I was at a writers’ conference one weekend when a bright-eyed woman approached me during cocktail hour. “I’ve just finished my PhD in organizational psychology,” she told me, “and I think it would make a terrific book.” (Back in the day, she would have been clutching a thick manuscript, not a thumb drive, but I digress.)
I took a long sip of my seltzer and cran.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been cornered by someone who believed their dissertation was destined for the bestseller list. It wouldn’t be the last. I’ve had this conversation so many times that I now have a standard response that I deliver with as much kindness as I can muster: “Do not, under any circumstances, think of publishing your dissertation.”
Let me be brutally honest here. No one, with the possible exception of your thesis advisor—who, let’s be real, was paid to read it—wants to consume your dissertation. That 250-page academic treatise on “The Impact of Linear Hierarchical Structures on Cross-Functional Team Dynamics in Post-Industrial Organizations” is not meant for public consumption. Not in its current form. Not ever. Let me go back and emphasize the word NOT. And EVER.
I’ve had a number of conversations with people about publishing their dissertations. They don’t actually admit that their manuscript is a dissertation, but that’s not something you can easily hide. It’s like trying to disguise an elephant as Morris The Cat. The academic DNA is evident on every page.
How can I tell? First, it’s entirely academic, written for a committee of professors who expected you to demonstrate your mastery of arcane theories and methodologies. (People, I might add, who jam on that shizzle.) It lacks any semblance of a compelling narrative. There are no characters to root for, no tension to keep the pages turning, no emotional payoff. Just data, analysis, and citations. So. Many. Citations.
Second, these manuscripts are typically drowning in buzzwords and incomprehensible terminology. I recently reviewed a sample chapter that included the phrase “intersectional paradigmatic framework of ontological discourse.” I read it three times before concluding that even the author probably didn’t know what it meant. I sure as shit didn’t. This kind of academic-speak might impress your doctoral committee, but it makes the average reader want to gouge their eyes out with a spoon.
What particularly kills me is when someone slaps a punchy, commercial-sounding title on their unaltered dissertation. I’ve even had people come up with titles that would lead readers to believe they’re in for a fascinating ride, which breaks the important promise that a title makes: that the content within is going to match the expressed tone and genre. This is such a no-no.
For instance, I once reviewed a dissertation completed for someone’s MBA with the proposed title: Bossbabe: How to Rule the Corporate World Without Breaking a Nail. Inside? Two hundred pages of dense analysis of gender performance in corporate leadership structures, complete with regression analyses and a thirty-page literature review. Not a single practical tip for the aspiring “bossbabe.” Not one narrative example that didn’t read like it had been exhumed from a peer-reviewed journal. I’m telling you, the whole thing smelled like the moldy stacks of a university library.
The readers who pick up a book called Bossbabe are looking for something entirely different from what that manuscript offered. They want stories. They want practical advice. They want to be entertained while they learn. They do not want to wade through sentences like “The quantitative data reflect a statistically significant correlation between perceived femininity performance and upward mobility constraints within traditionally masculine corporate environments (p<0.05).”
Look, I get it. You spent years of your life on this work. You bled onto those pages. Your dissertation represents the culmination of intense intellectual effort, and it feels wasteful to just let it sit in a university repository where only other academics might stumble upon it.
But here’s the thing: Your dissertation wasn’t meant to be a book. It was meant to prove to a small committee that you could conduct original research and contribute to your field. That’s a completely different purpose than engaging, informing, or entertaining the general reading public.
If you really want to transform your dissertation into a book that people might actually want to read, you need to be willing to tear it apart completely and rebuild it from the ground up. You need to find the human story behind the data. You need to translate that specialized language into something accessible. You need to slash at least 60% of what you wrote, including those precious literature reviews and methodology sections that took you months to perfect.
In other words, you need to write an entirely different book that happens to be informed by your research. (Like this book, as an example.)
So please, I’m begging you—for the love of readers everywhere, for the love of all that is holy—step away from your dissertation. Start fresh. Tell us why your research matters in language we can understand, with stories that make us give two hoots. Your future readers (and your future publisher) will thank you for it.
And if you simply can’t bear to let go of that academic tone and structure? There’s always the university press. But don’t come crying to me when your mother is the only one who buys a copy, and even she doesn’t make it past the introduction. And p.s. Your subsequent lack of sales will NOT be about the high price of your book. Just sayin’.
