kata ta biblia

a blog exploring Christian origins, biblical studies, social/cultural history, method, education and the journey through academia

Thoughts on Publishing a Dissertation

Nijay always gets the best discussions going regarding academic career topics. His post requesting advice on what to do with a Ph.D. thesis is generating some wonderful responses from both published academics and editors. If you have personal experience with this process, for the sake of those of us who haven’t yet, please head over and leave some comments on your experience.

I was just talking to Ra’anan Boustan about this topic the other day. From that conversation, I understand that some pricey monograph series will give you the opportunity to forgo your royalties and will give you twenty copies of the finished product instead. Apparently, if you go with this sort of series, taking the copies is a better deal than any royalties you’d get from the select libraries that purchase your expensive monograph. [Update: V. Henry T. Nguyen makes this point in his comment on Nijay's post.] Boustan also clarified for me that most academic authors make hardly any money on their academic works throughout their careers. Unless you become a Bart Ehrman or Elaine Pagels, you will probably never get an advance for your books. Have others found this to be true?

Rob Barrett makes the comment on Nijay’s post that some folks publish two books out of their dissertation, “one more detailed and scholarly and another more popular.” I like that idea personally and have thought about aiming for that myself. But that’s a few years out. So, we’ll see what happens!

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4 Comments by Patrick George McCullough  /  July 21, 2009  /  Posted in: dissertations, publishing
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  • http://judyredman.wordpress.com Judy Redman

    I would have thought that the provision of 20 copies of your book was only a good deal if you have a use for 20 copies of your book. I guess if you’re the kind of person who gets invited to speak at the kinds of gatherings where people would be interested in the book, you can sell the 20 copies at significantly reduced rates and pocket the money, but otherwise they would just take up storage space.

    But I thought it was well-known that academic authors don’t publish because of the royalties.

  • http://patmccullough.com/ Patrick George McCullough

    Hi Judy, I don’t know that selling the copies of the books is the only use for them. I would find it valuable to hand the books out to family, friends and colleagues. Perhaps sending it out to fellow bloggers who’d commit to reviewing it on their blog.

    I wasn’t suggesting that an academic author’s primary objective is to earn money through royalties or advances, but I thought perhaps you might make a couple thousand on a promising work.

  • Edward Pothier

    Well there goes your plan for (1)writing a dissertation and getting your Ph.D., (2)publishing your dissertation, and (3)retiring and living in luxury off your book royalties!

    Reality is tough.

  • http://vhtnguyen.com V. Henry T. Nguyen

    20 copies for a PhD dissertation is not that many. I only have 4 more copies left on my shelf. I ended up giving copies to my supervisor, examiners, colleagues, many family members (my biggest and only fans!!), and friends.

    I also sent a few of my own copies to journals for additional copies for review, since I want to see how others in the guild receive my work.

    Although it would be nice to get some pesos from book sales, I do not look at my published dissertation as a money maker. Maybe someday I will revise into an illustrated children’s book!!