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How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book: A Step-By-Step Guide for New Authors

Whether you are just starting graduate school, writing your dissertation, or the proud recipient of a recent Ph.D., you may be thinking about turning your dissertation into a published book. There are many reasons why this might be a good idea. In some fields, a published scholarly book is a preferred method for presenting a comprehensive view of pivotal research. A book gives you the space to discuss details, complications, connections, and ramifications in a way that is not possible in a journal article. In these fields, a well-reviewed book gives you instant credibility when applying for faculty positions, tenure, and related positions. A published book also has a much longer shelf life than an unpublished dissertation, and will occupy a respected place on your CV or resume for years to come.

In other fields, good dissertations are expected to produce one or more published journal articles, and many tenured faculty at top research institutions never publish a book. In these fields, publishing a book may still be an asset for those pursuing a traditional academic career, and can be a great way to transition into other careers such as science communication, education, or public policy. So if turning your dissertation into a book is something you are considering, here are some steps to get started.

Step 1: Identify your audience

Publishers are businesses that make money by selling books. This is true of "trade" publishers that sell books for the general public, and "academic" publishers that sell books primarily for students and scholars. Therefore, in order for a publisher to consider publishing your book, there must be a sufficiently large audience to buy your book. This audience will strongly influence how you organize and write your book, and may cause your book to be massively different from your dissertation. After all, the purpose of a dissertation is to show that you are knowledgeable about your field of study, and have made a significant contribution to it. In contrast, the purpose of a book is to serve a need for the reader.

Some dissertation topics may work well as required reading for college and university courses. In that case, you need to identify the types of courses that would be appropriate (e.g. courses in sociology that cover gender identity), and develop an understanding of how many students take such courses. For example, you might find that almost all colleges in the California State system have a sociology department. At California State AnyTown, there are 20,000 undergraduate students, and 400 students a year take a sociology course that focuses on gender identity. Other dissertation topics might appeal to people in specific professions (e.g. people who work with children who suffer concussions), and you might look at the number of people in relevant professional organizations (e.g. associations for coaches or pediatric nurses). At the other end of the spectrum, you might imagine a book that appeals to a fairly wide audience (e.g. a book that addresses recent events linked to gender identity, or a broader discussion of concussion in youth sports). For these books, the intended audience may be harder to define, so you can estimate its size in the next step.

Step 2: Identify competing books

Once you have identified a potential audience, you need to familiarize yourself with the books they are reading. Your book will be competing with these books, so you need to determine how your book will fill a gap for this audience. Here you have the opportunity—and the obligation—to read widely in your intended niche. If this opportunity doesn't excite you, do not try to write a book for this niche. The process of writing a good book is laborious and time consuming, so if you are not interested in exploring similar books for what works and what doesn't, you will not enjoy writing your own book for this category.

As you identify and read competing books, you should pay attention to the topics that they cover, and how the author writes about these topics. Consider whether the text is instructive or narrative, what details are included, how the text is organized, and whether visual aids such as photographs, diagrams, or tables are included. Also find out when the book was published, how long it is, how much it sells for, and how many copies have been sold (or at least what its Amazon sales rank is).

You may find books that are very similar to your book, or that are different in significant ways (such as the specific topic) but that have characteristics you want to emulate (e.g. a good strategy for presenting technically challenging research to a broad audience). As you gain a good understanding of related books, you'll need to develop a list of 3-10 books that will compete with your book. You will use this list to support two points:

• Books similar to your book have been successful with your intended audiences; and
• Your book fills an unmet need for this audience, so they will buy it.

That unmet need might be a more recent book that incorporates new knowledge, or a book that takes a different approach to a question that has already been addressed.

This survey of related books will also help you plan your book. If you find that multiple books already exist for your intended topic, you may need to shift your emphasis so that your book offers something new. If you find that there are few successful competing books, it may be that your intended audience is too small, and that you need to shift your emphasis to fit into a more productive niche.

Step 3: Create an outline for your book

Once you have an intended audience, an excellent understanding of successful books in the same category, and an idea for how you can fill a need in that category, you can start planning your book in detail. Put together an outline, starting with the major topic for each chapter, and thinking about how the overall theme will progress through the entire book. Even for a purely academic book, there must be an overall arch to your story.

While it may be tempting to slip into the same mindset that you used for planning and writing your dissertation, remember that the purpose of your book is to serve a need for the reader. So rather than focusing on your specific research contributions (which is essential for a dissertation), focus on what the reader needs to know. To facilitate this mindset, it may be useful to put away your dissertation for a bit (assuming that it is already complete) and focus on other projects. Then revisit your dissertation topic when you have fresh eyes and a better understanding of what would be useful for your intended audience.

As you flesh out the details for each chapter, set a target word count and think about any images or tables that should be included. Keep in mind that book publishers must pay for every page, image, and footnote to be edited, prepared, and printed. Books that are only available electronically still have most of these per-page expenses. Therefore, use successful books in your category as a guide for how long your book should be, and how many images should be included. Color images also add significantly to the production costs .

As you are preparing your outline, you will likely reach a point where you are unsure if the details of your plan will work. Then it is time to write.

Step 4: Write a sample chapter

If you want a publisher or agent to consider your book, you will typically need to submit a sample chapter or two. You may be asked to submit your first chapter or your "best" chapter, so I recommend starting with your first chapter and making it excellent.

While there are many different approaches to successful writing, one common theme is that the first draft is usually terrible. So write the first draft of your first chapter and let it be terrible. Then read and revise, and repeat. As you are writing and revising, I recommend regularly taking time to read some of your competing titles. How do they deal with some of the challenges you are facing? Are their approaches successful or can you envision a better way?

As you write your first chapter or two, you may find that you need to revise your outline. Pay attention to what you can effectively cover for your audience in the space available.

Step 5: Identify appropriate publishers or agents

Once you have a strong plan and a sample chapter or two, you need to identify potential publishers. Start by looking at your list of competing titles, and learn about those publishers. Also talk to colleagues who have published books, and ask if they would be willing to put you in contact with their publisher or agent. The process can be quite complicated, and for a comprehensive guide I recommend The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Many publishers also post guidelines for potential authors on their websites. For most publishers, you will need to show that you understand your audience and competing books, and provide a detailed book outline and convincing sample chapter.

Here is an infographic that breaks down all of these major points:

Revising Your Dissertation for Publication

While a dissertation’s in-depth research and analysis can provide a strong foundation for a book, the dissertation itself is not a book and will not be published by an academic press without substantial revisions. Some acquisitions editors are interested first books, especially if they bring new perspectives and fresh ideas to a field, while others do not often publish first books. If you are considering submitting your dissertation for publication, we recommend that you contact editors at university presses that publish in your subject area for guidance on revising your work. Many editors prefer to be involved in the early stages of this process so they can advise you on how to structure the book and your arguments to create a publishable book. Editors generally require changes in the length, content, tone, and style of a dissertation in order to produce a book that will appeal to buyers in the academic market. Read more about submitting a proposal in our Scholarly Publishing Guide .

Below are selected resources to help you revise your dissertation for publication as a book or journal article(s).

Advice from publishers

• Harvard University Press
• Palgrave Macmillan
• Rowman & Littlefield
• Taylor & Francis
• University of North Carolina Press
• Yale University Press
• Publisher Policies on using content in both a thesis or dissertation and an article (from MIT Libraries)
• From Dissertation to Book by William Germano (Lauinger Library, 4th Floor, PN162 .G37 2013)
• Revising Your Dissertation, Updated Edition : Advice from Leading Editors (updated edition, 2008) edited by Beth Luey (online; GU NetID and password required)
• From Dissertation to Book , Duke University (February 27, 2018)
• From Dissertation to Book ( full transcript ), Harvard University (December 17, 2010)
• How To Turn Your Dissertation into a Book , Yale University (April 6, 2016)
• From Dissertation to Book by Leonard Cassuto (Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2011)
• From Dissertation to Published Book (lanugageandphilosophy.com report on an American Comparative Literature Association workshop)
• Give It a Rest by Laura Portwood-Stacer (Inside Higher Ed, August 6, 2019)
• The Stages of Revising a Dissertation into a Book by Amy Benson Brown (Journal of Scholarly Publishing, vol. 52 no. 2, 2021, p. 127-140) (GU NetID and password required)
• Turning Your Dissertation into a Book (University of Washington)
• Publishing your Dissertation (American Psychological Association)

How to... Convert your thesis into a book

This how to guide takes you through everything you need to know to convert your thesis into a book.

You can read all the information you need below, or watch this video from Books Commissioning Editor, Katy Mathers.

On this page

Consider the level of conversion.

• What are book publishers looking for

Consider the audience

• Tips for converting your thesis

What happens next?

Your first consideration when thinking about book publishing options for your thesis should be the level of conversion. You could consider the following options.

A full conversion – from thesis to book

This is a good option should your thesis be on a topic that would have wide appeal to an academic audience. A key consideration here is that the structure of a thesis is massively different to a book. Rather than starting with a hypothesis, a book should showcase a considered argument and its narrative should communicate that argument to peers in the field – demonstrating how the research has evolved into this viewpoint, and what impact it can have.

Partial conversion – using parts of your thesis in a book

Using parts of your thesis in a book usually means that you are conducting further research that might be ongoing, and might involve colleagues that might be a co-author on the project.

Partial conversion – a chapter in an edited collection

Perhaps your thesis doesn’t quite have the broad appeal for a full book conversion. In this case you might consider a chapter in an edited collection under a broader theme – this means you’re broadening the scope of your PhD research to a wider audience by collaborating with a team of contributors on an edited book. Look out for calls for chapters on relevant themes.

What are publishers looking for?

Broad (global) scholarly appeal.

• Remember your thesis is written for a handful of examiners and experts in your field and is partly there to demonstrate the expertise you have gained from your research. A book should have a much wider audience than that, and should be engaging and interesting enough to appeal to a broad section of researchers across your field (and potentially other disciplines as appropriate), and should particularly be accessible enough to engage any researcher interested in your topic of study.
• Single-country case studies won’t always translate well into a book given their focused scope, however, they would work as part of an edited collection with a broader global scope.
• A good book manuscript should focus on a coherent argument/narrative, rather than a step-by-step checklist of things you need to demonstrate in a thesis.
• You don’t need to include big sections or whole chapters on literature review or methodology, these can be weaved into the book as and when appropriate.

Development potential

• An original thesis should be regarded as the basis for an entirely new work, written with a new audience in mind.

Talking about your research and the process of working it into a book is one of the best ways to ensuring success.

Try reaching out to your immediate colleagues, and co-authors on published papers, your PhD supervisor, peers you might meet at conferences, with a publishing contact, or even online. Try asking for advice on twitter, or any professional network sites.

It is advisable to start a conversation with supervisors and other colleagues shortly after the completion of a PhD.

Once you’ve started to get a good idea of what you want to do, it’s also a great time to reach out to a commissioning editor at a publisher. They can advise on further considerations for turning your thesis into a book with a broad scholarly appeal, as well as how to fill in a book proposal form.

Following this, the next natural step is to submit a book proposal which will be considered by the publisher, often involving a peer review process.

The single most important thing to remember when converting your thesis is the audience. Your thesis is written for a select amount of examiners with specific expertise in your field and showcases your nuanced and rich expertise, which you have gleaned from your research in your particular area.

In contrast, a book should have a much wider audience and should be engaging and interesting enough to appeal to a broad section of researchers across your field, and potentially even other disciplines as appropriate.

As a book, your research should be accessible enough to engage any researcher interested in your topic of study.

• Realise which parts of your thesis are useful only to examiners. Any sections such as literature review, or extended methodology discussion should be cut or heavily amended/digested. These sections can weave in and out of your overall narrative rather than be structured separately.
• Writing style is less important for examiners, but essential for book readers. PhD examiners will read your thesis regardless of the writing style, but the writing style for book readers is essential for ensuring your research is accessible and engaging. You must be prepared to extensively re-write your thesis to retain and engage readers. This should be seen as essential rather than optional.
• Keep the big picture in mind. It’s important to take a step back while putting together a proposal, or during the manuscript writing process. Set reminders at intervals to focus on the overall narrative of the book. Is there a logical development of an argument? Does it make sense to a reader’s point of view? If not , be prepared to rethink the structure – it can be freeing to step away from a traditional thesis structure.
• Write concisely. It’s important to bear in mind the importance of the reader’s time. At all stages of the writing process you should focus on streamlining where possible and keep in mind the agreed length of the book. Books are often much shorter than theses, which by their nature contain much repetition. If you’re finding it hard to meet the agreed word limit, your writing style is likely not quite right yet for a book audience.
• Emphasise context. If your research is specialist and nuanced, with a narrow scope, try boosting its contextual implications by adding an international or inter-disciplinary context. It’s particularly useful to do this within the introductory and concluding chapters. Rounding off your book with opening and closing contextual chapters can really emphasise the place of the research within the field and showcase how it’s adding to the literature or breaking fresh ground.
• Get a third party proof-reader. Consider getting someone within your field, perhaps without the specialist knowledge relating to your PhD knowledge, and see what they think of your writing style. If they can follow your argument and find value in the work you’re presenting for the wider field, then the book has good potential. If they’re struggling, you might need to re-think the project.

