Charlotte Frost » PhD2Published

Posted by Charlotte Frost

How’s AcBoWriMo going? Written an insane amount yet? No? Not good enough people so I’m dishing up some tough love…

When I was about eighteen months away from finishing my PhD I had a phone call I will never forget. It broke the news to me that my oldest friend had died in a car accident with her boyfriend.

A couple of months later, as all writing productivity had ground to a halt, I tried to think of a way to motivate myself. Family and friends did an amazing job of keeping me going through this intensely difficult time, but the drive to succeed in my PhD – in anything – was definitely gone. Continue Reading »

1 Comment Posted by Charlotte Frost in Academic Life, Productivity, Writing
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21Oct11 NaNoWriMo as AcBoWriMo Beta!

Posted by Charlotte Frost

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NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it’s an initiative designed to turn the month of November into a month-long write-fest for current or would-be novelists. The idea is that you set yourself the task of writing 50 thousand words in November and bingo, you’ve got yourself a novel – or at least a first draft of a novel.

I did the bulk of my thesis writing in a fairly short amount of time. Not a month, I hasten to add, but I did embark on some intensive writing (as well as intensive Nutella-eating). Currently, I’m doing a Post-Doc in the US and part of why I’m here is so I can finish my first book. So after hearing about NaNoWriMo a colleague and I started wondering whether AcBoWriMo might be possible.

That’s right, we are here-by declaring November the first Academic Book Writing Month or AcBoWriMo Beta/0.1 or something. We are going to wear comfy clothes, drink a lot of coffee, probably nap in our offices at strange hours and see how close we can get to writing 50 thousand words in one month. I know, it’s totally insane, there can surely only be a handful of academics who can actually turn out decent material in such a short space of time. There are also a lot of differences between writing novels and academic books, but aren’t you just a little bit curious to know how much of a kick-start a dedicated writing month could give your book? Continue Reading »

71 Comments Posted by Charlotte Frost in Press & Events, Writing
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20Oct11 My Guardian Blog Post on Job Applications US-Styleee

Posted by Charlotte Frost

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Now that I’m in the US I’m experiencing a whole lot of academic-culture shock. One of the main things to startle me these last weeks has been the difference between the way you apply for a job in the US compared to the UK. I know I am not alone in being panicked by the differences because I have often heard from UK academics settling in the US and being wrong-footed by the system over here. To share what I’ve learnt so far I wrote a piece for the Guardian Higher Education Network called: Job Seeking in the US.

Of coures these things are never cut and dried and there will always be a variety of opinions on the best approach (the same is true of academic book pitching), but I hope the article draws out some of the main differences. Job applications involve a ridiculous amount of hard work and I wanted to help British academics with wander-lust save a bit of time. I’m also hoping some US academics will wade in some insider knowledge too and help build on my early findings!

No Comments Posted by Charlotte Frost in Academic Life, Press & Events, Self Promotion
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5Sep11 Charlotte Frost on Academic Blogging

Posted by Charlotte Frost

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/2965186113/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Leonard Cassuto said in the Guardian: ‘If a graduate student asks me, “Should I blog?” my answer, at least right now, would still be, “Probably not “’. Just weeks ago I gave a talk at the British Library saying very much the opposite. Cassuto is a more established academic than myself, but I still think I have a point – and so did the people who invited me to give that opinion.

To discuss the fact that I came across Cassuto’s article and talked about it on Twitter would be to open another – if related – can of worms. Suffice to say that engaging with twitter for this type of academic commentary is the way I work. I’ve said time and again that Twitter and blogging allow me to usefully interact with so many academics – and non academics I hasten to add – whose opinions I value. I stand by this method of working as it helps me find great new people and ideas on a daily basis and this regularly directly informs my work.

I do recognize that my subject area lends itself particularly well to this type of information exchange. I’m currently writing a book on art mailing list culture and social media and my area of expertise is in art forms that thrive in these networks of sharing. I have had many people point out to me that they themselves aren’t working in a field where social media is considered appropriate and/or they are handling sensitive data that can’t be shared. However, I still take issue with much of what Cassuto says and I still think online discussion platforms have their place in academia.

Like Cassuto, I will divide my response into two sections. The first deals with form because I would argue that he doesn’t credit blogging or any other type of online communication with being anything other than ‘unpublished’, ‘unedited’, ‘unofficial’ writing. There is much about his tone that indicates he sees it as a lesser form of writing and I take issue with that. Continue Reading »

2 Comments Posted by Charlotte Frost in Future of Academic Publishing, News, Self Promotion, Social Media, Writing
Tagged Charlotte Frost, Guardian Higher Education Network, Leonard Cassuto, Self Promotion, Social Media

9Aug11 Getting From PhD to Published at InterFace 2011

Posted by Charlotte Frost

I was really excited to speak at the amazing InterFace 2011 humanities and technology conference on the 29th July at UCL. It was organised by a really diverse and highly-skilled group of PhD students and it was such a pleasure to be involved with.

