Open Research & Scholarly Publications

Guest Blog Post – From PhD to Publication by Dr Jonathan Godsall, Research Funding and Development Co-ordinator

After completing his PhD at the University of Bristol in 2013, Jonathan went on to re-work his thesis for publication. His monograph, Reeled In: Pre-existing Music in Narrative Film, was first published by Routledge in 2018.

Thinking of turning your PhD thesis into a book? There’s plenty of advice out there, from both publishers and academics: see resources from Palgrave Macmillan and Taylor & Francis, for instance, or the series of posts on the blog of Inger Mewburn (aka The Thesis Whisperer). For a more thorough guide, in the library you’ll find copies of William Germano’s From Dissertation to Book (ebook and hard copy). Researchers in Business and the Social Sciences may also be interested in: Roadmap to a successful PhD in business and management and the social sciences: the definitive guide for postgraduate researchers, which includes a relevant chapter on publishing from your PhD thesis authored by Professor Glauco De Vita.

In this short post, I offer a few thoughts based on my experience of the process. I submitted my PhD thesis in late 2013, and subsequently developed that research — on the use of pre-existing music in film — into a book that was published five years later. 

Assuming you’re set on publishing something based on your PhD material, perhaps to develop your academic CV, it’s first worth saying that a book isn’t always (or even often) the most sensible route. It might be that elements of a project would be more naturally spun off into one or more journal articles, for instance. That process isn’t necessarily easier or harder, a book doesn’t necessarily look ‘better’ on a CV, and either way the direct rewards are likely to be negligible. (With an academic publisher, your annual book royalties might pay for a nice meal out!) Think carefully about which option is right for you and your research. 

In my case, I felt my project was ‘book worthy’. Existing publications on the same topic were all case-study articles and chapters, spread across various journals and books, whereas my research sought to develop a broader, integrated overview and theory. Furthermore, though I’d published a couple of case-study articles myself by the time I finished my PhD, these weren’t based on chapters of the thesis, which therefore remained ‘intact’ and ready for a simple adaptation. Or so I thought… 

I’ll admit that I started the process rather naively. I knew that a book was supposed to be different to a thesis, fulfilling different requirements for a different audience. But I initially sought simply to revise my thesis, changing the style but not much of the substance. Though my proposal to a publisher (which included two sample chapters) resulted in a contract, I didn’t fully process the feedback from the series editors and reviewers that suggested the book so far looked underdeveloped — that there was more I could do to strengthen the main ideas, and even new avenues of research that I could pursue. 

I learnt my lesson the hard way when my first complete manuscript was rejected, with comments that encouraged a major rethink. In short, I’d been too wedded to the idea of turning my PhD thesis into a book, when really I needed to write a book based on my PhD research. Reframing the process in that way freed me to look at my topic from a fresh perspective, thinking primarily about what a good book on that topic would do – rather than how I could best rework existing material. 

With theses now readily accessible online through platforms such as EThOS, it makes practical sense for a book to do something different, too. A book will never fully supplant a thesis — the two will exist alongside each other, and so should ideally be complementary. 

It took me over a year (alongside teaching jobs) to submit another version of my manuscript. I did entirely new research, found new examples, and formulated new arguments. I changed the chapter structure and rewrote most of the text that I’d already rewritten months before. It was tough work, but the resulting book is much stronger than it would otherwise have been, and I’m extremely grateful to the editors and reviewers who pointed me in the right direction. 

If you’re looking to head down this road, take time to consider why and how you want to do it. Make sure it’s the right option for you, and be prepared for hard work and setbacks along the way. In the end, though, I’m glad to say that there’s little more rewarding than holding a book of your own in your hands!