Top tips for converting your thesis

• The main title of the book should position it clearly without reference to other bibliographic information, and should be as short as possible.
• Chapter titles are something people often forget, and chapter titles can sometimes be a real giveaway in a proposal that a book is based on a thesis and maybe hasn’t been revised appropriately. It’s often a comment reviewers make, and a clear sign to them that the proposal is a thesis conversion. Chapter titles can be way more dynamic in a book than in a thesis, and there’s no need to have chapters called 'methodology' or 'results'. Freeing yourself from these structured ways of thinking can be liberating, and is a good way of diverting yourself from writing in a thesis style.
• Remember that readers of the book are most interested in what your findings/argument are. Think about leading your book with the 'end' of your thesis, i.e. the results/answer to the question you were researching, rather than starting by explaining how you got there.
• You don’t need to include big sections or whole chapters on literature review or methodology, these can be weaved in to the book as and when appropriate (particularly if your research employed an innovative methodology, for example).
• A book manuscript should typically be shorter than your thesis. If you’re struggling to bring the word count down, you might need to get help with your writing style, or evaluate if you’ve cut enough “thesis-heavy” content from your work.
• Use introductory and concluding chapters to contextualise your research. This is super helpful for placing your work within the field.

To summarise

Be prepared to re-write: Having sketched out a new structure and focus, you now have to start writing all over again to create a completely new work. You should accept this as a must for success, and enjoy the creative process that comes with it.

Remove academic structuring: Ordinary readers want you to get straight to the point, Anything that sounds like "In this chapter I will argue . . ." or "In this chapter I have shown . . ." should be deleted immediately.

Audience is the most important consideration. Re-organise your writing around your new audience – remember that concise, narrative-led writing is essential.

Re-focus on the storytelling. Any background material (such as surveys of previous literature, historical background, discussions of earlier and current theories, arguments, methodology, etc.) if retained at all, should be moved from the beginning to the end of the book, or incorporated in a condensed form into the relevant sections of the main text. From start to finish, you should begin with an answer rather than a question, and your argument should be maintained throughout.

Once you’ve formed an idea for your book project, it’s a good time to talk to a commissioning editor at a publisher about submitting a proposal.

Get ready to publish a book

See a list of our book commissioning editors, along with their subject areas and contact information.

Submit your book proposal

Find out how submit a book or series proposal and what the next steps in the publishing process are.

The book peer review process

A helpful guide to our book peer review process.

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How to Turn your Dissertation into a Book

You finished your dissertation and want to turn it into a book? Then don’t let the revision process scare you – we've got you covered with helpful tips and tricks on the way.

This post is part of a series, which serves to provide hands-on information and resources for authors and editors.

After years of hard work on their dissertation, more than a few Early Career Researchers consider turning their PhD research into a monograph. While this is great to reach a whole new audience, the process of getting there can seem complex and daunting at first.

But we’re here to help!

The first and most essential step is to decide whether your dissertation should become a book at all. For many scholars this is a no-brainer, especially in the humanities and the social sciences, where the publication of books is crucial for getting professional recognition, climbing up the career ladder, and eventually gaining tenure.

Your dissertation could also be published in the form of one or several journal articles. Or something you just want to upload on a university server and be done with.

However, let’s say that you do want to convert your thesis into a publishable book, here are the general steps of this exciting undertaking:

• Find your match
• Build your confidence
• Get down to the nitty gritty
• Pitch your work
• Respond and revise

1. Find Your Match

The process of revising a dissertation goes hand-in-hand with the search for the right publishing house. The question what kind of book you want or need will influence your choice. Vice versa, the publisher shapes what kind of book you will be rewarded with.

Publishing with an established publisher is still considered as a sign of quality. They take care of things like quality control and peer review, and they select their titles carefully, so they fit their lists. This also means the books will sell better. Moreover, and most importantly: a publisher makes your work visible, be it online, in catalogues, on conferences, book fairs, or by distributing your book among libraries and universities.

Are you looking for the right press to publish your academic work? Find out here whether De Gruyter might be the right partner for your project!

Ask yourself this: Where do you want to see your book? Where have your favorite publications been published? Browse bookshelves, and visit book exhibitions at conferences . Talk to editors, approach them, ask for their conditions; check websites.

But whilst you do all of that: Please never submit to more than one publisher at the same time. Wasting editors’ time is frowned upon and doesn’t bode well for future publication with the house.

2. Build your Confidence

Once you decided on which press would be a good choice (from university presses, independent academic publishers, trade publishers etc.), there are a couple of things you need to take into consideration.

First and maybe most importantly: Be kind to yourself. Acknowledge what you have already accomplished. This has been a huge effort, and you have earned every right to be proud of yourself! Then, get to work.

Be prepared to invest time and nerves into reworking your dissertation. Focus on what you have already done, and build from there.

Remember, a book is not a dissertation. You do not need to convince anyone anymore that you are the expert and that you have done your reading. The reader of your book trusts that you are, and that is why they bought it.

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3. Get Down to the Nitty Gritty

• Envision your audience. This will help you give your dissertation a makeover.
• Your viva was probably a while ago, so lots of new and interesting research has been published since then that could potentially influence your work. Do the reading.
• Go over your literature review and see what is not needed anymore for your argument. Do not quote other people as much – the reader wants to know what you think. The reader of your book is also not hugely interested in all of the methodologies out there. Tell them what you used and why, but cut everything else.
• Tell the reader in the introduction what the book’s central argument is. What is your contribution to the field? What’s new? In the conclusion, tell them what the consequences are. What difference do your findings make? How do they help the field?
• Try to stay close to the 100,000 word threshold (=300 pages), including notes. Keep the manuscript sleek, limit the apparatus. Try to have chapters of equal lengths.
• Sure enough, images are nice and often help the reader get a sense for the text, but do not forget that you have to clear rights for most of them, and get all the technicalities for print sorted.
• Use simple wording. Be on point. Always remember your audience needs to understand you, and not all of them are experts.
• Go easy on the footnotes: Resist making them a container for all of the brilliant thoughts that don’t quite fit in the flow or argument of your book. If a remark doesn’t belong in your text, it might not belong in your book altogether.

Bear in mind: With a dissertation, you have something to prove. With a book, you have something to say.

4. Pitch Your Work

After revising, you need to prepare a pitch: Sell your book! Let the publisher know why your research is important and how it changes the field. What’s the unique selling point of your book, what sets it apart from others?

To get started, check the publisher’s website. Usually there is a proposal form hidden away somewhere. Try to find information on the submission process and/or a personal contact. Follow the guidelines, and write an e-mail to the responsible Acquisitions Editor.

Indicate that you are familiar with the scope of the publisher’s list. Maybe you know of a book series of theirs, where your work might fit in. Let them know you did your homework, and that you are invested. Describe how your book complements other titles in the series and why it would be a great fit.

Learn more about book proposals in our blog post “How to Write an Academic Book Proposal: 6 Questions for Laura Portwood-Stacer” .

Be concise. Your proposal should demonstrate not only that you are an expert on the topic, but that you can condense and synthesize what you know, that you can share it concisely, and that you can present your research in a way that is stimulating and thought-provoking.

Usually, the more material you send, the better. Being able to read a sample chapter of the dissertation, in addition to the proposal, makes it much easier for the publisher to get a sense about the writing style of an author, who is still unknown to them.

5. Almost There! Respond and Revise

After you submitted, and heard back from the editor of the press, you can relax a little. Your manuscript is now either under consideration with the editor or already sent out for external peer review. This might take a while.

Chances are, when you hear back from the editor the next time, the reviewers will have criticized parts of your manuscript and are asking for improvements. Hence, you will need to get back into the text once again. This can be a hard moment, but remember: you are so close now! Revise one last time and at the end of the road, you might already see the light of your shiny new author contract.

Good luck – you got this!

If you are interested, check out this related blog post

[Title image by hanna grace via Unsplash]

Rabea Rittgerodt

Rabea works as Acquisitions Editor at De Gruyter. She is specialized on 19th & 20th century social, cultural, and global history. You can follow her on Twitter via @RabeaRi .

Sophie Wagenhofer

Sophie Wagenhofer works as Senior Acquisitions Editor Islamic & Jewish Studies at De Gruyter.

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Turning Your Dissertation into a Book

Interested in publishing your dissertation as a book? You will likely need to revise it extensively so it will appeal to a wider audience and compete in the literary marketplace. Here are some guidelines to help you in this process.

• Allow plenty of time!
• The review process can easily take up to a year, as it entails a peer review of your manuscript, potential revisions, further peer review and then approval.
• The editing process can easily take a year to a year and a half as it entails copyediting, design, typesetting and proofreading, preparation of the index, printing and binding.

Dissertations differ from books in several ways

• Dissertations are highly specialized, while books are geared to general readers.
• Dissertation audiences are usually fewer than 100 readers — books are about 500 or more, in general.
• In a dissertation, the author’s authority must be proven; in books, it is assumed.
• Dissertations contain extensive documentation (to prove authority), while books document to credit sources and help the reader.
• Dissertations can run long; books are often far shorter.

Elements that make a good book

• A concise, memorable and intriguing title that includes essential key words
• Clear and effective organization
• A succinct introduction
• Illustrations that enhance the text
• Sections that are meaningful either alone or as part of the total book
• Navigational aids, such as chapter titles, running heads, subheads, notes, bibliography, index
• A voice (relationship of author to reader) that functions like an invisible tour guide or creative storyteller, and avoids sounding like a lecturer at a podium

The revision process

• Forget your dissertation. Forget your committee.
• Clarify your modified topic and audience.
• Determine how to present it in a dynamic way.
• Remove unnecessary references to yourself.
• Delete conspicuous chapter intros and summaries.
• Make style parallel in chapter titles, captions, chapter openings and closings, subheads.
• Revisit the introduction and conclusion.
• Remove unnecessary notes; condense or combine others.
• Eliminate most cross-references.
• Cut unnecessary examples and data.
• Make chapter openings strong, clear, and inviting.
• Add definitions of jargon, foreign terms, biographical and historical dates.
• Brainstorm several possible titles and subtitles.
• Tighten prose.
• Use active verbs.
• Begin and end sentences with words you want to emphasize.

The Chicago Manual of Style . 15th ed. (2003). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

German, William. (2005).  From dissertation to book . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Harmon, Eleanor, et al., ed. (2003).  The thesis and the book: A guide for first-time academic authors. 2nd ed . Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Lucy, Beth, ed. (2004).  Revising your dissertation: Advice from leading editors . Berkeley: University of California Press.

by Lorri Hagman, executive editor, University of Washington Press

LAMBERT Academic Publishing

Turning Your Dissertation into a Book: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Publishing Process

If you’ve recently completed your dissertation and you’re proud of the work you’ve done, you may be wondering how to share it with a wider audience. One option is to publish your dissertation as a book. While this process can be daunting, it can also be incredibly rewarding.

Here are some tips to help you get started:

Determine if your dissertation is book-worthy

Not all dissertations are suited for publication. Before investing time and effort into the publishing process, do some research to determine if there’s a market for your work. Look for books in your field that are similar to your dissertation and see how well they sell. If there’s demand for your topic, then it’s a good sign that your dissertation could make a successful book.

Revise and refine

It’s rare that a dissertation can be published as is. Typically, you’ll need to revise and refine your work to make it more accessible and engaging for a broader audience. Consider hiring a professional editor to help you identify areas that need improvement.

Find a publisher

There are several options for publishing your dissertation as a book. You can either self-publish , approach an academic publisher, or try a hybrid publisher. If you’re not sure which route to take, do some research to see which option is the best fit for you and your goals. You can check out Lambert academic publishing ’s fast and affordable online platform to publish your own book .

Follow submission guidelines

Each publisher will have their own submission guidelines, so make sure you read them carefully and follow them to the letter. This can include things like formatting, length, and style requirements.

