In many disciplines, the mark of a noteworthy doctoral dissertation is that it can be crafted into a book and find an audience beyond the examiners. Attracting a market — and quality publisher — is then a key milestone in career progression.

But this can be a challenge, for several reasons:

• Publisher’s deadlines fall into the ‘important but non-urgent’ basket much of the time: other research, teaching, admin or family commitments often impinge.

• Finishing the thesis itself — for which, congratulations — may have been gruelling already. Conversion means integrating updates and responding to (yet more) feedback.

• You may have changed significantly as a scholar, writer and person in the meantime. Or, if you completed only recently, the challenge may be a feeling of over-familiarity with the material.

• Self-editing for clarity, cogency and impact may simply not be your area of strength, or not yet. Social media aside, this may be the first time you are putting your thoughts in front of a wider audience.

If any of this sounds familiar, I can assist with some or all of the following:

• Being a confidential, supportive sounding board while you build confidence as a writer;

• Sensitively actioning feedback from the commissioning editor, peer reviewers, co-writers or series editors;

• Considering options for overall sequence (the division of labour between the chapters), anticipating and reconciling the needs of general and specialist readers;

• Structural editing: cuts, condensing, integrating new material as necessary; ensuring logical flow between sections, sub-sections and paragraphs, taking on line-by-line copy-editing and rewriting where necessary;

• Discoverability of, e.g. chapter synopses;

• Strengthening the book proposal and sample chapters if the publishing contract is not yet in place.

This is a flexible suite of options that can be phased and reviewed as needed (for more on the process see FAQs).

Exchanging ideas in the early stages can throw fresh light on what approaches to your project are possible. I’m a rewriting specialist able to coach you through the process. I’m also the general reader your completed book needs to be able to reach, and I enjoy the learning curve.

It all starts with an exploratory, no-obligation conversation. I am an independent professional with no axe to grind, and your ideas will be treated in strict confidence.

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I believe that our societies need to do more reading and thinking but are often encouraged to do less - chatbots are the latest example, perhaps. I find editing an interesting vantage point on this dynamic. Without the ability to create and question ideas (data, ‘evidence’, values), as well as to consume them, we are all in a race to the bottom where thinking is harder to express and share. We need more — not less — of the humanities and social sciences. Communicability of these subjects to others is a mark of their value, and sometimes, of their essential character.

Back to: Services

Academic publishers believe that scholars can reach more readers - even if that means only more scholarly readers - without jeopardizing the quality of the scholarship. (…) Revising your dissertation isn’t “getting to yes,” it’s “getting to more” - more clarity in the writing, more clearly defined purpose in the structure, more potential readers.

It takes determination to do that, though, as well as understanding that writing isn’t merely the vehicle for conveying one’s information. Shape, voice, narrative line, density, length: you’ll need to get these right in order to turn a manuscript into a book. (…) Revision becomes rethinking, which becomes rewriting.

- William Germano, From Dissertation to Book (University of Chicago Press, 2013)

Andrew Robertson read the manuscript from start to finish more than once and provided invaluable feedback on countless drafts; his careful editorial hand helped improve the manuscript in innumerable ways and I am ever grateful for his outstanding input and commentary.

-   From The War Lawyers by Craig Jones

(Oxford University Press, 2020)

In finding the right way to address the intended audience, authors may well discover that the farther they leave the thesis behind, mentally and physically, the better the book they will write (…) A thesis should, in short, be a quarry from which a new structure is built.

- Francess Halpenny in Harman et al, The Thesis and the Book (University of Toronto Press, 2003)