15 minutes until our "Demystifying the Monograph" event with @HarryMcCarthy, @Dr_Tom_Young, @yalepress, and @Arts_Routledge - paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/whats-on/forth… - we'll be live tweeting the event here! Join us.
The process of putting a book together - from idea to publication - may seem daunting. Today's event "Demystifying the Monograph" brings together people who have been "there and back again" (and lived to tell the tale to you today) #academicpublishing
First, we hear from Natalie Foster at @Arts_Routledge on her tips for submitting a book proposal (lucky you, we'll be sharing them here too!)
Following teething problems, we're off!
Routledge are: a commercial press with a global reach that predominantly market to the UK and US student markets; their art history and visual studies list covers the ancient to the contemporary
Routledge also do a "focus series" of texts 25-50,000 words (somewhere between an article and a book)
Find the right publisher for you! Who publishes in your field? Which publishers are the best fit for your book?
What Routledge look for in a book proposal: a blurb (for a lay reader), a statement of aims (3-4 paragraphs outlining the rationale), chapter headings with detailed summaries, a research schedule, manuscript length, a definition of the market, main competing books, and category!
Know the surrounding literature: how does your book compare with what's out there already? How is it different?
Know your audience: who is going to read your book and what are they using it for?
Images should be integral to a text - no more than 50-70 (no more than 20 in colour) - and authors are responsible for getting permission to reuse the images
Our second speaker is Mark Eastment at @yalepress - Editorial Director Museums and Institutional Partnerships, Art and Architecture
The art publishing landscape has changed dramatically over the past twenty years - gone are the days of 150,000 print runs
The market changes in sum: declining print runs, increasing development and production costs, reduced library and student purchases, and digital developments
The catalogue raisonné remains a unicorn because of high product costs
"The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives, 1660–1900" by Barbara Burman and @ArianeFennetaux defied initial expectations and is currently on it's fourth print run
It's impossible to gauge how successful a book will be!
What Yale University Press are looking for: subjects that appeal to a wider market, accessible tone, succinct (40-60,000), clear and original argument, strong visual material
How to approach publishers? Send a proposal and a sample chapter, the publisher will then seek readers responses, a committee will look at your application, and you will be issued a contract.
Our third speaker is @HarryMcCarthy who will be talking about his research on performance history - he published his doctoral thesis as part of the CUP "Elements"
Top tip from Harry: most publishers will accept material that has been published previously or elsewhere (i.e. CUP will accept up to 20% of previously published material)
Make bonds with a publisher! Ask commissioning editors questions, get your material in on time, show them why they should invest time in you!
Give yourself a break: a PhD and viva take a lot out of you! Come at your monograph with fresh eyes.
Learn to let go: stepping away from your PhD will give you time and space to reframe your work and discover what is important
Creative and methodological freedom are two of the big bonuses that come with writing a book versus writing writing a thesis
Be experimental - try different forms of writing, emphasis, register as a way of kickstarting your thinking around the work
@HarryMcCarthy's Golden Rules of Writing:
1. protect your time
2. get it off your desk (so that you can move out to the next big thing!)
1. protect your time
2. get it off your desk (so that you can move out to the next big thing!)
Our final speaker is @Dr_Tom_Young who will be telling us more about how he learned to put a book together "on the job"
Images are expensive. What institutions charge varies widely, so think carefully about the associated costs of images!
Factor grant deadlines (for image reproduction costs) into your monograph timeline
Peer review can be a useful process for enhancing and refining your argument - not all publishers offer a full peer review of your manuscript, so make this part of your considerations when choosing where to publish
@PaulMellonCentr and @yalepress offer a lot of support for image-rich texts and can offer art historians an excellent opportunity for publication
This is your first book: bear in mind that it emerges from PhD research, it's an unusual way to put a book together, and this doesn't need to explode the discipline!
REACH OUT to friends, colleagues, and your wider network: go to events such as this one (hosted by @ECRBritArt and @PMCentreDRN)
Our first question is how a book author deals with destructive peer review points?
Drown out the noise of the peer reviewer who has written their peer review to be declaimed in the town square - tips to do so are highlight the text that is unhelpful, or change it's font (to comic sans)
Choose the right publisher, so that they can get the right peer reviewers to you
It's also ok to push back on what your peer reviewers are saying - retain your authorial identity and voice
There is normally something useful in difficult peer reviews - try and find those points
Excellent tip from Natalie - if peer reviewers incite outrage - put it in an email. Then delete it.
Open Access is often on an ECRs mind - if you are a PhD student at a UK university, your thesis will be put into a repository and made OA as part of the process - a reworked book will have different requirements and/or OA possibilities
Can you submit proposals to multiple publishers at one time? The general response from the publishers with us today is - it's not advisable and can lead to uncomfortable conversations. If you're dong this, be transparent!
Institutional funding is a good way to fund image licensing fees - but you can also look for grants from external funders to cover these costs
@PaulMellonCentr offers Publication Grants that can be used to cover image licensing fees - all are able to apply (provided you meet the eligibility criteria) - the funding round closes every autumn paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/fellowships-an…
Turning a chapter into an article (or vice versa) can be useful for gaining (even) more feedback from peer reviewers
A great question from our audience - can you propose an academic monograph before you finish your PhD? Most publishers expect a PhD (for an academic publication, unless you're independent).
If a researcher wants to produce a significant digital component, they will also need to provide a place to host this material (i.e. an institutional repository)
You'll definitely want to slim down and transform your PhD thesis footnotes for the purposes of a monograph
A royalty is offered to authors, which is a percentage of the sales
Costs associated with books include image licensing fees and (if you don't want to do it yourself) the cost of hiring an indexer
When you're writing - consider writing to your 1st year, 1st week PhD self - why is this book important? Why is this methodology valid?
Thanks so much to @HarryMcCarthy, @Dr_Tom_Young, Mark at @yalepress, and Natalie at @Arts_Routledge - a wonderful event full of lots of fascinating and insightful conversations!
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