Build your author platform

Once your book is published, it’s up to you to promote it. Start building your author platform before your book comes out by creating a website, engaging with your audience on social media, and building relationships with influencers in your field.

Publishing a book can be a lengthy process, so be prepared to wait for your book to hit the shelves. But remember, the wait will be worth it when you see your dissertation transformed into a tangible book that can be shared with the world.

Publishing your dissertation as a book is a rewarding way to share your research with a wider audience and make an extra buck. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to turning your dissertation into a published work that you can be proud of.

How to publish your dissertation in a journal

Publishing your dissertation in a journal is a great way to share your research with a wider audience and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Here are some steps to help you publish your dissertation in a journal:

Choose the right journal

Before you start the submission process, it’s important to find a journal that is a good fit for your research. Look for journals that specialize in your field and have published articles on similar topics to your dissertation.

Review submission guidelines

Each journal has specific submission guidelines, so be sure to review them carefully. Pay attention to requirements such as formatting, word count, and citation style.

Revise your dissertation

While your dissertation has already been approved by your advisor, it may still require revisions to meet the standards of a journal article. Be prepared to revise and edit your dissertation to meet the journal’s requirements and to make it more concise and readable.

Write a cover letter

When submitting your dissertation to a journal, it’s important to include a cover letter that introduces yourself and your research. The cover letter should highlight the significance of your research, why it’s relevant to the journal’s audience, and how it contributes to the current body of knowledge in your field.

Submit your dissertation

After you have completed the necessary revisions and written a cover letter, you can submit your dissertation to the journal. Be sure to follow the journal’s submission instructions carefully and provide all required materials.

Publish your dissertation as a book

Publish your dissertation as a book : show your dissertation has what it takes to make it to the big league. Build your dissertation’s trust. Making your dissertation an authority increases its chances of being published in a journal significantly.

Be prepared for the review process

The journal will likely have a peer-review process where your article will be reviewed by experts in your field. Be prepared to receive feedback and make revisions based on their comments.

In conclusion, publishing your dissertation in a journal requires careful research, attention to detail, and a willingness to revise and edit your work. By following these steps, you can increase your chances of success and share your research with a wider audience.

Lambert offers an easy and affordable publishing process that allows you to share your dissertation with a global audience. With no publishing contract required and professional editing and formatting services included, publishing your dissertation with us has never been easier. Plus, our worldwide distribution network ensures that your work will be seen by a wider audience. Don’t let your research go unnoticed – publish your dissertation with Lambert Academic Publishing today and take the first step towards sharing your findings with the world!

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Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World

How to turn your PhD thesis into a book

Oxford Academic

Learn more about the world of academic publishing—from open access to peer review, accessibility to getting published—with our Publishing 101 series on the OUPblog.

• By Sam Bailey
• June 6 th 2024

As an OUP editor who has also completed a PhD, one of the most common questions I am asked is how to turn a thesis into a book. My only-slightly-flippant answer is don’t .

Rather than a revision of their PhD, I would encourage first-book authors to treat their fledgling monograph as a brand-new project.

In a 2015 interview for Vogue , Ursula K. Le Guin spoke about revising Steering the Craft , her classic handbook for aspiring fiction writers, for the twenty-first century. ‘It’s substantially the same book,’ she says, ‘but almost every sentence is rewritten.’ This oxymoron draws attention to the slippery distinction between the work of revising and the work of rewriting. Far from being a distinct undertaking with a separate purpose, revising often shades off into rewriting by an almost imperceptible degree.

For former doctoral students, this is no bad thing. A PhD thesis and an academic monograph have entirely different purposes—trying to turn the former into the latter via a process of revision can feel like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

At the most basic level, a thesis is a document written to pass an exam and to prove the writer’s skill as a researcher. In keeping with this purpose, it is written for a readership of two or—if we’re being generous—three people: your pair of examiners and your primary supervisor. More people will likely read parts of your thesis, although they are not the target readership. A monograph, on the other hand, is written to communicate important and useful research to the widest possible specialist readership. Each of the two documents’ purposes is entirely different, and everything about their construction must feed into that purpose, or they are not doing their job very well.

Before you begin

It’s worth pausing to think whether your thesis needs to become a monograph to advance your career. In certain disciplines, a couple of peer-reviewed research articles in reputable journals is just as, if not more, advantageous than a monograph with an equally reputable publisher.

There’s also the effort-to-reward ratio to consider; turning two thesis chapters into research articles may be less time consuming than turning your entire thesis into a monograph. Besides, having some disciplinary journal publications to your name is going to make a publisher far more interested in your first book, which can now be based on new research unrelated to your thesis. I am reminded of Pat Thomson’s sage advice that ‘ all PhDs can generate some refereed journal articles. But not all PhDs have enough in them to become a book.’

Turning your PhD thesis into a monograph should not be seen as the default course of action, so carefully consider the alternatives before embarking upon this route. But if you still want to, here are a few things you should consider:

Authorial voice

With your PhD in the bag, you have proven your skill as an academic researcher. Congratulations!

Your authorial voice should now feature more prominently in your writing and your own original interpretation should be prioritised over the views of your predecessors. This approach is very different to writing a thesis, where your interpretation must be couched in quotations from secondary sources. You no longer need to provide an audit trail to such a great extent, and monographs feature far fewer secondary quotations—especially long block quotations—than are commonly found in theses. Similarly, the number of secondary citations should be significantly reduced to only cover essential reference points. The spotlight should be firmly on your original ideas and your discussion of primary sources, with far fewer words devoted to quoting and evaluating the contributions of others.

Literature review

To put it simply, a monograph shouldn’t have one. Building on the previous point about authorial voice, the literature review is the prime example of providing an audit trail that simply isn’t expected in a monograph. Remove it! Then, in its place, summarise in one or two pages the most important through-lines found in that literature that are of direct relevance to your arguments. Your readers will assume you’ve done your homework (that was the PhD thesis) and you only need to introduce them to the secondary sources that are essential to following the argument of your monograph. For example, if your work is interdisciplinary and you’re pitching the book to a publisher’s disciplinary list, you might need to summarise the key findings of a particular school of thought from outside the list’s ‘home’ discipline.

Unlike a PhD thesis, a monograph needs to sell copies. Even not-for-profit university presses are required to break even, and a publisher won’t take a chance on a monograph unless they consider it a safe investment. It is down to you to convince them that there is a market for your work and that you write in a way that effectively captures that readership. You must be certain of your book’s selling points and ensure they are effectively communicated in your book proposal and woven into every section of your draft manuscript or writing sample.

One example: publishers are increasingly asked to think about how ‘adoptable’ someone’s book project is, meaning: can we picture it being assigned as required reading in undergraduate or postgraduate courses? For this to be the case, individual chapters should be concise and able to be assigned as standalone reading. Jargon should be kept to a minimum. Anything even slightly tangential should be cut.

Pat Thomson says that converting your PhD thesis into a monograph is ‘a time to hone your writing craft’. What she means by this, I think, is that you have the opportunity and responsibility to learn how to become a better communicator. Your PhD examiners are obliged to read your thesis no matter how engaging they find it, whereas if the readers of your monograph find it unengaging, they will simply stop reading. Academic writing can be so much more than dry, expository prose, and this is a time to stretch your creative writing muscles in a way you weren’t able to do while writing your thesis. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft provides some narrative techniques and writing exercises to help you do this.

Where to begin?

My advice would be to begin at the end. The conclusion of your PhD thesis probably contains your most valuable insights, most useful innovations, and most compelling answers to the all-important questions of ‘so what?’ and ‘why should anyone care?’. These diamonds in the rough can form the building blocks of a monograph that should be thought of not as a revision of your thesis, but as a brand-new project that builds upon your previous research. This new project can draw from some of the most exciting parts of your thesis, though it should be more than just repackaged doctoral research. And it will be far more attractive to a publisher, not to mention enjoyable to write.

Featured image by Element5 Digital via Unsplash .

Sam Bailey (he/him), Senior Associate Editor, Humanities, Oxford University Press

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• Insights blog

Turning your PhD into a successful book

Requests regularly arrive in the Author Services inbox asking for advice about turning PhD research into journal articles or books. In this guide, first posted on the  LSE Impact Blog , Terry Clague, a Senior Publisher at Routledge gives his advice and insight into what publishers are looking for when they receive new book proposals.  

Research conducted as part of a PhD is valuable. It is valuable for the researcher, who has spent countless hours carrying out the work and it is valuable to those deciding whether the research should result in the award of a PhD qualification. But can the research be valuable to broader audiences? The simple answer is yes – at the heart of many successful academic books lies research conducted as part of a PhD. 

What options to consider when turning your PhD into a book

In the majority of cases, PhD research is published in the form of journal articles. In some cases, the research is published in a book. Between either end of that publishing spectrum there is an array of options to consider when it comes to disseminating PhD research: 

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 evolution and impact. 

Using parts of a PhD thesis in a book  requires that ongoing and/or collaborative research is being conducted. A book (perhaps co-authored) should be greater than the sum of its constituent parts. 

Using an aspect of a PhD thesis in an edited book  on a broader topic ensures that the research fits with related research on a similar theme. A good edited book addresses the need to broaden the scope of PhD-based research via collaborating with a team of contributors. 

Splitting a PhD thesis into several articles  for journals hedges a PhD’s bets by staking smaller amounts of the work in different locations. What is gained by this hedging may be lost in the overall narrative of the PhD research as it is unbundled. 

What publishers look for when deciding whether to take you on

The role of the book publisher is to connect authors with readers. When it comes to disseminating research originating from a PhD, this relationship is essential. It is therefore useful to consider the perspective of the publisher when considering what publication route to take. In assessing a proposal for a research-level book, a good publisher will initially ask themselves three questions: 

Is the  scope  of the research broad enough to be of interest to our readers (scholars globally)? Example

Is the  quality  sufficiently high? 

Can the work be  developed  via feedback from experts as part of the book review process to address any weaknesses? 

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Related posts, insights topics.

Beyond those core questions, potential authors should also consider significant and ongoing changes to the market for academic books, notably in reader behavior. Evolution in digital technology combined with a significant increase in the amounts of available research has led to changes in the way that books are produced, published and propagated. In this environment, the key word is “discoverability”. Connecting authors to readers requires that publishers facilitate discoverability of research via various routes to ensure that potential readers are able to find books with ease. Authors can aid this process by following a few basic rules of thumb: 

The main title of the book should position it clearly without reference to other bibliographic information, and should be as short as feasible 

Chapter titles should likewise, where possible, position themselves clearly 

Chapter synopses or abstracts can be used to enhance the metadata around books

Submitting a book proposal

It is useful to start a conversation with an acquisitions/commissioning editor at an early stage toward the end or shortly after the completion of a PhD. Discussions with supervisors and other colleagues are also very useful at this stage. The next natural step is to submit a book proposal which will be considered by the publisher, often involving a peer review process. Research-level books are often published as part of an established series – an awareness of existing books in such series can be useful when it comes to framing and developing a book proposal. 

Preparing your final manuscript for book publication 

Following a review process, the publisher’s editorial board would give final approval to proceed, following which a book contract would be issued. Armed with publisher and review feedback, the author can then proceed to produce a full manuscript based on their PhD research. Each book is different, but there are numerous key aspects to consider when preparing a final manuscript for book publication. Above all, never lose sight of the audience:

A thesis is written for examiners, a book for scholars in general . Anything that is useful only for examiners (e.g. literature review, methodology discussion) should be cut or heavily amended/digested. 

Examiners will work through text regardless of the writing style, book readers will not . Therefore, it is likely that extensive re-writing will be required to retain and engage readers. 

Take a step back . Think about the overall narrative of the book and be prepared to rethink the structure – this can be liberating! 

Value the reader’s time . Streamline where possible – theses by their nature contain much repetition. Keep in mind the agreed length of the book. 

Contextualize . If research is of a narrow scope, add international or inter-disciplinary context, particularly within the introductory and concluding chapters.

Sharing your research  

Finally, talking about your research and the process of working it into a book can be an essential ingredient to its success. This can be done with your immediate colleagues, at conferences and with a publisher. It can also be done online – with  social media a useful tool  to tap into wider networks as well as to test ideas out. 

Further Reading

European University Institute (Undated) –  From PhD to Book   Germano, W. (2005) –  From Dissertation to Book   Thomson, P. (2011) –  Can I Get a Book From My Thesis   Thomson, P. (2013) –  Turning Your PhD Into a Book   Veletsianos, G. (2016) –  Social Media in Academia , Routledge 

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Trapped in dissertation revisions?

From dissertation to book: advice for future authors, published by steve tippins on june 8, 2020 june 8, 2020.

