When I wrote last spring about finding my dream job in academic publishing, I concentrated on selling the joys of the profession to Ph.D.'s who might be looking for an alternative career.
Little did I know how many people were looking for satisfying careers beyond the ivory tower. I was soon inundated with CV’s and requests for help and information.
In almost every case, recent Ph.D.'s asked the same huge question: How do I start a career in academic publishing? Here is my attempt to demystify the process, with some help from other Ph.D.'s who have pursued the same calling.
There is no one way to break into publishing, although some paths are smoother than others. All of the publishing professionals with whom I spoke have doctorates in the humanities, and work either in administration or in acquisitions. We all agreed on three key elements of a successful career in the field:
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Publishing experience.
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Knowing where, and how, a Ph.D. can make a difference for your job prospects.
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And, finally, loving the work.
Graduate programs train students to be researchers and teachers, not publishers or editors. Although many of the skills acquired in graduate school are useful in publishing, the trade has its own vocabulary, hierarchies, seasonal calendar, and internal rhythms.
Regardless of whether you want to be an acquisitions editor, a production manager, or a director, you will need to know something about vetting and accepting proposals, copy-editing, marketing, and the overall process by which one turns a sheaf of typescript into a book.
The best way to learn is by doing, so don’t be afraid to start at the bottom. In fact, you probably won’t have a choice about that.
Many presses or academic journals offer internships for students. Presses without established programs often accept interns or volunteers in various departments. The downside is that many of those positions are unpaid.
Ladette Randolph, who earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska, is the humanities editor and associate director of the University of Nebraska Press. She made her way into academic publishing as a graduate student reader for Prairie Schooner, a literary journal housed in Nebraska’s English department. She volunteered at Prairie Schooner as a manuscript reader for five years, and then became its managing editor. She finished her degree on the job, and then landed the acquisitions job at Nebraska Press.
“As a creative writer,” she recalls, “I wasn’t sure if I would like academic publishing -- I was asked to acquire books in areas that I felt were beyond my immediate expertise.”
But she quickly fell in love with the work, and discovered that she had strengths in new areas. “Publishing moves quickly; it’s never dull,” she says. “Every project, everything we do, is new and fresh. We get to work with the brightest scholars and help them better shape and position their manuscripts for the market.”
Melody Herr began her publishing career as a graduate student, too, at the Johns Hopkins University, where she earned a Ph.D. in the history of science and worked as the assistant to the history editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press. Now the acquisitions editor at Northern Illinois University Press, Herr “looked around at my grad-school cohort and watched smart, talented people struggling on the job market, fighting depression and unemployment as they negotiated the adjunct track, and I thought -- there must be something else.”
For Herr, where you land that first entry-level job is as important as the type of job. She urges those interested in scholarly publishing to take an assistant position at a large press to get a better sense of the entire process. Having the opportunity to interact with strong marketing and production departments, for example, gives an editor invaluable experience in the industry as a whole.
Taking an entry-level position or learning the ropes as a volunteer or intern can lay the foundation for a rewarding career. But it can be difficult, emotionally, to start at the bottom. Having scraped by for years to earn the doctoral degree, some Ph.D.'s find it hard to stomach the thought of starting over again in what is essentially a whole new trade. The good news is that promotion can come quickly for Ph.D.'s.
Heather Ruland Staines, who earned a Ph.D. in history from Yale University, volunteered in the acquisitions department at Yale University Press for a year while working on a postdoc. She also freelanced as a copy editor and proofreader, and worked with authors on developmental editing -- experience that served her well when she applied for a permanent position.
For her job search, she cast a wide net: “I sent letters to many of the presses on the Eastern Seaboard, and got lots of positive feedback and advice from editors and directors, even when they didn’t have any jobs available.” Staines’ experience at Yale helped her land her first job as a textbook editor with the Greenwood Publishing Group. Shortly afterward, when a position opened up in its Praeger imprint as a history editor, she was perfectly positioned to take the job.
Some Ph.D.'s have managed to bypass the dues-paying stage and move right into upper-level positions, based on the strength of their experience in related fields.
