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I promised a review of Carole Buggé’s play Strings, which Shveta and I saw recently. Carole has kindly sent me a copy of the play manuscript. I thought I’d look it over before I wrote any comments, so that whatever I have to say might avoid the glibness that is often characteristic of newspaper reviews. So I ask you to wait just a bit longer for the review.
 In the meantime, though, there’s another topic I thought might interest some of you out there who stumble upon this peculiar site. On Monday and Tuesday, I attended a conference on academic publishing. It was hosted by the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of London and sponsored by the University of Reading. Those of you who work in academia are no doubt well aware of the importance of publishing to a scholar’s career prospects. It’s encouraging to see that universities (and mine, in particular!) are doing more to orient their students to the publishing industry. After all, it’s a business, and as with any business, there are practical guidelines that have proven to increase one’s chances of getting positive results.
In the UK, university-level scholars are subject to the RAE, the Research Assessment Exercise, which occurs every 7 years. It happened most recently in 2001 and is set to go down again in 2008. UK employed academics are expected to produce 4 pieces of published work for the RAE. These records of publication gain in status depending on the medium. Ideally, one would have a monograph published by a pretigious company such at Palgrave, Routledge, or a university press such as Cambridge University Press. Next in status would be an article published in a prestigious peer-reviewed academic journal. Here is what follows in the pecking order: a reputable refereed journal; a non-refereed journal; and then a book-length collection of articles, such as those produced after a conference.
At least, this is the rank (as I understood it) recounted by the various experts who spoke at the conference. 4 pieces in 7 years doesn’t seem overwhelming, but apparently, this is more difficult than it appears at first glance. First of all, a scholar faces fierce competition for limited space, whether in journals or in the publication schedule of a company like Routledge. Also, lead-times before publication can yawn to a year or more, in some cases. Most if not all manuscripts under consideration are subject to external review. A publisher such as CUP will send out a monograph to two or three scholars in the field for to assess the work's quality, originality, and potential importance.
Linda Bree from CUP told us that of the 120 academic titles they publish each year in the category of literature/culture studies/theory, 60 are commissioned, and only 30 are derived from theses. They reject 8 to 9 manuscripts for every 1 that they accept. Tough odds, to be sure. Usually, an academic publisher would hope to sell a hardcover monograph at around £50 retail. The breakeven point for them would then be to sell around 400 copies. An author could expect a royalty from this of from 0 to 5% net. As you can see, academic authors shouldn’t expect to make money from publishing their work. Such publication has value for them in terms of how it will aid their career. A monograph published at a place like CUP looks extremely nice on a CV.
One somewhat controversial point that speakers made was that authors should not be shocked if a publisher asks for a subsidy—in some circumstances—to publish a monograph. As the figures above demonstrate, academic publishers operate on tight margins. Any added expenses can seriously jeopardize breaking even, let alone making a profit. As long as a publisher maintains a certain standard of quality in the monographs they produce, this policy of subsidization seems perfectly reasonable to me. Think about the arrangement in purely financial terms. A published monograph is ultimately much more valuable to the author than it is to the publisher. For the publisher, it potentially represents a few thousand pounds in income. For a scholar, it can mean a secure job over a number of years—and the salary that goes with it.
One illusion they tried to gently disabuse us of was that we might be able to publish our theses as is. The audience for a thesis is, generally speaking, three, maybe four people: a PhD candidate’s supervisor, the advisor, and the two external examiners who attend the viva, the oral defence of the thesis that happens once it is completed. The audience for a monograph would most often be other scholars in the field, along with postgrads. In some rare cases, a monograph might be suitable for or attractive to undergraduates or a lay audience.
Generally, a thesis must be converted into a monograph by making the following changes: • shorten the first chapter by summarizing the state of the field or critical area rather than thoroughly engaging with it
• shorten or lengthen the time period under consideration
• explain background material more thoroughly
• lighten up the style, i.e. make it more ‘accessible’
• go easy on footnotes/endnotes
• consider more carefully the audience’s needs/perspectives and make appropriate adjustments
• develop a stronger argumentative/narrative thread
The publishers who attended the conference couldn’t emphasize enough that when preparing a book proposal, authors should take care to provide everything asked for in the proposal guidelines. They also want to see that an author has market awareness, that he or she can offer compelling, realistic arguments why his or her book has an audience and meets a need in the marketplace.
All in all, I found the conference to be very useful. I came away from it with an enhanced sense that I have to look at an academic career as something that needs to be planned out and managed, just like any career. A big part of that is getting published—a difficult prospect but not impossible.
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