Last Updated on: 29th August 2022, 08:28 am

Many PhD students believe that turning their dissertation into a book is a great idea. I’ve even run into some people who are counting on recouping some of the costs of their program by turning their dissertation into a book and selling it.

The first question I ask them is, “How many dissertations have you ever purchased?” There is a market for some research, but the way academics are trained is to get the article through a journal. If they want, they can get access to your dissertation through a library. 

In order for a book to sell, it must be both accessible to a wide audience and be likely to sell a large number of copies (enough for the publisher to make a profit).

The point is, your dissertation alone is not the same as a book. Turning your dissertation into a publishable, marketable book is a massive undertaking. It essentially means starting the writing process over from Page 1. It is possible to do, and in some cases may be beneficial. But it’s not easy.

From Dissertation to Book: Should I Turn My Dissertation Into a Book?

There may be a market for taking what you’ve done and and turning it into a topic of broader appeal. However, you will have to “de-academify” it, or rewrite it in a way that’s accessible to people outside of academia.

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 book. Even if your rewrite is accessible and engaging, it’s still important that the book be marketable to enough people that the publisher will make a profit. 

Self Publishing

The simplest publisher to convince is yourself. You can self-publish and do the marketing on your own. Many traditional publishers do minimal marketing anyway. However, be aware that without a strong grasp of how to market a book, you may only sell a few dozen copies (or less). Many self-published books go almost completely un-read. 

There are many services that can help you self-publish and even market a book. However, there is an upfront cost and there is still no guarantee that you’ll make an income from it.

Traditional Publishing

A traditional publisher will pay you an advance upfront, so your income will be assured. However, it may be difficult to find a traditional publisher willing to take on your projet. You’ll have to market your book to the publisher and show them that there will be sufficient demand for them to take your book on.

How are you going to help them sell enough books to make it worthwhile? This is the question that you must answer. How can you show them that you have connections with enough people to have a built-in market for the book? That might mean having 10,000+ people in your network (social media, email list, or other networks) that you’ll be able to market to.

Another thing that you’ll have to show them is that you’re a credible expert. Fortunately, having completed a dissertation on the subject you’re writing about should establish your expertise.. 

Giving Up Control

It’s also important to be aware that when a publisher takes on a book, they may have ideas about what should be included in the book and what may not. So you may have to give up some control over the material. However, it may be worth it if the publisher can guarantee a wider audience and allow your material to get out in the world, and they take care of the upfront costs of publishing.

Shifting Focus

When you wrote your dissertation your goal was to answer your research question(s). It was not to solve a problem or change the world. While that question may be interesting, you might find a better market if you can turn your results into something that might help solve a problem or change the world. Essentially, you’ll have to broaden your scope.

From Dissertation to Book: How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book

Recognize the Scope of the Project

First, it’s important to recognize the large scope of the project you’re taking on. Writing a book is no small feat, even for someone who has already written a dissertation. Also, realistically evaluate your chances of getting your book published. Has a publisher already expressed interest? Will you be pitching publishers you don’t know? How much of a market is there for your topic? Have other books on the topic been published?  These are all important questions to consider.

Read Recently Published Books Related to the Subject

This will help you get a picture of how people are approaching your subject for a general audience. Also, when you submit a book proposal, you will have to list comparable works, so this will help you get an idea of which books you’ll want to include. Finally, doing this will help you see how the books are organized and what the tone is, giving you a head start for your own outlining and writing process.

Read Books About Writing and Publishing

Equally important is to have a solid understanding of the book writing and publishing process. I recommend William Germano’s classic, From Dissertation to Book . However, don’t stop there. WIlliam Zinsser’s On Writing Well is exceptional and should be required reading for anyone who puts words down on paper.

Un-Learn Academic Writing

In order to take your research project from dissertation to book, you’re going to have to un-learn all of the academic writing skills you just perfected. For example, you can (and should) use things like contractions and parenthetical phrases when writing a book for non-academic purposes. 

The average reader may not want to know that Scrum, Scrum, and Scrum (2014) said something tangentially related to what you’re doing. They don’t need to know what the P-value is. You’ll have to shift both the focus and style of your writing. The type of granular detail that’s required in a dissertation is rarely acceptable in a piece of nonfiction written for the general public.

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Talk to People About Your Topic

Talk to somebody else about your dissertation. Have a third person outline what they would want to know about that topic. Talk it through casually with multiple people. This will help you get out of the academic mindset and into the mindset of communicating with the public.

Presenting on or teaching about your research can also help you get a better grasp of how to communicate to people about it. Teaching helps to “crystalize” the concepts you’ve lived with for so long into something you can communicate easily.

Make an Outline

Make an outline and write the first chapter. Show it to people who will give honest feedback, especially those with expertise in writing and English. The first concrete step in the process of going from dissertation to book is to organize your research in a way that’s accessible to a broader, non-academic audience. 

Create a Proposal

Most nonfiction books are sold to a publisher before they’re completely written. Usually, this means submitting a proposal along with two or three chapters. Consult an expert for more information about submitting a proposal.

Be Engaging

it’s important to differentiate between what your committee wants when writing your dissertation and what a publisher wants when writing a book. Karen Kelsky of The Professor Is In says, “Presses are not interested in “solid scholarship.”  They are interested in products that sell.  Products that sell have to be differentiated from the competition–ie, they have to be exciting, new, and different.” She goes on to say, “Write with style and flair.  Just because you *can* write clunky, graceless prose in academia, and get away with it, doesn’t mean you *should.*  Be provocative.  Be original.  Be incendiary.”

Get an Editor

Think about finding an editor who edits popular nonfiction manuscripts, as opposed to an academic editor . It’s kind of like hiring a translate to put your work from one language into another.

Even if you’re used to writing for a general audience, the process of writing a dissertation may actually change how you write. It’s always a good idea to get an editor’s eyes on the manuscript to weed out habits that fit well for academia but not for the general public.

From Dissertation to Book: Should You Publish Your Dissertation as an Academic Article?

You should publish it as an academic article first, before you publish it as a book. If you have aspirations within academia, publications in peer-reviewed journals will be much more beneficial for your career than a publication by Simon and Schuster. 

The other dissertation-to-book option is to write a textbook. You don’t have to “translate” as much from academia. However, you would have to do a lot more research–your textbook has to be much broader than the scope of a single dissertation. And you’ll still have to show the publisher that there’s a market, and why yours is better than those that are already out there. 

Help Turning Your Dissertation into a Book

For anyone who intends to go from dissertation to book, the support of an experienced coach and scholar can be invaluable. My Academic Career Coaching services can help you turn your dissertation into a book and jumpstart your academic career.

Steve Tippins

Steve Tippins, PhD, has thrived in academia for over thirty years. He continues to love teaching in addition to coaching recent PhD graduates as well as students writing their dissertations. Learn more about his dissertation coaching and career coaching services. Book a Free Consultation with Steve Tippins

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Give It a Rest

By  Laura Portwood-Stacer

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Finishing your dissertation is a huge milestone. It’s the moment when you truly have no more revisions to make and are really, finally done. You’ve been granted a Ph.D., and whatever else happens on the job market or in your writing career, no one can take those three letters away from you.

I’m sure you’ve been receiving a lot of well-meaning advice, such as “Take some time to relax” and “Don’t think about work for a while!” Yet when you’ve been working on something for a long time and so intensely, it’s easy to feel a little lost when it suddenly ends and there’s nothing left to do.

If you simply can’t bring yourself to take an extended vacation (which you should try to do, because, seriously, you’ve earned it), you might be tempted to just plunge into revising your dissertation and sending out book proposals. There are good reasons not to do so yet. Besides the fact that you probably do need some rest, getting some distance from your material is necessary if you want to understand what it all means.

As I’ve observed elsewhere (“ Getting Into Arguments ”), one of the most common issues I encounter when reading book manuscripts that have been revised from dissertations is a lack of clarity about the driving thesis of the project. Acquisitions editors notice this, too, believe me. Sometimes you need to pull way back from the trees of the dissertation in order to see the forest: the big thing you really want to communicate with your research. Various techniques will help you do that, but one of the best is just putting the project away for a while so you can return to your research question with fresh perspective.

So what should you do if you find yourself flailing about, looking for a way to feel “productive” while giving yourself a necessary vacation from your dissertation research? I’ve got six suggestions.

Start a totally new research project. Maybe there’s a topic or question that’s been bugging you for a while, but you didn’t have time to pursue it while you were finishing the dissertation. Or you’ve had a seminar paper that you were encouraged to publish but has been languishing on the back burner for a few years, waiting for you to collect more data. Turning your attention to new research can help you stay active while giving the dissertation some breathing room.

Between finishing my dissertation and landing a contract for my book on the political lifestyle practices of anarchist activists, I started conducting interviews for my article on people who abstain from Facebook. While I didn’t consider them to be overlapping projects at the time, I eventually was able to reflect on the common threads between them to construct a narrative about the research questions that interested me.

Those kinds of narratives are helpful when you’re on the job market, whether you stay in academe or not. If you do stick around the academy, such narratives can also help you extrapolate about your research trajectory over the next five to 10 years, which might come up in interviews, annual reviews and ultimately when you go up for tenure and promotion.

Read recently published books related to your dissertation topic. At some point during the dissertation-writing process, you probably had to cut yourself off and say, “No more reading!” This could be your opportunity to check out the stuff you couldn’t incorporate into the dissertation but might want to integrate into your book. I particularly recommend looking at monographs and anthologies related to your topic or methodology that have been published in the last year or two. They’ll give you a sense of the scholarly publishing landscape you’ll be stepping into in the near future.

When you write your book proposal, you’ll need to list some recent comparable works that your project is in conversation with; this could be your chance to get familiar with some that you might mention. Even if you read books outside your primary research area, you can still approach them with one eye on their structure and style, making note of what works and what doesn’t. Bonus points if you take some time to read published reviews of these books, as well.

Research scholarly presses. Take a look at that stack of recently published books you’ve just assembled. What press logos do you see on the spines? They will be good targets when it comes time to think about sending out your book proposal, since you’ll want to pitch your project to presses that are building lists in your area.

You can also start talking about presses with friends and colleagues who have recently come out with books or have manuscripts under contract. Ask them whether they had a good experience with their editor and press. Were they kept informed about the review process? Did they feel supported by the acquiring editor, production staff and marketing team? Were they happy with the finished object? Could they put in a good word for you with their editor? (Don’t be shy about this last one. Editors appreciate leads on promising authors and projects!)

Read books about writing and publishing. If you’re burned out on research books, read something a little more light and advicey. Many books about academic writing are out there; William Germano’s From Dissertation to Book is a popular one for people who’ve recently completed a Ph.D. I also highly recommend Melody Herr’s lesser-known Writing and Publishing Your Book: A Guide for Experts in Every Field for its nuts-and-bolts discussions of exactly what has to happen for a scholarly manuscript to become a book. When it comes time to write your proposal and contact editors, you’ll feel much less mystified about the whole process.

Present or teach your research. If you’ve taught academic material before, you know how much your understanding of a topic can crystallize when you’re forced to explain it to others. It wasn’t until I taught a senior seminar on subcultures and social movements that I figured out how to articulate a key theoretical insight that came out of my book. Unfortunately, the book was already published at that point. Avoid my mistake by teaching your work before you finish the book.

Talks and conference presentations can be similarly helpful for gaining new insight into your dissertation research as you prepare to write the book. Furthermore, sharing your work publicly can build awareness of you and your project among series editors, acquiring editors and others who are in a position to help you meet your publishing goals down the road.

Get feedback about your project from objective sources. One of the most helpful things I did before revising my dissertation was to publish a small piece of it in an academic journal. It was a chance to get specific feedback from peer reviewers on something that only my dissertation committee had previously reviewed. One of the reviewers summarized my argument back to me in a way that made me see the significance of my findings from a new perspective. I ended up adapting that article into the first body chapter of my book, and it shaped the rest of the manuscript as well. (Just don’t give away your project’s entire thesis in one article. You don’t want to have undercut the market for your book when you’re trying to convince publishers that your manuscript is a good investment.)

Even if your peer reviews don’t come back positive the first time around, you’ll still receive valuable information about how your work is landing, which you can use when it’s time to reframe it as a book. Think of it as a lower-stakes trial run for having your full book manuscript reviewed.

However you spend your time after finishing your dissertation, I hope you’ll congratulate yourself on what you’ve already accomplished. While it’s easy to dwell on your dissertation’s shortcomings and the mistakes you might have made on your way to earning the Ph.D., know that the book will be your chance at a do-over. Just remember to give the dissertation, and yourself, a much-needed and much-deserved break first.

