Getting from
PhD 2
Published
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 Strategy
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
Networking and Self-Promotion
Get a Mentor
Meet everyone you can in your field before assuming your research is relevant
Be slow to react
Have a thick skin
Have a bit of personality
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
Build and promote an expertise that's tangential to your main subject and bring more people to your work.
Build the projects you need to move your career forwards
Don't go off on your own tangent, work with the marketing department to support their marketing plan
Have a digital marketing strategy for your work and connect with people online as well as at conferences
Don't be coy, pitch to the major publishers if you can really see the gap in their list your book would fill
Summer is a bad time to pitch, people are away at conferences and on holiday
Don't forget your covering letter, it needs to be just as good (if not better) than the book pitch itself
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
Being rude about books in competition with your own just makes you look rude
Line up a well-known and relevant academic to write a foreword for your book
Find out if there are grants or awards that could support the publication of your book and include this in your pitch
Consider that university libraries often buy books based on very short text-only descriptions and nail these from the start
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
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