How to Turn Your Dissertation into a Book: A Scholar’s Guide to Publication

Congratulations on completing your dissertation! You’ve poured years of research, analysis, and writing into a substantial piece of academic work. But your journey with this valuable knowledge doesn’t have to end here. Many scholars choose to share their research with a wider audience by turning their dissertation into a book.

This process, however, requires a significant shift in approach. A dissertation is a highly specialized document aimed at a narrow academic circle, while a book targets a broader audience and aims for accessibility and engagement. This guide will equip you with the tools and strategies to transform your dissertation into a compelling and publishable book.

Identifying Your Audience: Who Will Read Your Book?

The cornerstone of transforming your dissertation is understanding who you want to reach with your book. Here are some key considerations:

• General vs. Academic Audience: Do you want to target a general audience interested in your field or a more specialized academic readership? This will significantly influence the level of detail and technical language you use.
• Reader Needs and Interests: What are the needs and interests of your target audience? What questions are they seeking answers to? Tailoring your content to their specific needs will increase engagement.
• Existing Scholarship: Research existing books on your topic. Identify gaps in current knowledge or fresh perspectives you can offer.

Reshaping Your Dissertation: Content and Structure

• Focus on the Core Argument: Dissertations often delve into intricate details to support a central argument. Distill this core message into a clear and concise thesis statement for your book.
• Refine the Scope and Length: Dissertations are typically lengthy and comprehensive. A book should be concise and focused. Identify sections that can be omitted or condensed and consider adding new material to broaden the appeal.
• Simplify Language and Style: Dissertations use formal academic language. For a book, strive for a clear, concise, and engaging writing style, reducing jargon and technical terms where possible.
• Strengthen the Narrative Arc: While dissertations present information in a logical structure, consider incorporating a more narrative approach in your book. Create a clear introduction, a well-developed argument, and a satisfying conclusion that leaves a lasting impact on the reader.

Enhancing Your Book for Publication

• Strengthen the Introduction and Conclusion: The introduction is your chance to hook readers and clearly outline the book’s purpose and significance. Similarly, the conclusion should summarize key takeaways and offer a sense of closure.
• Incorporate Additional Content: Consider adding chapters that go beyond your dissertation, such as case studies, real-world applications of your research, or practical advice for your target audience.
• Visual Appeal: While some academic books may have limited visuals, consider incorporating figures, charts, or images to enhance understanding and break up text-heavy sections.
• Develop a Compelling Title: Your title should be clear, concise, and accurately reflect the book’s content. It should also be catchy and pique the reader’s interest.

The Publishing Landscape: Choosing Your Path

• Traditional Publishing: This route involves submitting your book proposal to a publishing house. They handle everything from editing and design to marketing and distribution. The process can be lengthy and competitive, but successful publication offers prestige and wider market reach.
• Academic Presses: These publishers specialize in scholarly works and may be a good fit for books with a niche academic audience. They offer editorial expertise and peer review but may have limited marketing resources.
• Self-Publishing: This option allows you complete control over the publishing process. You can set your own price, design, and marketing strategy. However, self-publishing requires significant effort in editing, formatting, and distribution.

Remember:

• Seek Feedback: Share your manuscript with trusted colleagues, editors, or beta readers familiar with your field and target audience. Their feedback can help refine your content and identify areas for improvement.
• Research and Prepare: Regardless of your chosen path, research different publishers or self-publishing platforms. Understand their submission guidelines, contracts, and royalty structures.
• Seek Professional Help: Consider hiring an editor to polish your writing and ensure academic rigor. For self-publishing, consider collaborating with a designer and marketing professional.

Conclusion: From Dissertation to Published Book

Transforming your dissertation into a book is an exciting opportunity to share your valuable research with a wider audience. By understanding your target audience, adapting your content, and choosing the right publishing path, you can see your scholarly work reach new heights and make a lasting impact. Remember, this transformation process may require additional research, writing, and dedication, but the result – a published book – will be a testament to your expertise and a valuable resource for your readers.

Ph.D. graduates decide to publish their thesis as a book. We, as an institute helping students with publishing their works, get lots of those books. A short look at them shows that the writer is not aware of the differences between a book and a dissertation or thesis. S/he just sends the thesis as it is and asks us to publish it as a book. While in order to turn a thesis into a book you need to make some changes in your thesis.

In order to turn your dissertation into a book, forget about your dissertation. Just use the information you get during the process of dissertation writing, and write a new, more general version of it. However, at the same time, it is not going to be a completely new subject providing new information. The subject, the aim, the variables, conclusion, and all the information are the same.

The title

Before starting to write, define the topic of your book considering its audience.

The title of a thesis should be specific and limited, while books need a broader title to be interesting to a wider range of audience i.e. it should not be too specialized. Let’s say you are a potential reader, would you buy a book with that title? So choose the title of your book in a way that it is interesting enough to attract potential readers. The maximum characters of 70 are acceptable.

The scope:

Theses have a broader scope than books. A researcher studies several variables in a thesis or dissertation. A book needs to be narrower. It should cover a limit and a specific scope.

You can choose one of the variables and write on that in your book.

The chapters

Chapters of a book differ from a dissertation.

Every thesis is of five chapters which we discussed in “chapters of a Ph.D. and master’s thesis” post. While chapters of books are organized according to their subject i.e. you can divide the book into chapters based on subjects you are going to talk about, and make headings and subheadings for each one.

Note that the organization of a book is very important. A clear organization that its logic is easy to be understood is more possible to attract the reader.

To arrange your book, consult a table of content. It can be like this:

• Acknowledgment (optional)
• Dedication (optional)
• Preface
• Section/part one:
  • Chapter one
  • Chapter two
  • [continue with other chapters]
• [continiue with other sections]
• References
• For further reading (optional)
• Appendixes (if it has)

As you see, books can have acknowledgment, dedication, and preface. It also ends with references and appendixes, as in theses. You can also ignore section/parts.

You need to organize each chapter, too. Each of them begins with a warm-up. After the introduction, go on with subsections and ends with a conclusion. Relate each chapter to its previous one, and in the last paragraph open a new subject in relation to what has been said, so that you can write about the new subject in the next chapter.

Make the Preface as effective as you can, so that motivates the reader to follow the book.

The content

The language you will use in a book differs from a dissertation. verbs are active. Jargon is eliminated or defined beside you should use a simpler language in your book. It needs to be understandable to a wider range of readers.

Theses and dissertations are full of repeat and their chapters are long. Eliminate the repeated sentences and make each section as short as it is readable.

In a book, you do not cite in the body. The “references”.

Review what you have written

When you are done with writing the book, leave it for a few days or a week, and then review it to revise.

Make openings of each chapter stronger.

Review the chapters, headings, and subheadings. Use strong and attractive phrases for them. The order of them also needs to make sense logically.

Eliminate unnecessary content, extend the explanations and descriptions as needed, and add definition to terminologies.

To write a better version of your book, you need to know the differences between a book and a dissertation, you can follow “Differences between book and dissertation” for more information.

Hoortash institution offer publication services as well as training and counseling you to turn your dissertation into a book.