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The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

My Top Five Tips for Turning Your Dissertation Into a Book–A Special Request Post

By Karen Kelsky | February 26, 2016

This is a repost from 2011.

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.  The process of turning the dissertation into a book will be different for every writer, and doesn’t lend itself to a template.  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.

Why should you turn your dissertation into a book, you ask?

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 search), high 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.

So here are The Professor’s Top Five Tips for Turning your Dissertation into a Book.

1)  Write the dissertation as a book to begin with.

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.  Don’t spend endless pages on tiresome, tedious obscurities of interest to 10 people in your sub- sub- sub-field.  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.  Don’t obsess about them; do the minimum, and move on.   In the meantime, put extra effort into a catchy, appealing Introduction and Conclusion.  These speak to readers, and to the editors and reviewers who will judge your mss. for publication.

2)  Make it short.

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 scholarly monographs rarely broke even).  Publishers must keep their production costs low, and this means they want shorter books.  I can promise you that if you present them with a 500 page monograph on the significance of the turtle as a symbol in 12th century religious iconography in Spain, for example, they are going to send it back with a polite email telling you they won’t be considering it until it is cut in half.

3) Know your market.

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.  Ask yourself what sort of class your diss/book is suited for.  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 to be.  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. to presses, you will be able to feature this “market research” prominently in your cover letter.

4) Don’t be boring.

Write with style and flair.  Just because you *can* write clunky, graceless prose in academia, and get away with it, doesn’t mean you *should.*  Be provocative.  Be original.  Be incendiary.  If your committee shies away from such showmanship, write a shadow chapter that you include once you’ve defended and are ready to send the mss. out to presses.  Presses are not interested in “solid scholarship.”  They are interested in products that sell.  Products that sell have to be differentiated from the competition–ie, they have to be exciting, new, and different.

5) Remember that your committee is not the world.

You have to please your committee to get a Ph.D., but you have to impress the presses to get a career.  Your committee controls you for a few years, but your book establishes your career trajectory for decades.  Set your eye on the prize, and don’t lose sight of it.  Do what you have to to satisfy your committee, but don’t ever forget who is in charge:  you.  You have an agenda, and that is publishing an influential, high-profile book with a top press.  Do not be derailed by committee politics and wrangles over whether you included XX citation in chapter 3 or properly acknowledged ZZ’s work in chapter 4.  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.

Here is my dissertation story:

I wrote a doctoral dissertation on why some young, single Japanese women in the early 1990s were demonstrating a striking enthusiasm for studying abroad, living abroad, working abroad, and finding white Western men to be their lovers and husbands.  My peers and professors in my graduate program severely disapproved of this project, and I was told by countless people that it wasn’t “legitimate” anthropology.  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 in 2001,  in 2015, I am still getting a (microscopically small) royalty check!

Similar Posts:

• Does the Status of the Press Matter?
• The Status of the Press Matters, Still!
• How To Write A Book Proposal
• The Big Issue In Your Grant Proposal
• Should I Send Out a Book Proposal Before the Manuscript is Completely Finished?

Reader Interactions

July 28, 2011 at 12:00 am

while I absolutely agree with your advice–and 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?

July 28, 2011 at 2:33 am

Dear Junior TT, thanks for asking. If you have a specific obstacle that’s afflicting you, please tell me what it is, and I’ll respond.

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. So, if you’re not actually staring down the barrel of year 5, then take a break, and apply for grants. 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. If you do not succeed in gaining funding, then ask your Head/Chair for a special dispensation. A good department and Head will release junior faculty from teaching to get their publishing done.

July 29, 2011 at 7:48 pm

While I find most of your advice useful, I was wondering if you could talk a bit more about “knowing your market” (#3 and #1, to some extent). I work on literature, and based on my experience (both as an undergraduate and as a teacher of undergraduates), we rarely, if at all, read secondary criticism in our courses. So I am having trouble trying to imagine how to pitch my book for an undergraduate audience/class. I understand your point about obscurity and also the need to make my research, however specialized, accessible to a broader audience, but I’d appreciate if you could write about this point more.

July 29, 2011 at 10:04 pm

Maria, OK. I would approach this a couple of ways. I’d find out what other books have recently come out from major univ. presses that are similar to yours. I’d study them to get clues about their length and density and jargon level. Id’ study their match with the press that published them–what are the clear emphases of different presses, and which matches your project best? Figure out the most likely “best match” press for your mss. 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. Don’t bury them in chapter 4. Find a way to refer to them in the Intro, and to cast your project in that light as you think about the cover letter you’ll submit to the press.

Second, You HAVE to include a discussion of “market research” in any cover letter that accompanies your mss. to a press. So, here, if your market is not undergrad classes, then what is it? I’d move up to graduate seminars, and finally of course to the scholarly fields your project speaks to. You are far, far, better off if your book intervenes in several fields rather than just one. You want to be able to say, “this book will have an impact on, and be adopted for courses in, fields as varied as women’s studies, comparative literature, media studies, and global studies.” You also have to say what other book(s) your book is “similar to.” So figure that out, and figure out how that book was marketed by its press.

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.

August 1, 2011 at 4:27 pm

Thankfully, 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.

My problem is finding quality mentorship about book writing beyond: you need to get your book done (from my third year review) and “you just need to sit and write it” (which is all ever anyone tells me when I ask them about their process, like it was magic or something). Again, although I realize the diss to book process is different for everyone, it could use a little more demystification.

Everyone told me over and over again not to worry when I was writing my diss that it was “not a book,” to hurry up and “get it done” because “you got job, so you don’t have to worry about it.” Well, believe me it is definitely “not a book” and I am unfortunately facing that music right now the hard way. You do, eventually, have to “worry about it.” However, even a few years in, I feel as ill prepared to write a book as I once did starting the diss. 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, 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? etc.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on getting the most out of a fellowship on that critical 4th year–as well as what a *realistic* revision timeline looks like for a diss that needs a lot of TLC. It is so easy to get bogged down and get discouraged because things aren’t progressing fast enough–and the unrealistic goals I set for myself don’t help. Thanks!

January 29, 2012 at 1:24 pm

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 thrilled about this, knowing I had VERY FEW publications. My advisor and another committee member were not so keen on this “dissertation-turned-book” idea, saying it would be better to publish several articles from the dissn. 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? Thanks!

January 29, 2012 at 5:10 pm

this is an excellent question. And like all excellent questions, it doesn’t have a single easy answer. The main issues here are to me, that you mentioned that the publishers are European publishers. You do’nt mention your field or where you are based and hope to work. If your field is some form of European studies, and/or you are based in Europe or hope to work in Europe, then those publishers might be a reasonable choice. But if you are based in the U.S. and want to work in the U.S., then you most likely made an excellent choice in not accepting their offers.

Don’t accept the first offer of publication that comes your way!!!! Especially for your 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.S., and it can’t give you the street-cred and the exposure/credibility that articles from the top journals and a book from the top press can.

Many, many students of my acquaintance have fallen prey to the siren song of the eager publisher anxious to publish their book, and thrown away their primary claim to fame on a publisher that nobody’s heard of, and that doesn’t have the wherewithall to actually promote and advertise the book. And then they are crushed and wonder why even with a book they aren’t getting shortlisted for jobs. That is why. The status of the publisher matters. Go for the very, very best that you can.

January 31, 2012 at 7:20 pm

Thanks so much! I’m glad I did the right thing by turning them down.

January 29, 2012 at 8:56 pm

Can you publish parts of your dissertation as articles and still publish it later as a united book? Or is it an either/or question?

January 29, 2012 at 9:03 pm

Typically you can get 2 articles out of the book, and in fact you *should* get two articles out of the book (ie, two of its chapters) because putting those out early in high profile journals gives you name recognition and clout when you shop the book to presses. More than two, and you start getting in trouble because presses don’t want to publish a (first) book that isn’t substantially new material. So in the case of a typical 5 chapter book, two chapters out as articles is the baseline to aim for. Of course everyone’s case will be slightly different, and if you have related material that is on the topic but not used in the book, definitely put that out to journals as well.

January 30, 2012 at 6:42 pm

Thanks! I appreciate that!

March 17, 2014 at 6:53 pm

Have you heard about publishing more chapters in other language, that is, two in English and one or two more in other language? I’d assume editors won’t care, since the non-English article won’t be considered duplicate by librarians, but I’m not sure. Thanks!

May 24, 2014 at 6:56 pm

I know you are speaking of dissertations but can this also apply to theses? Thank you

March 6, 2012 at 12:45 pm

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? What are the benefits and downsides? If nothing else, it gets me found on the web besides in Rate-my-professor.

March 6, 2012 at 12:56 pm

My gut says it doesn’t help, but I’m actually going to put this Q out on FB and Twitter. Stay tuned.

March 7, 2012 at 8:14 am

Responses coming in on Twitter and FB: innovative online publishing/blogging is increasingly valuable for exposure, etc., but self-published books will play no real role in establishing an academic reputation. The issue comes down to peer-review.

August 7, 2012 at 9:54 am

I wrote my dissertation on seven working class girls in a deindustrialized urban neighborhood as they made the transition from 8th grade to high school. A university press said they are VERY interested in it, so I am busy this summer rewriting it as a book. What do I do with the literature review? What do you mean by folding it into the introduction or sections?

August 8, 2012 at 9:21 pm

You want to remove the lit review for the most part, as that is one of the hallmarks of a dissertation that must be removed from the book. However, it is certainly valuable to refer briefly to work on the subject that plays a role in your analysis, so you’d break off chunks of it, and put some in the intro as appropriate, and/or some in the various chapters where they are relevant. But you don’t want a big fat tacky “lit review” chapter, or even whole section of a chapter, as that is a thing to leave behind in graduate school.

November 5, 2012 at 10:09 am

I’m in my last year at university and I chose to write a dissertation. There aren’t many books in the area I’m researching. Once I finish my dissertation, do you reckon it would be possible to publish – considering I’ll only have done an undergraduate degree and no masters/PhDs?

January 15, 2013 at 1:06 am

I wrote my dissertation back in May of 2009. My mother passed away quite suddenly during fairly routine heart surgery a few months later. It was devastating; she was my best friend. My father starting dating a neighbor three weeks later and this woman hates my sister and me. She stole many of my mother’s things, and convinced my father to sell the rest along with my family home, all without telling us. They moved to another town, and now I barely speak to my father. I tell you all this to explain why I was derailed when I should have been publishing chapters from my dissertation. I presented a couple of chapters at conferences, and received a positive response. I exchanged information with a fairly reputable publisher, but by the time she tried to get in touch with me, I was in a black fog. That was three years ago. Can I recover from this? Is it over for me?

January 15, 2013 at 10:37 am

I believe you can recover from this if you want to; you just have to start building up the record now that would have happened then, without the trauma. That’s difficult but doable.

February 6, 2013 at 7:46 am

Dear Karen, If you have a four-chapter dissertation that you are turning into a book manuscript, is it still advisable to publish two out of four of the chapters as peer reviewed articles? Many thanks

July 8, 2013 at 1:21 pm

This is all excellent advice, thanks. I was wondering if you could also provide some more details on the actual structure of the all-important book prospectus? I’m working on one now.

July 9, 2013 at 4:14 pm

See my post, How to Write a Book Proposal.

August 25, 2013 at 8:20 am

Thank your for advising about publishing a dissertation as book. In my case, my dissertation was an exploratory study about the effect of ethics education on undergraduate accounting students in an African country, where ethics is not taught in accounting-related programs in public colleges. There a lot of studies published on this subject matter; but, none of those was conducted and/or published in such a country. Now, I am wondering whether to publish my entire dissertation in academic journals or, just publish parts of it as articles. Nevertheless, I am also wondering if it is a good idea to have my dissertation published as a book. Honestly, I am a little bit confused. Would you please advise?

Thank you and best regards,

September 30, 2013 at 10:37 pm

Hi! First, I’d like to thank you for having a blog like this because it’s so incredibly helpful for people like me. I just finished writing a dissertation of my own, and I’m looking to turn this into a book. The whole process seems so daunting that I’m actually wondering if it’s at all possible. Certainly my supervisor and faculty committee have all recommended that I get it published, but I do realise that a dissertation is very different from a book manuscript. My dissertation is based on US-China relations in East Asia. I’m not currently affiliated to any institution, though I have work experience in the field. My problem is that I don’t know quite how to go about adding anything of value to this, besides updating it and re-writing it to sound peppier rather than pedantic. Can you help with this?

