Academic Book Coaching: How to Publish Your Work While Managing a Career
If you’re anything like me, the challenge of juggling research, teaching service, and parenting often leaves time for nothing else, let alone getting my high-stakes projects published. In fact, this struggle is why many academics, have delayed or abandoned book projects. I know this struggle is a big reason of why I delayed work on my first book. I had a a new baby, new job, new house, and I just did not know where to begin.
Looking back, I wish I had known about academic book coaching. Academic book coaching offers writers a sustainable solution to establishing a writing routine to take them through development, revision, and publication. As an academic coach, I give authors the support to move manuscript-length projects to books that I so would have benefited from at the time. In what follows, I demonstrate how academic coaching can help you publish with clarity, structure, and confidence.
Why Publishing Your Book Feels Impossible (But Isn’t)
After I graduated with my Ph.D. and was working as full-time faculty, I thought I would have so much time on my hands to move my dissertation to a book. Instead, all the life I had been putting off bounded back into my lap. I was hired full-time, my partner and I bought a house, and soon after I had a baby. I suddenly had LESS time than when I had been adjunct teaching at multiple institutions while trying to finish my dissertation. Writing a book was the last thing on my mind.
Like me, you may feel like publishing your book feels impossible because time is scarce, and the time you do have has to be divided out among competing interests. As you get into your project, you might also feel overwhelmed by the writing and revising process. It is tough taking a narrow project like a dissertation and making it applicable for a new audience. It is also a struggle to keep writing without the structure you were used to working with an advisor and amid institutional guidelines for dissertation writing.
You might also feel confused about which publishing path you could and should go down. University presses have a lot of prestige, but your book might fit better under an academic press umbrella.
No matter what might be holding you back from your book, hiring an academic coach can help!
What is Academic Book Coaching?
Academic book coaching can help you move your writing to book publication by providing you with the structured support you need to move forward. Unlike a traditional editor, academic book coaching helps you with the big picture of your project. An academic coach will:
Help you set goals and create a plan.
Provide structural feedback on your manuscript.
Guide you in maintaining accountability.
Foster a positive writing mindset.
Support you in navigating the publishing process.
When you want to publish academic work, it is beneficial to work with an academic coach who understands academic and publishing. They not only understanding writing, but the stakes for your writing in an academic environment.
How Coaching Helps You Publish While Managing a Career
Working with a coach can help you navigate everything you are juggling by providing you with practical strategies for balancing writing with your career. Academic coaches can support you by working with you to:
Create a realistic writing plan that fits your schedule (even with 15 minutes a day you will start to see results.)
Manage burnout and perfectionism (Writing doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to be clear and speak to an audience.)
Set manageable micro-goals and milestones
Foster accountability
Check in
From Dissertation to Book: A Roadmap
How can an academic coach help YOU? Hiring an academic coach means you will get help identifying the audience for your book and its contribution. Academic coaches can also help you reframe dense academic writing for clarity and reach beyond your committee and department. Depending on where you are in the process, an academic coach can also help you build a compelling book proposal and confidently approach publishers.
Need a quick win? Here are 3 steps you can take TODAY:
Write an elevator speech version of your book. (What’s the overall takeaway? Who is it for? and Why does it matter?)
Look into a model for your book project. (Is there a book you particularly admire? What does it do well? How might your book do something similar?)
Reach out to an academic coach to help you structure your book project today!
Balancing Career Advancement and Writing Goals
Working with an academic coach supports your academic trajectory as you navigate the tenure and promotion process by providing the structure and guidance you need to organize ideas, demonstrate impact, and follow through on academic writing projects. Academic coaches work with you to develop management strategies like, batching, writing sprints, scheduling writing time, to shift your mindset from feeling overwhelmed to engaging writing as part of your career instead of in competition with it.
Is Academic Book Coaching Right for You?
You might be be ready to work with an academic coach if you:
have a project but feel stuck.
feel ready to publish but are unsure of where to to start (with proposals or presses)
structure and accountability to your writing.
When searching for a coach, look for someone who fits with your writing style, has experience working with academia, and publishing, and who aligns with your communication style.
How to Get Started
When you work with an academic coach, they will engage in consultation with you and project to establish contact and understand your goals. If you both are a good fit, your coach will come up with a plan for working together, and generate outcomes (of what they will and will not do) for your working relationship. This will likely include tasks the coach will complete and follow-up sessions to schedule.
To learn more about why working professionals turn to academic coaches check out: https://creatingcuriositycoaching.com/curiosity-coaching-tips/dissertation-coaching-complements-advisors
To learn more about turning a dissertation into a book, check out: https://creatingcuriositycoaching.com/curiosity-coaching-tips/dissertation-to-book-full-time
Conclusion: You Don’t Have to Do This Alone
You CAN publish your book and maintain your career with support, structure and strategy. Your ideas deserve to make it to a wider audience beyond your department or university. Let’s work together to make this happen. Learn more about academic book coaching.
Aubrey Huber, PhD — Supporting busy professionals and faculty in rewriting, structuring, and publishing their dissertations. I help clients navigate the dissertation-to-book process efficiently while maintaining full-time work and life responsibilities.
Ready to start your academic project with guidance? Contact us today.