Sep 19, · Turning your PhD into a book is a mark of success in many disciplines, especially the humanities. Many people pursue this goal immediately upon finishing their PhD as part of an overall academic career strategy. I didn't have to, because I already had a job and I wanted to start building a research reputation in Estimated Reading Time: 8 mins Converting the entire PhD thesis into a book requires that your thesis covers a topic of interest to a large enough audience of scholars. Whereas a thesis starts with a question, a book begins with an answer and communicates its importance in the wider research landscape, tracing its Jun 08, · Going from dissertation to book entails changing it from the format of a dissertation into a series of chapters and readable sections for the general public. This means a complete rewrite. Finding a Publisher for Your Dissertation-To-Book Even more important than rewriting is finding a publisher that will publish your blogger.comted Reading Time: 9 mins
From Dissertation to Book: Advice for Future Authors | Beyond PhD Coaching
Today is another Special Request Post. This one is from Maria, who asks, do I have a template like my Foolproof Grant Template for turning a dissertation into a book? No, Maria, I do not. But there are some tips that I can offer for easing the process and making it more efficient.
This post is my Top Five Tips for Turning Your Dissertation Into a Book. If you are in a book field, the fact is, your dissertation must be transformed into a book to be of full value to you. The dissertation alone counts for little in the academic career. The dissertation serves you only insofar as you can quickly transform it into the commodities that bring value on the market—peer reviewed articles preferably published before you defend and start the job searchhigh profile grants that funded the research, high profile conferences in which you present the research publicly, and finally, the advance contract for the book from a major NOT minor academic press.
These are the tangible accomplishments that you must have to be competitive for a tenure track position at this point in time. Write from day one with a wide market of undergraduates in mind. You want the book to be assigned as a text in undergraduate courses in your field.
Write it so those undergraduates can read it. Remember that the methodology section will be entirely removed from the book mss. And the literature review will be almost entirely removed, with a small section folded into the Introduction or other chapters.
Conceptualize and write the entire thing remembering that these sections, while critical to your committee, are short-lived. In the meantime, put extra effort into a catchy, changing a dissertation into a book, appealing Introduction and Conclusion, changing a dissertation into a book. These speak to readers, and to the editors and reviewers who will judge your mss. for publication. Academic publishing is in the same epic financial crisis as the rest of the academic world.
Publishers are going out of business right and left, and those that remain are under pressure to publish books that actually sell and make a profit unlike the old days when it was understood that changing a dissertation into a book monographs rarely broke even. Publishers must keep their production costs low, and this means they want shorter books.
The dissertation may be treated like the intellectual achievement par excellence in your doctoral program, but in the real world of jobs with benefits, it is a commodity that has value only when it can be traded for gain on the market. Do a google search of such classes and find out what kinds of books are assigned. Take a look at those books and see what their main selling points seem changing a dissertation into a book be, changing a dissertation into a book.
Then ask yourself how you can adjust and mold your dissertation to be the kind of book that serves that market without losing sight of your actual project and findings, of course! When you send the mss. Write with style and flair. Be original. Be incendiary, changing a dissertation into a book.
out to presses. Products that sell have to be differentiated from the competition—ie, they have to be exciting, new, and different. You have to please your committee to get a Ph. Your committee controls you for a few years, but your book establishes your career trajectory for decades.
You have an agenda, and that is publishing an influential, high-profile book with a top press. Follow your own star, defend your positions, compromise when you must, and move on as efficiently as you can.
The best dissertation is a finished dissertation that is already a press-ready mss, changing a dissertation into a book. I wrote a doctoral dissertation on why some young, single Japanese women in the early s were demonstrating a striking enthusiasm for studying abroad, living abroad, working abroad, and finding white Western men to be their lovers and husbands. However, when I sent the mss. out to presses, not only did I get two competing advance contracts, I ended up getting an actual ADVANCE from the press.
This is practically unheard of for young academic writers peddling scholarly monographs. The reason? My book was provocative. It was original. It had some naughty pictures. I ignored the negative comments in my department. And while I was absolutely committed to the project as a scholarly project — based on the highest standards I could muster of ethnographic fieldwork, theoretical engagement, and disciplinary contribution — I also wrote it to sell.