April 19, 2014 at 11:35 am

I have a more practical question. So I am considering turning my dissertation into a book, but this is not something that I considered at the time that I started my dissertation. Although my participants were annonymous and used pseudonyms to protect their confidentiality, do I have to go back and track them down to get their permission…I am specifically thinking if I want to use a direct quote as in example. The participants signed the informed consent for the dissertation and were aware that it would be published as a scholarly journal, but not as a book that could be purchased. Please give me your perspective.

November 7, 2014 at 10:16 pm

Thank you for this wonderful website. I always find such good advice here. I am finishing my dissertation and applying for some jobs and postdocs at the moment. My issue is that I don’t think it makes sense to revise my dissertation into a book. I think that two of my chapters would be great as journal articles, and I have what I think is a good plan for a closely-related second project that would make a good book. Do you think I have a case for postdocs if I’m proposing to start work on this second project during the postdoc, rather than to revise the diss? My advisor says this is a good plan, but he’s not particularly savvy about the current market. Thank you for your insight!

December 21, 2014 at 8:14 am

I’m an MFL teacher in a secondary school in Uk and I got a PhD in E-learning and Applied Linguistics two years ago by now. After the awarding, I went into teaching because I needed a job and now I’d like to (re)start with researching. Unfortunately I’ve got just an article published so far and I need to publish more in order to start looking for jobs in (US) University field. When I got my Phd, the Viva external supervisor suggested me to publish one chapter of my dissertation, and now I’d like to start from there. I’m doing some research, in order to update my potential article, but I’m a little bit “rusty” and I’d need some general advice on how to publish and how to start to go into teaching at University with a postdoc, visiting assistant professor, no tenure-track position, etc. . I would like to write the article in English (the dissertation is in a foreign language) to make it internationally interesting. First, do you think is it possible to me start presenting my proposals as independent researcher? Unfortunately not being affiliated with any University, I don’ t have a mentor/advisor. Second, how can I know which are the major academic press in my field? (I know, it is a silly question, but that’s is). Would it be indicated starting with a peer-reviewed journal? Thank you in advance, Karen. Any further advice/suggestion it will be more than appreciated. (And I know, first think I should improve my English, of course 😉

May 21, 2015 at 3:28 pm

Dear Karen,

I wanted to ask you about the practice of publishing journal articles out of your dissertation before sending a book proposal. In what way do the already published ‘chapters’ support or compromise your case for a book proposal? In a sense, publishing articles helps you have a wider dialogue and improve the quality of the dissertation by taking it beyond the advisor/committee, but in another sense, it puts part of your book already out there. Can we say that as long as these articles are published in reputed journals, you are reinforcing your case for book publication? Any thoughts on this subject would be extremely helpful.

October 27, 2015 at 7:20 am

Could you tell us how to send the book out to presses? When I see a “provocative” book that I think my book has the potential to be, and then i look at the publisher, and then I go to the publisher website, it always says that they accept the books only through an agent. How did you approach publishers? I assume you did not use a book agent. I’m a bit confused about this process of approaching publishers with the proposal.

December 20, 2015 at 4:03 pm

Thanks for offering so much insight through your blog. I have completed my book proposal for my phd thesis that i have been working on for some time. I need to include a sample chapter. I was thinking to include one of my empirical chapters that are the core of the discussion. I have removed some sections that will not appear in that book chapter. However i was wondering do i need to fully present the chapter as it will appear in the book? Changing the language to a less academic one and relating the discussion to wider issues will take quite a bit of time. I look forward to your res ponce. Thank you so much. Stratis

February 26, 2016 at 9:44 am

Part of this seems like good advice, but part seems just awful. The goal of having your first book be aimed at undergraduates seems terrible, and I can’t imagine wanting to hire or tenure someone who seems to be doing that. Is “The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job” aimed at undergraduates? It’s bad to write something only 10-15 people want to read, but fine to write something that 500-2000 will read, as long as you’re not depending on royalties for your income.

It’s as though you were giving advice about how to write scripts for films, and you said “try to dumb it down so you can sell it as a made for TV movie.”

February 27, 2016 at 1:52 am

I think you are missing her point – she isn’t saying ‘dumb it down’. She makes it clear her own manuscript was written to the highest standards of the discipline and field. She is saying writers should increase the readability of their texts. Write the manuscript to high standards of scholarship, but if you are writing in a way so jargon-filled and obscure that an undergraduate can’t read it, you should have cause for pause. Even University Presses can no longer afford to lose money on books written for only 15 scholars in a feild, no matter how fine the work. All authors submitting manuscripts to scholarly presses now have to think about reaching the widest possible audience – it is far better for a press if the book at least breaks even on the sales of a book

February 28, 2016 at 12:01 pm

May 9, 2016 at 1:28 pm

Greetings, I wrote a dissertation in late 2013. Thinking about submitting in academic arena but not sure how to do so. Appreciate any suggestions.

September 20, 2016 at 11:21 am

I defended my PhD thesis in 2014 and received the top grade. It was recommended by my opponent / examiner that I turn the thesis into a book. The dissertation was in a way already a book (both in some print versions and as a permanent link to an electronic database, but it would be legitimate to write a book for another publisher, so that is not the problem). The problem is that I was so sick of the PhD work and (over?)eager to start on my postdoc that I procrastinated with the book revision (i.e. making the the thesis more about the theory and less about individual novelistic analyses) that I wonder whether it is too late. At the moment what little time I have left from a university lectureship ( a VERY teaching-intensive job description) goes to my postdoc monograph and I cannot focus on two research projects at once. Which should I prioritize? The PhD thesis can be located by other researchers quite easily, but it is still a dissertation, not a “real” book -even though it is well written per se.

November 18, 2016 at 5:38 pm

I wonder if you can reassure or advise me. I started researching and writing a book nearly 20 years ago. I found myself unable to access academic literature and so embarked upon a PhD. My intention, when undertaking the PhD was always to write the book. My supervisors were supportive of this and the thesis passed without correction last year at a Russell group university in the UK last year. Since then I have been writing a book proposal for my ideal publisher (with whom I have already published) and adapting the thesis. I have cut out the methodology chapter, integrated relevant parts of my (discursive) literature review into the body of the text, and am in the midst of writing a new introduction. My substantive chapters have fallen quite easily into shorter chapters that I think more appropriate to the practitioner readership I want to reach. Apart from these changes, the thesis and proposed book are pretty much identical. I was very worried, when discovering, during the thesis submission process, that my thesis would be made available online. I embargoed the online version for a year, and was (verbally) assured that the university library would seek my consent before making it available. I was really, really upset to discover this evening that not only have they not honoured this assurance, but that I didn’t even have to go through an academic website to access my thesis in its entirety. As you so rightly point out, publishers are interested only in commercial viability. Despite reassurances from my supervisor, I fail to understand why a publisher would be at all interested in publishing a book so closely based on a document that any Tom, Dick or Harry can access in seconds. I’m not interested in an academic career and only undertook the PhD in order to support my book. I’m really worried that in doing so I made a really big mistake.

November 19, 2016 at 12:51 pm

My advice is to proceed with the proposal and the revised manuscript and just see what happens. Most people really don’t know how to, or want to, access “published dissertations” and they aren’t nec. competition with your published book. I would not disclose to the press anything about this. It’s their job to do due diligence. Just proceed with your publishing plans.

June 10, 2017 at 4:37 pm

I’ve stumbled upon your website by sure luck as I’ve been having some trouble finding specific information to my predicament. I’m a freelance newspaper journalist and have been writing for quite some time, I’ve sort of created a signature style for myself in my local newspaper and I’m quite fond of it. I’ve been approached by a professor to turn her dissertation into a book, it’s a historical recount on the style of clothing in a specific geographical area. I somehow as able to turn the paper into an actual book, a readable book instead of a research paper, but I seem to have one problem. What do I do with footnotes? I’ve excluded the names of authors within the text itself and just added a subscript number, but where should I place the footnotes in the book? Do I have them all added up at the end of the book? Do I add them at the end of every page as footnotes?

It’s my first time turning a dissertation into a book and I’m still figuring out the ins and outs, I’ve edited it a number of times to perfect the written word, to make it easier to understand and I hope I was able to achieve it. The footnotes are a problem that I can’t seem to figure out. Do you have any advice I can use please?

June 16, 2017 at 2:11 pm

This is something you shouod discuss with the author, but basically you’re deciding between footnotes or ENDnotes (where they are all at the end) and given that you’re aiming for a very readable book, endnotes are probably the way to go. But again, this will also hinge on the publisher’s requirements as well. If you don’t want to ask the author but want to present her with a finished doc, then do endnotes. Also, please be aware that WordPress and any other word processing programs, have an endnote/footnote function that will put in the subscript number and automaticlaly open the endnote/footnote space to type in.

September 4, 2017 at 9:20 am

Dear Karen, I just stumbled over your website while searching for information and advice on publishing. Few weeks ago I successfully earned my PhD from one of the top UK universities. My examiners were very happy with the quality of work and recommended that it would be good if I publish it as a book since my career interest is not in the academia at the moment. When I started my research that was not part of my idea but with the interest it generated from my supervisors and examiners, it is something worth considering. My work is a qualitative research. I will be keeping tab with you for more professional guide on how to kick start getting it turned into a marketable book. Thanking you in advance for your wonderful assistance.

September 8, 2017 at 10:20 pm

I’m so happy to have stumbled on this page. I have a real practical question about transforming the dissertation into a book manuscript. Some of the advice here suggests that it’s fine to include 1-2 peer-reviewed journal articles from the dissertation as book chapters (with the journal’s permission, of course). But what about a journal article from your dissertation that may be a co-authored piece?

For example, one dissertation chapter I was fortunately able to transform into a published article with much help from my advisor and so the piece became a co-authored article. If I receive permission from the journal to use it for a book chapter though then do the personal pronouns in the article remain intact in the book manuscript (e.g., “we” rather than “I”)? Do I state that this one chapter is a co-authored chapter and keep all the language the same in that chapter as t appears on the article (copy and pasting the journal article, word-for word)? I don’t think I’ve seen that before in a monograph but this is new terrain for me. Or is there typically wiggle room to change the language of that particular chapter to better fit with the book as a sole authored piece while still referencing the co-authored published article?

I think it would be odd if the book shifted from one chapter where “I” might be suggesting X to then mention that “we” are suggesting X. Yet at the same time my co-author for the article helped me further articulate such ideas for the dissertation chapter to actually be published as an article and I want to give credit where credit’s due. Thank you!

December 4, 2017 at 10:47 pm

Would these tips still apply for independent scholars who have a master’s degree but no PhD (and aren’t interested in obtaining one)? Or should people in that category look to scholarly trade?

December 21, 2017 at 6:54 pm

Hi Karen, I have an issue that has not been addressed anywhere on your blog yet. I am 7 months out from finishing my Ph.D. and finishing my book proposal while still on the market. The press asks for a competing texts section. I’ve discovered that a tenured professor included the original argument that I made previously in a peer-reviewed article in her book several times while claiming that she was the first to make it. An entire chapter is almost verbatim.This book was published by a highly esteemed academic press. My question relates to the competing texts section of the proposal that the press asks for given that there are only a handful of books that compete with my (heavily) revised and expanded dissertation. Do I critique her book or point out that she was not the first to come up with the idea in the proposal when comparing how her book differs from mine OR do I leave her book out altogether? How do I handle this in my competing books section? Based on my research, there is no point in publicly calling the scholar out as professors in her position are untouchable and it would only serve to hurt my career. Since there are only a handful of competing books, I don’t want ignoring her book from such a major press to seem like an oversight to the press. I found this, but it does not help me with the nuts and bolts of navigating my proposal: https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Price-of-Plagiarism/237250 Thoughts?

August 5, 2018 at 1:29 pm

To figure out how to work in some of my lit-review-y type things, I picked first books from people I’d known as grad students (who got good contracts), and then compared them to the dissertations – which I could download or consult in the school’s library. Very useful!

August 6, 2018 at 8:54 am

November 4, 2018 at 6:30 pm

Hi Karen:) I feel somewhat overwhelmed as I am unsure of what to do with my dissertation manuscript book. Would it serve best broken down and published as articles? Is it best to pitch it to publishing companies? Please advise.

November 5, 2018 at 8:27 am

This is advising I can do, but not in a blog comment! Please email me at [email protected] to see how we can work together.

March 24, 2019 at 10:39 am

I have written my dissertation 7 years ago:

1) Can I still publish it as a book ?

2) Can write articles of it ?

