Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Self-Publishing For Academics
    Self-Publishing For Academics
    Self-Publishing For Academics
    Ebook75 pages2 hours

    Self-Publishing For Academics

    By Helen Kara and Nathan Ryder

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This book is for anyone who is considering self-publishing their academic writing. Its authors are Helen Kara (who has a cross-disciplinary PhD in social policy and management) and Nathan Ryder (who has a PhD in mathematics). Between us we have self-published several e-books for doctoral students, which you can find online, as well as zines and blogs. Self-publishing is full of challenges, particularly at first, so we have used our knowledge and experience to pack this e-book full of hints and tips, practical advice and resources. But self-publishing also has the potential to bring many rewards: bigger audiences for your work, increased income, even global acclaim. Of course we can't guarantee those, but we can promise this e-book will show you the way.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKnow More Publishing
    Release dateMay 18, 2016
    ISBN9781911071129
    Self-Publishing For Academics
    Author

    Helen Kara

    Helen Kara is a leading independent researcher, author, teacher and speaker specialising in research methods, particularly creative methods, and research ethics. With over twenty years’ experience as an independent researcher Helen now teaches doctoral students and staff at higher education institutions worldwide. She is a prolific academic author with over 25 titles; notably Creative Research Methods: A Practical Guide and Research and Evaluation for Busy Students and Practitioners, both in their second editions. Besides her regular blogs and videos, she also writes comics and fiction. Helen is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. In 2021, at the age of 56, she was diagnosed autistic. Her neurodiversity explains her lifelong fascination with, and ability to focus on, words, language and writing.

    Related to Self-Publishing For Academics

    Related ebooks

    Reference For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Some PhD Students Say ‘No Thanks’ to Becoming Professors

      Sep 20, 2017

      Many PhD students aiming to work in academia lose interest in that track before graduating, a new study suggests. “They’re not being forced out of academia and into less desirable jobs…. many lose interest in the faculty career itself…” There are gro

      2 min read

    • Article

      All About The Pitch

      Feb 15, 2021

      Whether you are a budding, intermediate, or advanced writer, a good pitch letter with a great spin on a topic, timely element, newsy connection, or unusual personal experience is a great first step toward getting that assignment and building that rel

      5 min read

    • Article

      Lessons Learned

      Oct 10, 2022

      Everything about writing, selling, and promoting a book is hard. And sometimes, no matter the diligence and creativity you bring to the project, success eludes you. If this describes your experience, you’re not alone. Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Deciding to Self-Publish

      Dec 21, 2021

      Whether you’ve been querying for a while or are still considering how to get your book into the world, self-publishing might have crossed your mind. The great thing about self-publishing is that technically, it’s open to anyone and provides opportuni

      4 min read

    • Article

      Clearing The Path

      Sep 18, 2019

      Clearing The Path
      5 min read

    • Article

      Indie Lab

      Mar 20, 2019

      Whether it’s done by a trade publisher or an author, publishing has two aims: to make words consumable in reader friendly formats, and to get those words read by enough people to make a profit. These aims demand that seven processes are done well: ed

      2 min read

    • Article

      Pack It In Or Pick Up Speed?

      Aug 4, 2022

      Q With everything that is going on in the world, how is the publishing sector being affected? As a debut (unpublished) author, is it still financially viable to seek to be traditionally published or should I pack away my novel and focus on my day job

      3 min read

    • Article

      Read All About It

      Aug 16, 2021

      Getting Reviews for Self-Published Authors One of the elements a traditional publisher usually takes care of for an author is getting reviews ahead of launch. Authors seem to have a love-hate relationship with book reviews, which is fair! It can be h

      4 min read

    • Article

      Marketing Matters

      Sep 2, 2021

      Marketing Matters
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Decent Proposal

      Jan 30, 2019

      A Decent Proposal
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Problem with Promotion Isn’t What You Think It Is

      Dec 12, 2022

      Every author agonizes over a lack of promotion to some degree, and I’m no exception. But it occurred to me today, as I sat at my computer considering the best use of my time, that one of the biggest problems we have as authors is too much opportunity

      4 min read

    • Article

      Flying Domestic

      Mar 16, 2020

      Flying Domestic
      4 min read

    • Article

      Book Marketing Copy 101

      Apr 10, 2023

      Nobody can buy something they don’t know about, which means writers following all paths to publication need to know how to hook attention and convince an audience. However, drafting marketing copy is a different skill than other writing. Before we ge

      4 min read

    • Article

      How To Self-publish A Book

      Jun 12, 2020

      How To Self-publish A Book
      2 min read

    • Article

      KISS: Keep It Simple Self-publishing

      Dec 1, 2022

      Could 2023 be the year you self-publish your first book? As technology advances, self-publishing is becoming a simpler process. However, the same technology creates more opportunities, which can make it feel complicated and confusing. Do we have to u

      6 min read

    • Article

      Leveraging Back Matter Content

      Oct 10, 2022

      Writing the end of a story isn’t always the end of the book. Even if there’s no sequel, there’s more to say, and it goes in the back matter. In marketing, it generally costs less to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones. A book’s back ma

