via GIPHY Part of the ongoing, not particularly useful series of advice on writing an academic book. Getting the ‘voice’ or tone right in an academic book is often not as difficult as it is for other forms of writing, because there is an expected mode of expression – the academic voice. This is typically characterised by avoiding casual language, making declarative statements and establishing an authoritative voice. Your publisher will usually have guidelines on use of specific forms of expression, and the copyeditor will follow pretty strict (sometimes overly strict) guidelines. The idea of the academic voice was to essentially remove the author’s personal views from the process –…

via GIPHY In the previous posts I’ve looked at motivations for writing a book, getting the proposal done and the writing process. So now you’re on your way, full of enthusiasm, you’ve got a plan, several piles of references and a good supply of snacks. But at some point it is likely that you will be visited by those pale twins – self-doubt and flagging motivation. There are lots of good sites on writing advice, but here’s my tips on dealing with those unwanted guests. All of my advice is really a variation on the theme of ‘treat yo self’ – not necessarily in a material sense (although maybe) but…

via GIPHY So you’ve realised you want to write a book, you’ve got your proposal accepted – now you just have to write that damn thing. There will be many ways to approach this, so all I offer here are some tips that have worked for me. But to reiterate a point I made in the previous two posts – it’s largely a prosaic, unromantic task. Treat it like a project – maybe one that you enjoy and gain fulfilment from, but not one immersed in Byronic moments of frantic inspiration as you wrestle the divine spirit and emerge with a work of unrivalled beauty. Instead it’s much more sitting…

via GIPHY So, having dampened your expectations about the transformational aspect of book writing in the previous post, you’ve now set yourself up to think of it as a job like task. The first part in the process is to get a proposal together. For the publisher, this may be the most important aspect – the book is essentially just realising what is in the proposal. They may not care that much about what is actually in the book as long as it does what it says in the proposal. Getting this right is essential. It is also a very useful component in proving to yourself whether there really is…

I’ve written six academic books in my career, of varying quality and usefulness. I occasionally get asked advice on different aspects of the book writing process, so I thought I’d gather some thoughts in a series of posts. I’m focusing on academic, mainly solo-authored books here, rather than fiction or collected editions (although some of this will be applicable to those also). This is just my take on the whole book thing, it may not work for others, and will vary depending on discipline, motivation for writing a book, geographical location, career path, etc. A general point before getting into the various stages – when I was younger (and probably…