April 26, 2019 at 5:33 pm

wow good for you! I had a quick question–i am interested in turning my dissertation into a commercial paperback book, like something you would pick up in the airport, as my field site is a popular vacation destination…I want to impact average Americans and not necessarily scholars…any advice on what steps to take?

October 3, 2019 at 7:37 am

Hi Karen, I have a more specific question about writing the introduction to a book. A lot of the books I read as a medical anthropologist have extensive and theoretically thorough introductions that draw on large bodies of existing theory, laying out for you how this particular book builds on existing work on , for example, subjectivity, the state, personhood, liberalism , or whatever. These intros can be helpful for giving student readers a sense of the field (which maybe publishers will like, thinking about the student market?), but they can also be long and boring. Other books have tiny introductions that just get straight to the author’s point, and don’t worry so much about engaging other people’s work. I tend to like this second approach, not because it’s less work, but because you can jump right in and develop your own ideas. it feels liberating. But my hunch is that you’re only allowed to do the second strategy if you’re already a famous scholar. I’m writing my first book, based on my dissertation. What would you advise?

October 4, 2019 at 1:03 pm

this is advising beynond the scope of a blog comment response. I suggest you consider working with a developmental editor about this, and if you want names, email me.

November 5, 2019 at 1:12 pm

Hi!, am a publisher and have been approached by many scholars who want to turn their dissertations to books, i want to gain some valuable skills in doing this kind of work to offer them some assistance. I would like to get a mentor to assist me in case you know of some one, kindly help me

June 28, 2022 at 1:42 am

I am Deniz Çupi and I live in Albania. I have finalized my Ph.D. on the topic: Discourse on environmental problems in Albania during the post-communist period” at Tirana University. So, I would like to publish it in a book. Can you tell me what are your conditions?

Best regards Deniz

January 14, 2020 at 4:19 pm

Hello, what do you mean when you make this comment in our text ” when I sent the mss. out to presses”,

March 28, 2020 at 12:39 pm

Hi there, I think your article is fantastic and really interesting but I had a further question for you.

I have just finished my degree in Business Administration (finished at 84% with dissertation mark as 90/100), and I have just accepted an offer to become a lecturer at an FE college. When I submitted my dissertation proposal to my tutor at the college, he asked me if I wanted to publish the research with him as a book (he’d be a co-author). I was ecstatic at this idea but now that I’m starting a career in education I’m wondering if this isn’t the right thing to do. Do you think this is a good idea? I have no real understanding of publishing research and I’ve been working as an administrator for the most part of my career, only now going down the route of lecturing. My newer long term goals are to get into lecturing at a university after getting my master’s and then working up through the chain. Do you think publishing this piece of work through my college now would be a mistake? The college has just won an award for being a very successful college so they have a good reputation but I’m not sure what publishing now would mean to me and my career? Sorry for long winded question! I don’t know if this helps but I am 22, living in England and my dissertation topic is; Attitudes towards unfulfilling employment: A generational analysis. Thank you so much! 🙂

December 20, 2022 at 10:10 pm

Dear the professor is in, You offer a lot of advice, much of it practical. The writing is crisp. However, I do dislike your overuse and overreliance on “the market.” Maybe it’s an American thing. I engage in academic work to challenge and combat neoliberalism, not to revel in it.

Sincerely, Chan Wai Tak

December 15, 2023 at 4:46 pm

Any recommendations on how to fund the process of developing the dissertation into a book (or several books, in my case)? Are there grants, fellowships, post-docs, or other sources of funding to enable focus on this project? Thank you.

January 10, 2024 at 1:40 pm

Generally postdocs are the best bet.

April 23, 2024 at 8:02 am

Here are my top five tips for turning your dissertation into a book with a focus on thesis editing:

Refine Your Argument: In the transition from dissertation to book, ensure your central argument is clear, compelling, and well-supported. Use thesis editing techniques to tighten your thesis statement, streamline your arguments, and eliminate any redundant or tangential content. Revise for Audience: Consider your target audience for the book and tailor your writing style accordingly. Use thesis editing strategies to adapt complex academic language into a more accessible and engaging narrative without sacrificing scholarly rigor. Restructure for Flow: Arrange your chapters and sections in a logical and coherent sequence that guides readers through your argument smoothly. Utilize thesis editing principles to improve transitions between chapters, integrate new insights, and maintain a cohesive narrative thread. Engage with Literature: Update your literature review and engage with recent scholarship to demonstrate the relevance and timeliness of your research. Use thesis editing techniques to integrate new references, revise outdated information, and strengthen your theoretical framework. Polish Prose and Style: Pay attention to the clarity, precision, and elegance of your prose. Use thesis editing tools to refine your writing style, eliminate jargon, improve sentence structure, and ensure consistency in tone and voice throughout the book. By incorporating these thesis editing strategies into your revision process, you can transform your dissertation into a compelling and publishable book that resonates with both academic and general readerships.

[…] widest, most interdisciplinary, and potentially popular (think NYT readership) appeal.  Refer to this post for suggestions on how to do […]

[…] http://theprofessorisin.com/2011/07/27/how-to-turn-your-dissertation-into-a-book-a-special-request-p … […]

[…] afford to waste time writing a magnus opus of a dissertation that does not easily translate into a book or a set of published […]

[…] everything I learned, but it is a start. Some of the best tips actually come from ‘The Professor Is In‘ and from books written on this subject, but these are just a few of my own recommendations. […]

[…] “My Top Five Tips for Turning Your Dissertation Into a Book–A Special Request Post,” 26 Feb. 2016. […]

[…] no knowledgeable on revising a dissertation right into a e book, although the internet and different resources have been illuminating about what that course of entails. (Acquired ideas? […]

[…] no expert on revising a dissertation into a book, though the internet and other resources have been illuminating about what that process entails. (Got tips? Send […]

[…] when writing your dissertation and what a publisher wants when writing a book. Karen Kelsky of The Professor Is In says, “Presses are not interested in “solid scholarship.”  They are interested in products […]

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How to turn your PhD into a book

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 another discipline (and I started blogging).

I feel like a bit of a fraud because I am sort of writing about something I have never done… However, Thong, (the husband of one of my PhD students, Nguyen) pointed out that I have been involved with five published books, with two more in the pipeline. You can thank Thong for convincing me I am experienced enough to give you a useful outline of the academic publishing process, so here we go.

As it turned out, I knew much more than I thought. I couldn’t cover everything about academic book publishing in one blog post, so this is part one of three I plan on the topic. I encourage you to write in with more questions. I know many established academics read the blog and I hope some of you will write in with further advice in the comments!

Step one: consider carefully… is it a book, or something else?

First of all, just because doing a book is prestigious CV addition, do you really need to write one? Doing a book is a HUGE time commitment, even if you start with a copy-edited dissertation manuscript. And don’t expect to make any money from all this effort; it’s a bonus if you do, but if you expect nothing, you won’t be disappointed. Don’t expect much measurable research impact either. You’re likely to end up with an expensive book with a small print run, that won’t result in piles of citations.

If you want to get your research out there for people to use, it might make more sense to write a series of blog posts, do a self-published ebook, a documentary film or exhibition. Or just leave the manuscript in your university library where it can be downloaded for free. PhD dissertations are the most downloaded type of document in many university research repositories so … do nothing. Your work will still have the potential to reach people who are interested.

It’s a different matter if you see a non-academic audience for your book. Some disciplines, like history, produce research with commercial potential. I’d encourage anyone who sees this potential to follow it up. A mass market publication has less academic snob value, but trust me: having a book that actually sells enough to give you a hefty royalty cheque is super satisfying!

Step Two: make contact with a potential publisher

Locating an academic publisher is actually a lot simpler than most people think: just look at the spines of the books on yourself and do some Googling. Unlike mass market publishing, where people rely on agents, academic publishing is still a ‘cold call’ proposition. Have a look on the website for instructions to authors about how to get in touch – and just… do it.

There are ‘slightly less cold’ approaches, which, I think, increase your chances. One simple (but maybe not obvious) technique is to visit the publishing stand at the next conference you attend and engage the people in the booth in a bit of a chat (it’s a good idea to skip a session for this purpose – they will be more willing to talk to you if it’s quiet). Don’t be shy, they are used to being approached. Generally the person selling books will either have a role as a scout, or be able to call in the person who is there for that purpose. Once they seem willing to talk, ask what kind of works they are interested in publishing. If their general interest seems to align with the work you have in mind, try out a short (I mean two sentence) pitch for your book idea and ask if it sounds interesting. Last year I did this at a conference and got a business card, which I then followed up with an email, very successfully.

Smart publishers are always on the look out for new work, so you might find they approach you. Great! Just make sure it’s a real publisher, not a dodgy thesis publishing mill. You can tell if it’s a real publisher because they will ask you to write a proper proposal. Anyone who promises to publish your PhD without changes is highly suspect. While some advisors will still tell you not to put your dissertation in the insitution repository, some publishers use this as a place to identify potential books and will approach you. Or, you could start a blog – if you manage to generate enough of a readership to be noticed, they will find you, trust me.

Step Three: sell the idea

The next bit – getting them interested in actually buying your idea- is tricky.

Book publishing, especially academic publishing, is a marginal business. Even boutique academic publishing outfits, who employ three people, are not charities. Publishers are interested in one thing above all others: selling books. It’s easy to lose sight of the profit motive when you work in an academic environment, which is essentially a not-for-profit enterprise.

Your mileage may vary, but I always prefer to get the publisher invested in the idea before I go to the trouble of writing a whole proposal. You might get a few knock backs before someone is interested. Doing heaps of work in a proposal template you’ll have to change anyway is a waste of time. Write a cover letter to your contact, or the email listed on the site for this purpose, with a short pitch for the book, clearly signalling the intended audience and why you are the best person to write it. If you have already published papers or, better still, blog posts, you can include some circulation numbers to demonstrate people might buy it. For example, here is a short excerpt from the pitch letter I recently wrote to a small, but well known academic publisher:

We cannot keep up with the requests for talks about our research and there is particularly intense interest from the community in the methods. A lot of people are fearful that ‘the robots are coming for our social science jobs’, but we have a totally different take, which is a ‘human in the loop’ approach (I wrote about this on the blog a couple of weeks ago: Are the robots coming for our (research) jobs?). I think now would be an ideal time to get something to market and your methods series format is perfect.

My approach here was to leverage the existing interest in our research work to demonstrate there was already a market. Note I use explicit commercial language ‘get something to market’ to show them I understand the profit motive. I didn’t try to tell them the work is intrinsically interesting or important, even though this is my primary motive in writing it. Being an important book doesn’t matter if there are not enough people willing to buy it. Of course, academics should publish non-commercial work, but that’s why we have journals and conferences.

I now need to convince the publisher that I am the one to get it to market. Having a successful blog is a huge advantage here, but this is a co-authored book. I know the publisher is keen the writing team doesn’t fall apart during the writing process. As I understand it, this happens often enough for publishers to be understandably skittish. The best way to prove you can write together is… to already have written together. So I followed with this paragraph to soothe their fears:

… What makes me really confident about the project is it builds on the strengths of our existing collaboration. Hanna could bring her 15 years of experience as a computer scientist working. Will works in science communications and, in addition to being a good writer, is used to working across disciplinary boundaries….

This letter got me an (almost) immediate request to submit a full proposal. The ‘almost’ is important, which leads me to step four… which will be in part two of this series because I have already reached my (self imposed) word count. Now I’m wondering: are you thinking about publishing your dissertation as a book? What questions are in your mind? Or do you have any experience of the publishing process you would like to share? Love to hear from you in the comments.

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How do I turn my dissertation into a book?

Part 1: getting started.

Your dissertation was a labor of love, a journey of discovery, and a . . . [sound of screeching brakes] . . . hold up. Who am I kidding? If your experience writing your dissertation was anything like mine, it was torture! You spent hours in front of your keyboard, night after night, turning down countless invitations from friends who were off having fun doing anything besides staring at a glowing laptop screen. But you did it; you passed your defense and you’re now Dr. So-and-So . Congratulations! You’ve also secured the holy grail of an academic job, the fall semester has begun, and you’re juggling teaching, committee service, and one student crisis after another. All the while, you hear your advisor’s voice in the back of your head saying, “Now, the next step is to turn this into a book!” Ugh . . .

Listen, I know you’re exhausted, and revisiting the tome that kept you awake for so many nights is the very last thing you want to do. But you spent years researching and writing the manuscript, and you absolutely should not let it all get buried in the archives. Now, when it’s fresh in your mind, is the best (and easiest!) time to get it shipped off to a publisher. But where do you even start?