And, while it was published ininI am still getting a microscopically small royalty check! while I absolutely agree with your changing a dissertation into a book I realize the process is idiosyncratic—it is pitched to a graduate student rather than an assistant professor in the throes of the manuscript revision.
any more nuts and bolts advice? Dear Junior TT, thanks for asking. For now, I do have one piece of nuts and bolts advice for the TT folks, that trumps all other advice, in fact all other advice put together, which is: you must get leave from teaching to write the book. You cannot do it while maintaining a full teaching schedule. It is, actually, impossible. Even one-term or one-semester internal grants can put you over the top. I myself ended up with 2 full years of leave, which is how I both wrote a book and had two children!
but in any case, schedule in preliminary time to ensure that you are released from teaching to write the book. A good department and Head will release junior faculty from teaching to get their publishing done. I work on literature, and based on my experience both as an undergraduate and as a teacher of undergraduateswe rarely, if at all, read secondary criticism in our courses. Maria, OK. I would approach this a couple of ways. presses that are similar to yours.
and look at their most recent spring and fall lists. Figure out what their current orientations are, and speak DIRECTLY to those in your mss, changing a dissertation into a book.
to a press. So, here, if your market is not undergrad classes, then what is it? You are far, far, better off if your book intervenes in several fields rather than just one. There is a LOT of detective work that you can do to figure out how to situate your work within markets, and also how to subtly adapt your book mss. to meet the emergent needs of the market. Thankfully, changing a dissertation into a book, I am only entering year four and I have a fellowship year up ahead that I won in a national competition.
Otherwise I would be much more terrified. Again, although I realize the diss to book process is different for everyone, it could use a little more demystification. I am a hard worker and I write every day, but I am frustrated to be dealing with similar issues as I did during the diss—the fumbling, the confusion, changing a dissertation into a book, the dead ends, rough prose—but without a committee whom I can talk to about my progress or whether or not I am on target in terms of quality, my timeline, or to help me with questions like—is my project too ambitious?
do I need to add that historical chapter? I finished my dissertation last April, and I very quickly received requests from two European publishers to turn my dissertation into a book.
I was changing a dissertation into a book about this, knowing I had VERY FEW publications. They also had reservations about the publishing houses. In fact, when I did not reply quickly enough, one publisher became a bit pushy about sending my manuscript. I politely declined the offers of both publishing houses, only to get yet another offer from a third publisher who had bought one of the other publishers.
After reading your blog, I wonder if I made a mistake? Should I have converted my dissn to a book? this is an excellent question. The main issues here are to me, that you mentioned that the publishers are European publishers. But if you are based in the Changing a dissertation into a book. and want to work in the U. Especially for your changing a dissertation into a book Play hard to get! And yes, go the hard route—the route of actually publishing a few articles as peer reviewed pubs, and then writing up a proposal for the book and submitting it to the very top presses in your field, most likely based in the United States.
This is all time-consuming and difficult and carries more risk of rejection at various points. But the rewards are the REAL rewards, the big rewards, the tenure track jobs and the major fellowships and promotions. A book published by some little-known press does not carry a lot of weight as a tenure-book in the U. That is why. The status of the publisher matters. Go for the very, very best that you can.
Can you publish parts of your dissertation as articles and still publish it later as a united book? So in the case of a typical 5 chapter book, two chapters out as articles is the baseline to aim for. Have you heard about publishing more chapters in other language, that is, two in English and one or two more in other language?
Are there any benefits to self-publishing in the absence of a traditional publisher? Competition for publication in Peer-reviewed sites can be a factor. What about publishing on Scribd and others?
Introduction, How to Turn a Dissertation into a Real Book -- Elizabeth Knoll
, time: 17:11Turning Your Thesis Into A Book — Melbourne University Publishing
Jul 01, · An original thesis should be regarded as the basis for an entirely new work, written with a new audience in mind. This new work will address intelligent general readers who seek to be provoked, engaged, intrigued and/or seduced into reading your book Converting the entire PhD thesis into a book requires that your thesis covers a topic of interest to a large enough audience of scholars. Whereas a thesis starts with a question, a book begins with an answer and communicates its importance in the wider research landscape, tracing its Sep 19, · Turning your PhD into a book is a mark of success in many disciplines, especially the humanities. Many people pursue this goal immediately upon finishing their PhD as part of an overall academic career strategy. I didn't have to, because I already had a job and I wanted to start building a research reputation in Estimated Reading Time: 8 mins
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