Welcome to the sixth and final video in
our series of short BiteWISe guides
looking at how to turn your PhD thesis
into a monograph.
The previous guide on copy editing and review
concluded with the publication of your monograph but the story doesn't end there.
In this guide we will consider what happens after
your book has been published and the
steps that you and your publisher will
need to take to ensure that your
research finds the widest possible audience.
Your publisher's approach to
marketing your book may vary depending
on the kind of audience they envisage
for it.
If your book is specialized and likely to be of interest mainly to other academics
any marketing they do will be relatively low-key.
If it has potential to appeal to a general readership they
may be more willing to invest time and
money in a broader campaign.
The role that your publisher takes in publicizing your book is usually outlined at the
contract negotiation stage.
Make sure you are clear where their responsibility ends
and yours begins and what practical
measures they will take.
If they ask you for information about possible audiences or outlets make sure you provide as much
detail as possible as this will help
them to target their efforts on the most
appropriate channels and hopefully
maximize sales.
There are a number of ways
in which a publisher can help you
to generate additional attention for your book.
This might include making it a feature title on their website
this could be on the front page, or at imprint, subject or series level
highlighting it in their physical catalogue
publicizing it via their social media channels
making it available via major retail outlets such as Amazon, Kobo and Barnes & Noble
as well as through specialist academic
suppliers
arranging book signings or media appearances
although this is not always appropriate for an academic book.
When it comes to sending the book to
relevant journals for review this is
usually something your publisher will do
but do check if this is the case.
it is also worth establishing how many
journals they will be targeting and which ones.
It's best if you can to work with them to come up with a suitable list
as they may have insights as to
which general journals to target
while your knowledge of the subject area
should help you identify more niche titles
which might generate a higher
proportion of sales per reader.
If your publisher is not sending your book for review they should
be happy for you to make the approach.
Speak to them about how they can support you with this
for example by providing
free or reduced-price copies of the
physical version or a link to a free
evaluation copy of the e-book.
If you have limited copies of the book
available for review make sure you
choose the journals you target carefully.
You may also want to contact academic
bloggers in your field to see if they
will review and/or promote your book.
As already mentioned your publishers should be able to use their social media
channels to generate interest in your
monograph
but you can also leverage your own social networks
to spread the news
about your publication.
Ideally you should start your social media campaign before your book is released
although not too early.
if it has been added to your publisher's website as forthcoming
make sure you include a link in any post
you send so people can find out more.
If you have your own website or blog make sure that the link to your book is
prominently displayed and include a
picture if you can
although you should check with your publisher that they are happy for you to do this and also make
sure any third-party image rights allow
this as well.
Make sure you publicize any promotional activities
you are involved in across as many platforms as you can.
As well as publicizing your book
generally through social media you can
also make direct contact with people who
might be interested in purchasing your book.
Your university library will really
appreciate it if you are able to donate
a copy of your monograph to them
but if that's not possible make sure
they know about it and ask them if they
can buy a copy.
If you will be teaching a module that is related to your research
you could also add it to the reading list.
It is also worth checking whether
there are any other institutions that
are teaching modules in the same area
and making their libraries aware of your book as well.
Make sure you are very
clear about what the book is about and
which courses it might be relevant to.
You could also approach the tutor directly.
You can generate publicity for
your monograph simply by being more
visible in the weeks and months leading
up to and immediately after publication.
Attend conferences, give talks and get
involved in public engagement activities
as much as you can.
It may be worth speaking to your department
to find out whether or not they
would be able to host a book launch
particularly if there are other
colleagues releasing books at the same time.
Even if you are not speaking at a
conference you can still use it as an
opportunity to raise awareness of your
monograph.
Don't be afraid to mention it in conversation
and keep a stock of flyers you can hand out to anyone who seems interested.
Another thing you might
want to consider is making part or even
all of your monograph available via open
access.
This can be a great way of
generating additional interest in your
research and making it more accessible
without necessarily affecting sales of
print copies.
There are a number of ways you can make your monograph openly available.
if your publisher will allow it
you may want to consider depositing
your monograph or one or more sample
chapters in your institutional or
subject specific repository.
This is known as the green route to Open Access.
Do you make sure you follow your publisher's guidance
on any restrictions or embargoes on which version you can openly share.
The library can advise you
on this.
If your PhD research was funded
your funding body may pay to make the
electronic version of your monograph
available via the gold route.
Some publishers may also offer this option to
unfunded researchers for a reduced fee
or in certain circumstances waive it altogether.
Some university presses have adopted a
free to publish free to read model when
neither the author nor the reader pay a fee
although this is still relatively rare.
Some publishers will allow you to host a
version on your own website but do be
careful about uploading copies to social
networking sites such as LinkedIn
academia.edu and ResearchGate.
If you've signed over your copyright or granted your publisher an exclusive license you
could be in breach of your contract but
it's also a matter of courtesy.
Remember they have put a considerable amount of
investment into bringing your book to
market and are unlikely to be happy with
you sharing it via another commercial website.
If you do want to share by these
platforms it's better to link out to a
copy held legitimately elsewhere.
It's also worth thinking about how you are
going to track engagement with your
monograph.
You could try some of the following tools and techniques.
Check for book reviews in blogs, newspapers and journals.
Google, Google Scholar and some
subscription databases allow you to set
up alerts which you can set to notify
you when a review is published.
Use aggregating catalogues such as COPAC and
WorldCat to see which libraries
worldwide hold copies of your book.
Check for citations of your book in Google Scholar.
Some subscription databases such
as Web of Science and Scopus also show
where books have been cited although
they may not index the books themselves.
Download the Altmetric bookmarklet to
check for mentions on social media
monitor social media analytics to track
views, engagement and link clicks
and if you are driving social media traffic to your own blog or website use trackable
links so you know where visitors have
been redirected from.
You can use this information to refine your marketing and publicity efforts and target the most
effective channels.
Thank you for listening to this short BiteWISe guide on disseminating your monograph.
This is the final video on Turning your PhD thesis into a monograph
but look out for other videos in our BiteWISe series.
