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! Congratulations! Now you will understand the saying “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it…”

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 80,000 to 100,000 words, most publishers will be interested in something closer to 60,000.

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. If you’ve started a new job it’s likely you will be doing this work at night, which is probably unpleasantly like writing your dissertation in the first place. Oh, the times I have moaned to my husband about my stupid, stupid decision to write a book at this editing stage… I’m a horrible person to live with too: demanding chocolate and hugs while listening to James Blunt albums on repeat. It’s got to the point where Mr Thesiswhisperer gets this resigned look on his face when I triumphantly declare I have new book deal (he’s a smart guy – I can’t fool him into thinking this time will be different!).

The first part of the production of the manuscript is what computer gamers would call ‘grinding’; a lot of repetitive work that seems to go nowhere. At some point, hopefully before your deadline, you will feel confident that the original content is ready. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a sign you are near the end of the process. In time elapsed, you are approximately in the middle… next comes editing.

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. I’m a 95%-er; details and polishing are difficult for me. Making sure a manuscript is perfect drives me completely nuts. Some publishers provide help, but they will charge you for it – reducing your already slender royalty cheque to nothing. Even when you have a professional copy editor to hold your hand, which was my happy experience with ‘How to be an Academic‘ (thanks Tricia!), there is a lot of detail to chase up and correct.

Without a professional, it will take even longer to get a manuscript into shape. Editing ‘How to fix your academic writing trouble’ (which is coming out on the 23rd of December) was a group effort (thanks Shaun and Katherine!), but it nearly drove us mad. In the end we turned to Grammarly – an online, machine assisted copy editing and grammar assistant. This software helped us catch many small errors, as well as helping to smooth three writing ‘voices’ into one. The effort was worth it; our publisher told us that it was “the most perfect manuscript we have ever seen”, but there was a significant time cost. My tracking app ‘Timing’ showed me that putting the manuscript through Grammarly took around 40 hours, but bear in mind, this was just the final polish.

All up, the editing process was about 120 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? You will probably need six months for the final ‘polish’ if you are working full time. 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. Building a realistic timeline is part of being a professional – it’s always better to deliver early than over promise and deliver late.

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. 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:

1. Identify mailing lists, Facebook groups and other online spaces where you can share your book news in progress to build anticipation.
2. Build your own mailing: I used Google forms to create such a list for ‘How to be an academic’ , offering a gift voucher for early purchase (a good way to build word of mouth). We are doing the same for ‘How to fix your Academic Writing Trouble’.
3. 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.
4. Organise a book launch with a local bookstore. In my experience, this was relatively easy to do with the publisher’s help. I was able to find a free venue on campus and it only cost me $200 in sushi and $100 for an open bar. It was lovely to have a celebration after all that hard work.

Now I’m wondering: are you thinking about publishing your dissertation as a book or have you succeeded in achieving your publishing dream? 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.