For many early career scholars in the humanities and social sciences, it’s just a given: You turn your dissertation into a book. Not only that, but you begin doing so the moment you complete the Ph.D., or even earlier as a graduate student — by, for example, aiming to write the dissertation itself as a book, attending publishing panels, and reaching out to editors.
That’s just how it is. Hyper-productivity and hyper-professionalization are the norms in academe. But should they be? My goal here, as an acquisitions editor who is writing a new series for The Chronicle on scholarly publishing, is to offer some helpful information and advice about the dissertation-to-book process. But I also want to dispel these norms.
A common misconception about scholarly publishers is that we are parasitic and dependent on publish-or-perish culture for a fresh supply of content. In fact, university presses most want to publish the books that scholars want to write. We have been publishing scholarly and regional works since long before monographs were required for tenure. Yes, we help to credential scholars by publishing “tenure books,” but our primary mission is to advance and disseminate knowledge. And we worry just as much as scholars do about the unsustainability of the current system of training, hiring, and promoting faculty members.
The casualization of academic labor and the shrinking ratio of tenure-track to contingent faculty members mean that scholars are publishing books earlier than ever, with little to no assurance of professional and financial payoff down the line. Opportunities for advancement are effectively being eliminated in the very fields that require books for advancement, producing widespread precarity, fewer and overworked peer reviewers, and practical questions about the viability of the market for these books. Something has to give. What’s giving at the moment are the working conditions of both scholars and publishers.
Why should you turn your dissertation into a book? I see two reasons: because you have to, or because you want to. You may need, or feel like you need, to produce a first book quickly because you’re in a tenure-track job or trying to get one. Not every department requires a monograph for tenure, and the reward for publishing a book is far from guaranteed. Nevertheless, the effects of the scarcity of secure, long-term positions trickle out and down, upping the scholarly expectations and pressures for everyone.
Having to and wanting to are far from mutually exclusive. Ideally, even if you have to turn your dissertation into a book, you also really want to. And even if you want to, no doubt it’s mixed up with many other feelings. (Never doubt the motivating power of spite, for example.)
Some scholars do not want to. One writer and series editor with whom I work, Vanessa K. Valdés, now an associate provost at the City College of New York, included just one chapter from her dissertation in her first monograph. Leaving the dissertation behind and starting a new project may not feel like a viable option for many. But it’s also worth asking: Why not? What if you allowed yourself to have options — to decide which research questions feel most pressing and meaningful to you after finishing the diss?
I tend to think there is too much uncertainty in this profession not to pursue the project you most want to pursue. Books take years to produce (more on that below). There has to be some kernel of intellectual excitement that keeps you going. Ultimately, you need to do what’s best for you personally and professionally given your institutional and material circumstances. It’s worth indulging the thought experiment, though. What if you let the dissertation go? What might that open up?
How much of your book manuscript can be previously published? Whatever your dissertation’s fate, it’s common to publish some of it as journal articles. The question that scholars often ask: How much of a dissertation-to-book manuscript can be previously published? I’ve heard some editors give a maximum of 30 percent. I sometimes say two chapters, which roughly squares with that percentage if you have four or five chapters.
It’s tough to quantify because journal articles and book chapters are different genres. An argument in an article must be self-contained, stand-alone. A chapter’s argument is part of a larger, more complex whole, and its presentation and framing should reflect that. As an editor, I expect a book chapter to be significantly different from a published article (based on the dissertation chapter) even if the core evidence you’re using to support your argument in both is the same. In any case, you should always note in your book proposal if and where any of the manuscript has been previously published (or is under review).
It’s important to know, too, that editors generally see it as a good thing when you have published parts of your dissertation-turned-book. Scholarly articles introduce readers to — and ideally whet their appetites for — the book. Published pieces also tell us that some of the project has been through peer review, and hence, vetted by fellow scholars.
Writers seldom need to get formal permission to reprint published material in the book — though you should check with the journal to make sure, or review your publishing contract (if there is one). Journals typically allow authors to reuse their own work as long as you include a proper acknowledgment in the book.
To embargo, or not to embargo? Another common question: If you intend to turn it into a book, should your dissertation carry an embargo? That is an agreement to make only the title and abstract — but not the full text — available in an online repository (such as ProQuest) for a set period of time.
Some scholars worry that if the dissertation is readily available, publishers won’t be interested in it as a book. I and most every editor I know at university presses do not mind if a dissertation has not been embargoed and is hence fully available online, whether via open access or to subscribers. Its availability just doesn’t figure into my calculation of whether a book is a good fit for us and has a potential market. Dissertations and books are different beasts.
Deciding whether to embargo your dissertation can nevertheless be a fraught process. Some scholars feel very strongly about getting their work out there. Others may want to protect their intellectual property. I’ve talked to some graduate advisers who strongly encourage their students to embargo to protect their copyright, and that’s fine. I embargoed mine, but only because I was mortified by the prospect of anyone ever looking at it. That was the extent of my decision-making process.
