Dangers Of Exotic Animals
Dangers Of Exotic Animals😍
This is part three of my series on academic book publishing. The aim of this series is to take you through the process of turning your PhD into a book — or perhaps writing a new book in the early part of your career. Not all academic disciplines are interested in book publishing and look to conferences, journals or even exhibitions for signs of academic productivity. I recommend you read part one and part two before reading this post. In part one I provided you with some thoughts about NOT writing a book. I then covered identifying the opportunities, contacting a publisher and pitching the idea. In part two I talked about how to interest the publisher and hopefully get a contract. In part three I want to talk about what to expect in the book writing and editing process, focussing on some of the practical challenges. Step six: Your proposal was accepted! By definition, a dissertation is not an easy read so most publishers will ask for at least some changes. For one thing, the book version will be a lot shorter. While your average dissertation in the humanities runs between 80, to , words, most publishers will be interested in something closer to 60, You can do some immediate word reduction surgery on some parts, like the literature review, but past a certain point, reducing words will become very difficult. Once you start cutting, you will end up with holes and inconsistencies that need to be smoothed over. You will have to ensure jargon is explained and grammar is tightened. This is tedious work that cannot be rushed. At some point, hopefully before your deadline, you will feel confident that the original content is ready. In time elapsed, you are approximately in the middle… next comes editing. The last steps of the book preparation process are, in my considered opinion, the absolute worst. Making sure a manuscript is perfect drives me completely nuts. Some publishers provide help, but they often charge you for it — reducing your already slender royalty cheque to nothing. Without a professional, it will take even longer to get a manuscript into shape. In the end we turned to Grammarly — an online, machine assisted copy editing and grammar assistant. All up, the editing process was about hours. Think about trying to squeeze this time into an already overloaded schedule and you can see how I ended up spending most weekends last year working on this book. Burning the candle at both ends in your late 40s has consequences. I suffered a severe bout of burn out by September and it took me over six months — and frankly a lot of therapy, gym visits and mindfulness app listening — to recover. The key lesson here? If the publisher has asked for significant changes to your original dissertation, you may need to allow 12 months or more to deliver the final product. Once your manuscript has gone into production, you will have a quiet time of up to nine months before the book comes back into your life again. This time you will be expected to do most of the marketing. This is not just because publishers are working to tight margins and cannot employ staff to help you — in a sense, you are best placed to know who the readership is and how to reach them. Here are some marketing ideas, in no particular order:. Do you have any experience of the publishing process you would like to share? Does your experience differ from mine? Love to hear from you in the comments. Part one of turning your dissertation into a book. Part two of turning your dissertation into a book. Love the Thesis whisperer and want it to continue? New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me and my books. Send me a message on Speakpipe. Email Address. Sign me up! My least favourite part. Step seven: chasing the perfect The last steps of the book preparation process are, in my considered opinion, the absolute worst. Step eight: marketing Once your manuscript has gone into production, you will have a quiet time of up to nine months before the book comes back into your life again. Here are some marketing ideas, in no particular order: Identify mailing lists, Facebook groups and other online spaces where you can share your book news in progress to build anticipation. Why wait for positive book reviews? Write blog posts or newspaper articles about the topic of your book before it comes out and direct people to your mailing list. Many reputable sites are looking for good quality content that is genuinely informative. Organise a book launch with a local bookstore. It was lovely to have a celebration after all that hard work. Related posts Part one of turning your dissertation into a book Part two of turning your dissertation into a book Love the Thesis whisperer and want it to continue? Like this: Like Loading Loading Comments Email Required Name Required Website. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.