Writing your first book

You’ve finished your thesis, passed your viva and finally get to call yourself doctor. Congratulations! Whether you're taking a break or getting started right now, those tens of thousands of words that you laboured over for years probably need to find an outlet. This is where revising your dissertation and turning it into a monograph comes in.

Yes, you do have to revise that thesis. While there are some publishers who publish unrevised dissertations, they are likely to charge you for the pleasure and probably aren’t invested in helping your book reach its audience.

We’ve put together this guide to make this daunting task a little more manageable. Not all of our recommendations will be equally relevant for every discipline — we all know each academic specialism has its quirks! — but we’re confident that most of these suggestions are applicable across the board.

Just to note: these are conventions for publishing in the Anglo-Saxon press world. Different conventions apply in other publishing cultures.