      5 min read

    • Article

      Second Opinions

      Feb 14, 2022

      New rules. New strategies. New paths to success. While we may see those images of a solo writer in a coffee shop or room, the truth is that no book is a solo endeavor. One of the most important parts of the writing process is getting feedback on an e

      4 min read

    • Article

      Turn The Beat Around

      Oct 30, 2019

      Turn The Beat Around
      7 min read

    • Article

      The PROS And CONS Of PUBLISHING And SELF-PUBLISHING

      Apr 2, 2020

      For nearly all writers, we are united in wanting to get our writing out into the world and in front of readers, but how we get there is much more personal, and influenced by a wide range of factors. So how do you decide on the best approach for you,

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Long-Haul Writer’s Lament

      Apr 8, 2024

      I got my start as a full-time writer when I was 19 years old—so long ago that I penned my first articles with a goose quill on parchment—and over the ensuing decades, I learned a thing or two about both the good and the bad of freelance writing. When

      5 min read

    • Article

      Preorder Now

      Aug 16, 2023

      NOT so very long ago publication of something like a new Harry Potter novel could cause a frenzy of publication-day anticipation. In those pre-Kindle, pre-iPhone days, kids—and not a few adults—lined up outside bookstores the night before each book c

      8 min read

    • Article

      Success by Design

      Jun 14, 2021

      Let’s face it, books are judged by their covers. Consciously or not, readers will associate the quality of your book’s cover with the quality of the story and editing. That means the cover itself is a marketing tool. So how do you set yourself up for

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Mistakes Not To Make

      Apr 6, 2023

      With more than 4 million sales in her DCI Tom Douglas series, Rachel Abbott is one of the world’s most successful self-published writers. Here, so you can learn from her experience, she outlines what she got wrong when she started her self-publishing

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Self-Publishing For Academics

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Self-Publishing For Academics - Helen Kara

      Introduction

      Self-publishing has a key role to play in the future of academia. As we write, in early 2016, it is gaining momentum. Academics around the world are publishing e-books, blogs, comics and zines (i.e. small circulation self-published fanzines or magazines), as well as making textbooks and journal articles available online in pdf format. Industry insiders think academic self-publishing is the Next Big Thing.

      Many academics are becoming increasingly frustrated with the constraints and timescales of conventional publishing, and the delay it can cause to getting your work in front of colleagues and the public. Other scholars want to publish in open access journals but can’t afford the article processing charges. Self-publishing gives academics back control over disseminating their ideas. Given that you’ve been interested enough to buy this e-book – or at least to ‘look inside’ on Amazon – it seems you want to be part of the revolution. This book is designed to help you.

      The authors each keep a blog and have written and published two or more e-books. Between us we also have experience of traditional publishing, zines, social media, and mainstream media. We both made many mistakes along the road to self-publishing, and we hope that our hindsight can become your foresight. We have packed this e-book full of hints and tips, practical advice and resources, based on all the knowledge and experience we have gained along the way.

      This book is not designed to teach you how to write. We are assuming you already know that, and want to find out where and how to make your work available for potential readers. If you need support with writing, there are some suggestions in the Resources section at the end of this e-book.

      Everyone’s motivation for self-publishing is slightly different. We thought it might be useful if we began by outlining our own.

      1

      Our motivations for self-publishing

      We think self-publishing is part of the way forward for academia. In our view, it should be considered routinely as an option alongside books, chapters, journal articles, etc. At present, self-published work doesn’t count towards the academic performance management systems such as the UK’s Research Excellence Framework or tenure systems elsewhere. Then again, neither do most textbooks, and academics generally think they’re worth writing.

      Also – let’s be honest here – we’re both control freaks. We both liked the idea of having full control of our product: the writing, the design, the marketing, and so on. Plus it’s great being able to check your sales figures any time you like! We make different choices: Helen set up a publishing company; Nathan publishes zines as well as e-books. What we share is a love of independence and self-determination, and we think many other scholars, within and beyond the walls of the academy, feel the same.

      With two full-length trade published books, plus some short e-books, Helen decided in 2015 to diversify into self-publishing. She knew from her market research that e-books were increasingly popular, and she had an idea for a series of short affordable e-books for doctoral students. This is a worldwide market with several hundred thousand people joining each year. She could have gone with her trade publisher, who probably would have been interested in the project. But, as an independent researcher and scholar, she wanted to try the independent publishing route. She decided to form a publishing company, too, to make her e-books look more professional. The process itself was fascinating, multi-faceted with lots of scope for learning which is another key motivator for Helen.

      Nathan loves interesting challenges. He’s always loved writing too, but often felt frustrated writing anything longer than a blog post. Through completing his PhD he learned the patience to write something larger. After his PhD he started a business as a skills trainer and developed lots of experience helping postgraduate students with viva preparation. Existing books on the subject were expensive, even in e-book format. In 2013 he self-published Fail Your Viva, a short and inexpensive e-book on viva preparation. He wrote it, made the cover, typeset the text, got the e-book on Amazon and started sharing it. There was lots of trial and error: he did some things wrong, did some things right and learned a lot in the process. He had wanted a challenge, and

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1