Bibliographies

Getting it Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books

William Germano (University of Chicago Press, 2001)
As a veteran of the scholarly publishing industry, Germano offers an insider’s insights into the process. While this book may be helpful to senior scholars, Germano’s advice on selecting publishers, writing proposals, surviving the review process, and understanding contracts should be especially helpful to junior faculty and graduate students. Plus, it’s a pleasure to read.

Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published

Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato (W.W. Norton, 2002)
This literary agent and editor team offers extremely practical advice on how agents work and what nonfiction editors look for in academic trade books. In a lively and accessible manor, they cover how to put together proposals, find literary agents and decide if they are right for your work, and help ensure your book is published well. Their emphasis on the use of narrative and story-telling techniques in serious nonfiction can be especially helpful to scholarly writers.

From Dissertation to Book

William Germano (Chicago UP, 2005)
Germano focuses on revising the dissertation and discusses how to approach scholarly editors with query letters and what follows in the production of a first book.

Revising Your Dissertation: Advice from Leading Editors

Ed. Beth Luey (California UP, 2004)
This collection offers practical advice on re-working dissertations from editors working in a variety of disciplines.

How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency: A Psychological Adventure

Robert Boice (Praeger, 1994)
A professor emeritus in psychology, Boice has studied how scholars write (or fail to). Author of several books and numerous journal articles, his work tracks the obstacles to research productivity and outlines strategies for producing more with less pain. This book is a detailed overview of the program he has implemented with hundreds of scholars. A quicker read is his 1990 book Professors as Writers, a Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing (New Forums Press). Boice’s advice on the writing process offers some of the wisdom and common sense of many writing teachers in an evidence-based, data-driven form that scholars find most convincing.