I spoke on ‘Getting from PhD2Published’ as part of a session on publishing. My Prezi is below and for the rest of the contributors head over to the publishing page on the InterFace website.

PhD2Published on Prezi

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4May11 Getting Published: What’s your approach?

Posted by Charlotte Frost

Last week, the Guardian Higher Education Network published a blog post I wrote for them about the origins of this very website. I discussed where the idea came from and noted that despite being engaged with all things digital, I set up the site because I was well aware books (and all manner of peer-reviewed publishing) still carry weight in academia.

Through much of the first year of PhD2Published, we featured sets of tips from well-known academic publishers on how to get published. In line with this, and the spirit of PhD2Published, which all about sharing, I also offered Guardian readers my own set of tips in the blog post. For example I said:

Think about your market.

If you want to end up with a printed book published by a reputable academic press, you will need to make a case for its economic viability. This means market research. Don’t just tell your publisher the book would appeal to course X, Y and Z, tell them why. What exactly does it do that other books in the field don’t? How will it transform teaching in this area? Why will course managers make students read your book over the others on their list? Show the publisher there’s a really good chance your book will sell – preferably in decent numbers. Continue Reading »

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8Apr11 The Road From Dissertation to Book Has a New Pothole: the Internet

Posted by Charlotte Frost

An article on The Chronicle of Higher Education called: The Road From Dissertation to Book Has a New Pothole: the Internet raises some important points about whether a thesis that exists online can still be published.

The important thing to consider is that most publishing has to function as a viable business model. If a thesis has been freely available online, why would anyone buy it? And you need to bear in mind that when your book is sold, it’s likely to be funding not it’s own production, but that of the next book in line, so you’ve got more weight on your shoulders than just your career.

That said, as Gary Hall elegantly argues in Digitize This Book, these business models are being rapidly redeveloped by forms of online content sharing. So for example, your work might reach a bigger audience by being freely available online and this might become a surer route to career success.

Also, remember that presses seldom publish a thesis as is. We have a series coming up by Sarah Caro, author of How to Publish Your PhD, that explains how much redrafting must go on before your average thesis is even remotely book-shaped.

Or you can take my route and work on a book that expands one element of your thesis and maybe come back to tackling the whole thing later (losing that element if need be). Or just have done with your thesis altogether, see it as a ladder you climbed to get this far and then kick it away and start on the next one…

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Tagged Charlotte Frost, Chronicle of Higher Education, PhD, Pitching & Publishing

9Mar11 PhD2Published will be at ReSkIN Spring 2011

Posted by Charlotte Frost

On Saturday 12th March I’ll be representing PhD2Publsihed and Arts Future Book at UCL’s Spring ReSkIN event. ReSkIN is a compulstory seminar and support scheme for PhD students working in the field of Art History and Visual Culture. This means it unites students from six different colleges within the university who all work across the same discipline so that they can meet each other and find out more about the issues they face going forwards. The spring event looks closely at writing and publishing in the arts and I’m delighted to be on a panel with a diverse range of expertise.

I’m going to do two things in my talk that reflect aspects of my projects. One is that I’ll look at how you can use the web and social media in particular to build your platform as a researcher and author. The other is that I’ll provide a quick tour though some inovative uses of technology in academic publishing. Anything from Open Humanities Press to Gamer Theory. I’m really looking forward to this event and hope to see you there!

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3Mar11 Is Getting Published a Feminist Issue?

Posted by Charlotte Frost

I must confess (and I do hang my feminist head in shame) that when I started out researching publishing processes, gender bias wasn’t on my mind. I hadn’t considered whether I was more or less likely to get published than my male academic counter-parts. But then two things happened:

First, I heard a really interesting edition of Great Lives, on Radio 4, on the life of journalist Mary Stott. She was the first editor of the Guardian’s women’s page and discussion centred a lot about the all-too-recent notion that if women were going to read information in a newspaper they wouldn’t want to read the same information as men. And it really got me thinking about very recent shifts in the publishing industry that give women readers and writers more freedom. Second, I was sent a link to an article in Bitch magazine about the disproportionately small number of women writers being written about in literary journals. Continue Reading »

2 Comments Posted by Charlotte Frost in Academic Life, Publishers, Writing
Tagged Academic Life, Bitch Magazine, Charlotte Frost, Kjerstin Johnson, Pitching & Publishing, VIDA, Writing

24Feb11 How I went from PhD to Published: Part II

Posted by Charlotte Frost

As I said in my last post, I’ve signed a book deal and am walking you through the steps that got me there. Where were we up to? Oh yes, I’d set up this website but lost valuable book-pitching time to handling it alone.