Thankfully, we at Acadia Editing Services are here to help, beginning with this step-by-step guide to turning your dissertation into a book. Read through our tips below and contact us to discuss your project further. Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your thesis into a publication that will reach a much broader audience, have a bigger influence on your field, and move you closer to achieving your professional goals. Turning your dissertation into a book is the key to unlocking that potential. It’s a challenging journey that requires careful planning, meticulous revision, and a deep understanding of the publishing landscape.

In this blog post, we’ll help you navigate the complexities of academic publishing so you can guide your work toward a broader readership and have a lasting impact. Hopefully these tips will also make the process much simpler and more straightforward so that you can spend as little time at your keyboard as possible!

Step 1: Assessing Your Dissertation

Your dissertation represents the culmination of years of research, dedication, and expertise, making it a valuable source of knowledge. But not all manuscripts are immediately suited for publication as a book. To determine if your dissertation is book-worthy, you should assess several critical factors. First, consider its originality : Does it offer a unique perspective, fresh insights, or novel findings that could contribute to the existing body of literature? Second, evaluate its scope : Does your dissertation cover a topic that’s broad enough to sustain an entire book, or will it require significant expansion and refinement? Finally, assess its relevance : Does the subject matter remain pertinent and meaningful in the academic and wider context?

Seeking feedback from mentors and peers is a vital step in this evaluation process. If you’ve recently graduated, you likely have a notebook full of comments from your dissertation committee pointing you in the direction of book publishing. But if it’s been a while since you left grad school, engaging with those who understand your field can provide valuable insights into the potential of your work. Their assessment can help you gauge the extent of changes you’ll need to make for your dissertation to become a compelling book that contributes meaningfully to your academic discipline.

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Step 2: understanding the publishing landscape.

When it comes to publishing your academic book, it’s crucial to explore the various avenues available to you. One common route is to publish through a university press . These outlets are renowned for their commitment to academic rigor and quality. They often provide strong editorial support and peer-review processes, enhancing your work’s credibility. Examples include Oxford University Press , Princeton University Press , and MIT Press . Commercial publishers , on the other hand, offer broader distribution networks and may have a more extensive marketing reach, potentially increasing your book’s visibility. Some popular commercial presses are Edward Elgar Publishing , Routledge , and Palgrave Macmillan . (Check out our work for Elgar and Routledge in our Portfolio .) Additionally, there are hybrid models that combine elements of traditional publishing with self-publishing, giving authors more control but also requiring them to take on a significant share of the publishing responsibilities.

To make an informed decision, carefully weigh the pros and cons of each option. Consider factors like prestige, distribution, royalties, and the level of creative control you want. Researching and identifying potential publishers that align with your book’s topic is equally important. Look for publishers with a track record in your field, and examine their catalog to see if your work complements their existing publications. Don’t be afraid to ask them about their expectations and how they will market your book. Finding the right publishing partner can greatly affect your book’s success and your experience as an author.

Step 3: Writing a Book Proposal for Your Dissertation

The book proposal plays a pivotal role in the publishing process and serves as a gateway to securing a publishing contract for your academic book. It acts as your manuscript’s advocate, providing publishers with a detailed blueprint of your work and its potential impact. A well-crafted book proposal not only demonstrates your scholarly prowess but also convinces publishers that your book is worth investing in. I offer some general advice here, but it is imperative that you read the specific guidelines on the publisher’s website to identify what exactly they’re looking for (e.g., see OUP’s instructions here ). It’s also helpful to meet with acquisitions editors (the people who decide which books get published) at conferences to network and obtain feedback.

To create a compelling book proposal, follow a structured template or framework. Begin with an engaging cover letter that succinctly introduces your work and your qualifications as an author. Then, provide a clear and concise overview of your book, emphasizing its significance in the field. Discuss your target audience , explaining who will benefit from your work and why it matters to them. Analyze the existing competition in your subject area, showcasing how your book fills a gap or offers a unique perspective. Finally, delve into the book’s market potential , outlining its relevance in today’s academic and broader book market (e.g., is it for undergrads, grad students/faculty, or a general audience?). Remember, a persuasive pitch combines your expertise with a compelling narrative, making a strong case for why your book should be published and read.

This blog post is Part 1 of our series, How do I turn my dissertation into a book? It has covered the first three steps of the academic publishing process. Check back next week when we discuss Steps 4–6 : navigating peer review, preparing for publication, and (our favorite) celebrating your success!

Thanks for checking out our website! Happy writing!

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Turning Your Content Into a Book: A Step-by-Step Guide for Creators

• August 22, 2024

As a content creator, you’ve already done the hard work—crafting blog posts, recording podcasts, producing YouTube videos, and engaging with your audience on social media. The problem? Turning all the content you’ve created into money.

Content creation is a great way to build an audience. But once you’ve got those followers, you need to find a way to monetize what you’ve created. 

There are plenty of ways you can turn your expertise into a revenue source. Coaching or paid courses are both popular and lucrative options. But if you want to keep your existing content working for you, the best way is to publish a book.

Using a Book to Monetize Your Content

In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of gathering and organizing your content so you can publish it as a book. For entrepreneurs and content creators, this step-by-step approach will help you repurpose your content effectively, ensuring it resonates with your audience and stands out in the market.

The process usually entails three parts:

• Gathering content for your book
• Organizing the content
• Filling any gaps with new content

But there’s a preliminary step you can’t skip: determining your book’s theme and goal. 

You need to be certain your book does more than just compile some of the content you’ve already created—it needs to create a deeper connection with your audience and expand on your expertise. 

Before you start gathering your content, you need to know what your fans want (or want more of). Start with a poll to your followers to ask what they’d like to see more of. Then, look for other books that fit that niche to find ways you can differentiate yourself.

Imagine your niche is financial management. You might find three or four books on that subject and discover they’re mostly text-heavy volumes with charts and graphs. You could mix it up and use simple language along with vibrant graphics to share your take in a new way.

Assessing and Gathering Your Existing Content

Okay, with a direction for your book in mind, it’s time to take stock of the content you already have. As a content creator, you’ve likely created lots of content—blog posts, podcasts, videos, social media updates, emails, and—if you’re an author—short fiction. The key is to identify the content that aligns with the theme or message of the book you want to create. 

Remember to think about what you know your audience wants. Every one of them is a potential customer, and you need to keep them in mind while sorting through the types of content you’ve already got.

Categorizing Your Content

If you’re a fan of spreadsheets, this moment is for you.

Make lists of all the content you’ve created. This can be links to blog posts, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes. Then, create a categories column and a tags column. Depending on the platform you’re using to create and host your content, you might already be categorizing it. 

Organize everything into one category. Keep these broad and try not to have more than five or six categories. Then add tags to each—here, you can go wild. The tags should be more specific and niche, letting you further sort the content you’re working with.

Sorting For Specific Topics

You should be able to align a category and/or some of your tags with your book’s theme or goal. Make another list with just the content you’ll consider for your book.

Evaluate each piece of content as a potential chapter, section, or reference point for your book. Ask yourself: Does this content fit into the larger narrative or purpose of my book? Is it relevant and valuable to my target audience? 

By thoroughly assessing your existing content, you’ll not only streamline the creation process but also ensure that your book is rich with information that your readers will find engaging and useful.

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Organizing Content for Your Book: Structuring and Formatting

Once you’ve gathered all your content, the next step is to organize it into a coherent structure for your book. 

You’ve done some of this work while identifying your existing content. For example, if you have a basic guide and an advanced guide, the basic one is likely to be good for the first parts of your book, while the advanced content might want to be held for later chapters. 

Your existing content will be the main content of your book. Group similar topics together to create chapters, and arrange these chapters in a logical sequence that flows smoothly from one idea to the next. Then, read it, review it, and take note of any content that might be missing. 

When you’re working with existing content, you’ll often lack the following:

• Transitions between sections or chapters
• Overarching or meta-commentary that ties big concepts together
• Conclusions, takeaways, and action items
• Supplemental and reference content

To figure out what you’ve got and what you might need, it’s smart to start with an outline . Use that as a guide to crafting your book’s manuscript. When you draft your outline, think about the natural flow of your book—will your organization make sense to your readers? Do the points you make in the later chapters align with the questions or problems you presented earlier?

Use your outline to further organize your content. Then, make a list of additional content you’ll need, whether that’s simple transitions or completely new sections.  

Once you’ve got all your existing content sorted and organized, you’re ready to fill in the gaps and design your book!

Filling the Gaps: Writing Additional Information

My four bullets above are not an exhaustive list. You need to carefully look through the content you’ve got and assess what might be missing. Start with the most obvious things like transitions and conclusions. 

This is also the right time to edit your in-progress book . Even though you created all that original content, you might use a different tone for blog posts than YouTube videos. Your LinkedIn posts might not read exactly like your Facebook ones.

Do a few rounds of editing to clean up your content and make sure it’s cohesive in tone and structure.

During this process, adhere to best practices in content creation: maintain your unique voice, ensure consistency in style and tone, and add depth where needed. You want to make sure that every piece of content in your book, whether repurposed or newly written, contributes to the overall narrative and purpose.

Adding Front & Back Matter

The front and back matter of a book are necessary elements you won’t have in your original content. You should plan to create these sections after you’ve organized your content and worked on filling the gaps in the body.

• The front matter includes the title page, copyright information, table of contents, and introduction. 
• The back matter can include additional information such as references, a glossary, or an index. This section can also be used to promote further reading, link back to your other content, or provide resources for your audience.

Finally, take inspiration from successful content creators who have turned their accumulated content into popular books. Their strategies can offer valuable reference points as you work on filling in the missing pieces of your book.

Trimming & Finalizing Your Content

The book’s interior file is basically done. You’ve got all of your content, and you’ve woven it together with transitions, filled gaps, and updated information. 

Now, you should take a moment to pause and think about cutting some of that content.

Hold on to your pitchforks. 

I know you just put a ton of work into organizing, sorting, and preparing this content for your book. So why would you want to consider cutting anything?

Because you have to be sure your book will meet your goals. If you’re writing the definitive guide on how to do something, a long tome rich with examples and insights is what your readers want.

But if you’re hoping to spark some interest or use your book as a simple lead magnet, you don’t need to write a brick of a book. A small volume with 60-100 pages is becoming more and more common. 

Think about how you plan to market and share your new book. Then, refine your content to be sure it fits your goals while speaking to your audience. 

Designing a Compelling Book Cover and Layout

Formatting a book is a lot of work. I’m not going to go into it in-depth here, but you’ll need to decide if you’re doing your own design work or hiring a professional to help you create your interior PDF and cover file. 

Your Book’s Interior Pages

A well-designed layout enhances readability and ensures that your content is presented in a way that is both engaging and accessible. Pay attention to typography, spacing, and the overall visual flow of your book.

Remember, your book’s design is not just about aesthetics—it’s about creating a user-friendly experience that draws readers in and keeps them engaged from cover to cover.

Your Book’s Cover

Your book’s interior pages are important, but your cover is a crucial marketing tool and essential to your content marketing strategy once you start promoting your new product. Your cover should reflect the essence of your content and appeal directly to your target audience.

When designing your book cover , focus on elements like color, typography, and imagery that align with your brand and the message of your book. This is your chance to make your book stand out on the shelf—or in the crowded online marketplace.

Sell Your Book, Your Way

Sell books on your Wix, Shopify, or WooCommerce website with Lulu Direct. Or use our Order Import tool for your next book launch.

Publishing and Marketing Your Book

With your book content organized, gaps filled, and design polished, it’s time to publish. Choosing the right platform is a critical step . Whether you opt for Lulu, Amazon, or another self-publishing service, ensure it aligns with your goals as a content entrepreneur.

Once published, your work doesn’t stop. Launching your book requires a well-thought-out marketing strategy . Leverage your existing audience—your blog readers, podcast listeners, or social media followers—and build excitement around your book launch. Consider pre-launch activities such as offering exclusive content, running giveaways, or providing special discounts.

The Power of Repurposing Content

Turning your existing content into a book is more than just a strategic move—it’s a way to amplify your voice, reach new audiences, and establish your authority while taking advantage of the content you’ve already created.

Now is the time to take that next step in your content strategy. Gather your content, organize it thoughtfully, fill in the gaps, design with intention, and give your fans the book you know they want. Then, once you’ve got past the initial book launch, go back to the spreadsheet with all of your content and decide what your next book should be about.

Paul is the Senior Content Manager at Lulu.com . When he’s not entrenched in the publishing and print-on-demand world, he likes to hike the scenic North Carolina landscape, read, sample the fanciest micro-brewed beer, and collect fountain pens. Paul is a dog person but considers himself cat-tolerant.

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