InterFace is a new international forum to learn, share and network between the fields of Humanities and Technology.

Below is an outline for the conference and the call for participants the conference will be held at University College London between 27th – 29th July 2011:

The symposium aims to foster collaboration and shared understanding between scholars in the humanities and in computer science, especially where their efforts converge on exchange of subject matter and method. With a focus on the interests and concerns of Ph.D students and early career researchers, the programme will include networking activities, opportunities for research exposition, and various training and workshop activities. Read more

Weekly Wisdom #30

Build a potential market for the book before it even exists by marketing your area of research on social media sites & at conferences.

Digital Researcher is an interactive event run by Vitae and the British Library for postgraduate researchers and research staff to help researchers make the most of new technologies in their research.

The interactive event, which will be held at the British Library, is for postgraduate researchers and research staff. It will include presentations and interactive sessions on subjects such as microblogging, RSS feeds, social networking and social citation sharing.  Participants will explore and develop the skills needed for research in an increasingly digital world and gain ideas for managing information (DR11 site)

Phd2Published will be attending this event ‘virtually’ , contributing to the discussions and the DR 11 blog, see our first post here. We will also be tweeting using the hashtag #DR11

Weekly Wisdom #29

Use twitter to network & research your subject area.

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: Read more

This is the one where I tell you some exciting news (so exciting my hair went curly)!

Weekly Wisdom #18

Share your own experiences of pitching and writing a book with PhD2Published and help develop knowledge in this area!

It’s the one where I talk about how to get back out there and promote your research after finishing your PhD…

It’s the one where I talk about my ‘expanded chapter approach’…

little known fact is that the working title for this website was Platforming for Academic Publishing. I was very familiar with the idea that an author needs to be ‘visible’, preferably before they pitch, and I wanted to look at this specifically in relation to academia. I ditched the title because this isn’t all I wanted to do with this site and because it seemed a bit jargony in the end – and besides PhD2Published is way cuter!

I also didn’t start the site with looking at platform building, but instead I set about installing lots of ways to flood it with content on how to make your book pitch, as this seemed the best way to establish it. But I do want to visit this idea of the platform now and, as luck would have it, a good post just came out on Writer’s Relief to remind me. Although this article, ‘Author Platforms: What They Are, Why Agents And Editors Look For Them, And Whether You Need One To Get Your Book Published’ doesn’t tackle the idea of being an academic and having a demonstrable following for your work, it does look at the idea of the platform for the non-fiction author. Read more

It’s the one where I talk about book pitch etiquette…

Other ways of getting your book published involve learning how to market yourself – as I’ve mentioned before. Soon, PhD2Published will be offering advice on how to use social media to publicise your work. In the mean time, you’ll find my first post on this subject on  Red Lemon Club, a fabulous website providing self-promotional advice for creatives, run by illustrator and designer Alex Mathers. My post is on 5 Ways to Generate Outstanding Ideas for Blog Posts and is a bit of a beginners guide.

Read more

Weekly Wisdom #4

Connect with other like-minded academics through online mailing lists, facebook groups, link sharing platforms, blogs and micro blogs!

It’s the one where I don’t actually say very much because my brain is buzzing with too many thoughts…