Find out how the publisher would like you to pitch and stick rigidly to their guidelines

Tell the publisher why your book is a must-read not a must-write

Don't just look for the publishers to pitch to, look for the series they publish and tell them why your book would fit that strand of publications

Consider that university libraries often buy books based on very short text-only descriptions and nail these from the start

Find out if there are grants or awards that could support the publication of your book and include this in your pitch

Line up a well-known and relevant academic to write a foreword for your book

Being rude about books in competition with your own just makes you look rude

Don't forget your covering letter, it needs to be just as good (if not better) than the book pitch itself

Summer is a bad time to pitch, people are away at conferences and on holiday

Networking and Self-Promotion

Get a Mentor

Meet everyone you can in your field before assuming your research is relevant

Have a digital marketing strategy for your work and connect with people online as well as at conferences

Don't go off on your own tangent, work with the marketing department to support their marketing plan

Build the projects you need to move your career forwards

Build and promote an expertise that's tangential to your main subject and bring more people to your work.

Buddy-up with others in your field and create a blog that's easy to maintain and pulls more traffic than if you worked alone

Have a bit of personality

Have a thick skin

Be slow to react