Lynne Withey, director of the University of California Press who earned her Ph.D. in history from Berkeley, “fell into publishing.” The author of an acclaimed biography of Abigail Adams, she taught for a while after finishing her degree, but realized that teaching was not her first love.
So she took an administrative position at the University of California, and found herself on a committee conducting a review of the press. She got to know its director, and when an administrative position opened at the Press, he suggested she apply. Later, when he moved on, her university experience made her an excellent candidate for the directorship.
Most entry-level jobs in publishing -- and even most upper-level jobs in acquisitions or administration -- do not require a Ph.D. And many publishing professionals are, in fact, A.B.D. or have never pursued a degree beyond their bachelor’s or master’s.
So why would someone with a doctorate in the humanities be interested in academic publishing, if the degree isn’t strictly necessary?
For Lindsay Waters, executive editor for the humanities at Harvard University Press, publishing provided an opportunity not only to stay intimately involved with scholarship, but to direct and influence the fields he loved. In graduate school at the University of Chicago, where he earned a Ph.D. in English, Waters worked both as a receptionist at the University of Chicago Press and in the returns department of the Chicago Bookstore.
With his Ph.D. in hand, he worked the adjunct circuit but felt frustrated by the trend toward ever-narrower academic specialization and by the limited scholarly possibilities within academe. He left teaching and joined the University of Minnesota Press, where he worked as the literature and theory editor for five years before moving to Harvard.
“Publishing needs intellectuals,” says Waters. “The people I’ve worked for, and the scholars I’ve worked with, believed that my engagement with scholarship made me a better editor. It’s hard to really understand why scholarship is worth it if you are not a scholar yourself.”
Press directors like Fredric Bohm of the Michigan State University Press see the Ph.D. as an asset in dealing with university officials and senior scholars. “It allows you to come to the table as an equal when negotiating with administrators,” says Bohm, who earned his Ph.D. in history from Washington State University. He edited a small, regional history publication for three years while pursuing his teaching career and eventually applied for a managing-editor position at Washington State University Press without any additional publishing credentials beyond his own two books.
“While you shouldn’t use your degree as a weapon,” Bohm says, “it can garner genuine respect from the university community.”
Editors with Ph.D.'s are also less likely to indulge in anti-intellectualism, says Willis Regier, who earned his Ph.D. in English from Nebraska and is now the director of the University of Illinois Press. Editors with Ph.D.'s, he thinks, have more empathy for their authors as scholars as well as writers.
The danger is that a very narrow dissertation isn’t preparation enough for the breadth of material that an acquisitions editor will encounter. A successful editor must be “intellectually curious, open, serious, and willing to dive in and take risks,” says Randolph, the Nebraska Press’s associate director.
The traits that make for a great publisher -- an extroverted personality, the ability to multitask, skill at working collaboratively, for example -- are not necessarily ones that grow out of the solitary work of conducting research and writing a dissertation. Moreover, it can be a double-edged sword to have a Ph.D. in the same field as your authors, says Withey, the director of the UC Press. “You can engage with your authors in a deeper way,” she says, “but it can also be a temptation to be too focused on your own area of expertise.”
But for Waters, the executive editor at Harvard Press, the close engagement between his own scholarly interests and his list is an asset. “As an editor I can define the fields in which I work,” he says, adding that his familiarity with, and love for, his subject makes him a more passionate editor: “I belong to the Pollyanna school of publishing -- I believe that good books that are intellectually strong will sell.”
That desire to promote and nurture scholarship holds the final key to a truly successful career in publishing. It is not enough to have a Ph.D. in hand and a willingness to learn the ropes. To be successful in this work, you must truly love books, love scholarship, and, most of all, love publishing.
“If your true heart is in academia,” says Staines, the history editor at Praeger, “or if you think of academic publishing as a backup career to teaching, don’t do it.”
Bohm agrees: “You have to love it. Publishing is a hard road. Scholarly publishing is an industry in transition. Jobs are scarce and the furor over tenure and publishing isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Even in the best of times, you have to be willing to take risks and chances and not be successful all the time.”
Withey puts it even more bluntly: “Publishing is not a dumping ground for failed academics. It’s not a second-choice career.”
Elizabeth Demers is the editor in chief and history-acquisitions editor for the University of Nebraska Press.