I do think it’s important for your book and your diss to have different titles. How could they not? Again, they are different beasts. I have heard that campus libraries may be less inclined to buy a book if it has the same title as the dissertation and the latter is available online. That may or may not be the case. I tend to think a new title is necessary, regardless.
Some scholars intentionally save the “good” title for the book. My two cents: If you have a great title for the dissertation, use it. Realistically, the title of your dissertation may not fit the book. Projects can shift in unforeseeable ways. Plus, editors, peer reviewers, editorial-board members, and marketing teams often have opinions on these things. Titles routinely change, sometimes many times, throughout the publication process.
How long will it take? It requires more than a matter of months, and sometimes many years, to transform your dissertation into a book. It’s a justifiably long process, given the scale of revision, the stages of review, and the number of people involved in vetting the project and giving feedback along the way. (Notably, the University of Chicago Press has recently published a workbook with exercises to help with the process.)
I always encourage recent Ph.D.s to take time away from the dissertation after finishing — to get some distance from it. Read broadly. Consider the conversations that you really want to contribute to. Talk to people other than your committee members to get some fresh perspectives.
More than anything, a book must speak to more people than the dissertation did. Most immediately, it has to entice an editor who may not be an expert in your field and who, like future readers, will need more context to tap into the significance of your work — hence the importance of taking a big step back.
Of course, time is often the thing that new Ph.D.s do not have. Setting aside the time it takes to finish the manuscript, the publication process itself — from soliciting publishers to holding the printed book in your hands — can take a couple of years. And, frankly, that is fast, given how much happens during that time: peer review, editorial-board approval, further revision, preproduction, cover design, copy-editing, typesetting, printing. It can also take much longer (and often does) if you need more time to complete the manuscript, if we need more time to get readers, if the readers need more time to complete their reports, if the manuscript needs to be revised and resubmitted for further review, and so on.
In general, it’s safe to say that the process of turning a dissertation into a book will take years, even when it goes smoothly and quickly. There are magical, wondrous creatures who manage to convert their dissertation into a book manuscript within, say, a year. I was not one of those creatures. And however long the process takes you, try to remember that it can be an extremely rewarding process — with a book that you wrote at the end of it.
Can you publish off the tenure track? I’m mindful that many scholars who are in contingent positions or are “leaving” (if not driven out of) academe may be disinclined to turn their dissertation into a book. Some may wonder if it’s even possible, practically speaking, no matter how much they might want to pursue it. The cost-benefit analysis of which projects not to pursue or to leave unfinished can be excruciating.
For what it’s worth, I wrote and published my own book based on my dissertation while working full time outside of academe. I’ve written elsewhere about the practical demands of that experience — making time for it after my day job, getting library access. There are a million factors that made it hard but feasible for me, yet might make it hard and infeasible, if not undesirable, for others.
It’s a personal decision that may not feel like a decision, especially given how notoriously unremunerative scholarly books are. I hasten to add that for scholars on the tenure track, books based on dissertations can actually be quite remunerative, at least indirectly, in helping them secure long-term employment. Whether to make the commitment is a different calculus, though, for anyone not on the tenure track.
And yet, many of us do it. Contingent Magazine, cofounded by Erin Bartram, publishes an annual, end-of-year list of books in history and literary studies written by contingent and independent scholars (full disclosure: I help gather the literary-studies list). Some scholars find that writing under these conditions — i.e., not for a tenure committee — better enables them to write the book they want to write.
I think this is why the second book often feels so promising to faculty members on the tenure track. Finally, with tenure, you can write the weird book, the risky book, the adventurous book.
Then again, as the ratio of tenured faculty members shrinks and their service loads grow, writing the second book may feel harder and harder. How many tenured professors do you know who feel “stuck” at the associate level, though they would love nothing more than to work on their next book project?
Good books, bad norms. All of which brings me back to where I started: the unsustainability of the current status quo. For my part, I don’t want fewer scholarly books in the world. I want better conditions for their creation. I want more full-time academic jobs and more resources and grants to support all scholars, not just a fortunate few. I want institutions to recognize a wider range of research “outputs” in the humanities and social sciences — not just monographs but also translations, coauthored volumes, and things that may not be books at all, such as podcasts, multimedia works, and community-based projects.
Not every kind of research should have to culminate in a monograph to “count.” (On this point, see the Modern Language Association’s new guidelines for evaluating public humanities scholarship.) Above all, I want scholars to be able to write the books they want to write if they want to write them at all — and in that I know I’m not alone.
To be clear, I personally love talking to early career researchers, acquiring books based on dissertations, and seeing them develop. I’m also glad and proud to do what I can to help scholars get jobs and win tenure, though I do sometimes wish more would let us know when they do. We publishers love celebrating good things.
That said, we can also be quite adept at critiquing and commiserating about bad things — like the inordinate expectations and inequities of our shared scholarly world. These, too, bear much more discussion, especially if we have any hope of changing them.