With an intern to help me with PhD2Published and bit of time back, I decided to think strategically again. I looked at the topic of my book and what its significance would be at a broader level and realised that that it would gel with a project on the future of academic publishing in the arts. In fact, I noticed what had been staring me in the face from the start, both PhD2Published and my book were yet more examples of my fascination with broadcast tools in the arts. And then I noticed something even more important, my book could become the test case for the project! This meant the book and project could support and lend weight to each other – not to mention reciprocally nurturing PhD2Published.

With this academic alchemy in mind, I researched the people best able to support my vision for the project and, impressed by the work I’d already done with PhD2Published they all came on board. Continue Reading »

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17Feb11 How I went from PhD to Published: Part I

Posted by Charlotte Frost

I’ve signed a book deal and my first academic book is due to come out mid 2012! But how did this happen? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, it wasn’t down to magic! Nope, it’s pretty simple when you look back over the last few months. I’ll walk you through it.

I decided that I wanted to try more of the writing I’d learnt how to do with my PhD and figured that with the job market looking so bleak; it was a really good time to focus on getting my first book published.

I talked to everyone I knew who knew something about academic publishing and after one particularly useful bit of advice, I decided not to try and publish the content of my thesis now, but take a section that was of standalone interest and work it up into a book.

I read submission guidelines on a range of academic press websites and wrote a proposal. I made a list of courses I that might use my book and added it to the proposal.

I sent the proposal out and got rejected. Continue Reading »

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10Feb11 A Couple of Rules for Getting a Book Deal

Posted by Charlotte Frost

stumbled across this great post: The Five Rules of Getting a Book Deal by writer Jean Hannah Edelstein and really liked it. It’s not primarily for academic writers, but rules two and three really got me thinking…

Rule two, according to Edelstein, is ‘Research the Business of Publishing’. She notes: “Yes, you should research your book, but you also need to research the business of publishing.” This is something that PhD2Published was specifically set up to help with. It’s all very well being told by your supervisor or other academic chums that you need to publish a book, but unless you wrote your thesis on academic publishing for the early-career academic (which now I think about it might have been a better idea), what on earth do you know about publishing? Edelstein goes on:

“What books have been published that are similar to yours, with which your book will compete? Who published them? How were they published? What market are they aimed at? Some aspiring writers think that they should just submit their work to everyone under the sun, until someone bites, but that’s a waste of your time (and theirs) – you want to identify the people who may be genuinely interested in your project and target them carefully.” Continue Reading »

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1Feb11 It’s Official: PhD2Published Works!

Posted by Charlotte Frost

ell, it’s official: the PhD2Published method works!

We’ve had our first success story: me (Charlotte Frost PhD2Published’s founder)!

Yes, that’s right, I’m writing this blog post as someone who has signed a contract to get their first academic book published! You may have already seen me get excited about this!

Around the time I set up this resource, I wrote my first book proposal and had an instant rejection. I licked my wounds and set about learning how to make a successful pitch (which led me to establish this site – why not pass on my research?!). I then wrote draft two, which did get sent out to another publisher, but before they had the chance to reply I made a third even sharper draft (after receiving some excellent advice from Gary Smailes of BubbleCow). It was this third version that received the following response from Gylphi editor Anthony Levings: Continue Reading »

1 Comment Posted by Charlotte Frost in Academic Life, Authors
Tagged Anthony Levings, Charlotte Frost, Gary Smailes, Gylphi

13Dec10 How to Get Your First Academic Book Published

Posted by Charlotte Frost

My five-point guide on how to get your first academic book published is out now at the Postgraduate Tool Box. I was delighted to be asked to contribute to their vast set of resources and hope it proves useful to other post-grads. They also have some useful resources you should check out for publishing.

It starts like this:

1. Learn About Academic Publishing. Unless you happen to be studying the publishing industry, it’s likely you don’t know enough about it to make a successful book pitch. What I mean is that, you need an idea of what academic publishing actually entails, so that you know exactly what you’re asking a publisher to do when you pitch to them. There are lots of ways of learning about publishing from, for example, industry websites including booktradeinfo, Publishers Weekly and theBookseller, but PhD2Published is also a good place to start…