How early is too early to submit a book proposal to a publisher?

[Caracal]

You do not have good faith. You have assumptions about me, and you're twisting information to confirm those assumptions.

Certainly true, however, the part to pay attention to about Poly's post, unpleasantness aside, is that you want to be careful about the way this could be perceived. Maybe it would help to imagine that it isn't you talking about this, but a difficult, arrogant person who has too high an opinion of themselves and lacks self awareness. I'm not suggesting you are this person, but if you keep that person in mind it might help you to avoid seeming like that guy to others.

Basically my advice is that regardless of whether you do end up sending this proposal, don't be the person in grad school who is talking about their in progress second book. It's the kind of thing that could rub faculty and other students the wrong way and raise doubts about your judgement and understanding of academia.

[adel9216]

You do not have good faith. You have assumptions about me, and you're twisting information to confirm those assumptions.

Certainly true, however, the part to pay attention to about Poly's post, unpleasantness aside, is that you want to be careful about the way this could be perceived. Maybe it would help to imagine that it isn't you talking about this, but a difficult, arrogant person who has too high an opinion of themselves and lacks self awareness. I'm not suggesting you are this person, but if you keep that person in mind it might help you to avoid seeming like that guy to others.

Basically my advice is that regardless of whether you do end up sending this proposal, don't be the person in grad school who is talking about their in progress second book. It's the kind of thing that could rub faculty and other students the wrong way and raise doubts about your judgement and understanding of academia.

Hello, thank you for your input. Could you elaborate on those two points because I am unsure I understood them right.

Thanks!

[polly_mer]

For the readers at home who haven't had my history recently:

I post here in large part to provide perspective from someone who isn't currently a faculty member and has no stake in seeing higher ed preserved in its current state.  I have a decent size ego in large part because I think my life is something to emulate and is different from most of the people who post here.  I generally go more for the broad picture than targeted advice to an individual because the broad picture is usually more valuable.  Thus, I often speak in absolutes and use the current discussant as an example of some readily identifiable group of people.  In other words, the exact details of what someone claims is usually less important to me than the general advice to that group, especially when the claims use similar words to everyone else who chooses poorly and then has to ask for more help from an even tougher situation.

I have been student, faculty (adjunct, non-TT), and administrator at various places in the US and at various types of institutions including CC, regional comprehensive, S(mall)LAC, elite R1, R2, and polytechnic.  I have participated in accreditation studies for regional accreditation, nursing, social work, and engineering.  I have been part of the HLC peer corps to do the reviews and I have spent most of my adult life reading the higher ed literature both peer-reviewed and mass market like Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

I have a PhD in materials engineering and currently am employed as a professional scientist at a non-academic institution where I do publishable, peer-reviewed research comparable to an R1. I have minor complaints because work is work, but this is a dream job in which I get to do research using my degree, formal and informal teaching opportunities are plentiful if I want them, and I am paid enough that my single-income family is comfortably well off.  In other words, I would love to see more people have a life like mine and I am here to provide advice on how to best achieve that.

It is indeed painful to have someone be blunt about low chances when the choices are to be made.  I'm told it's even more painful to listen to the Professor Sparklepony advice of "it's bad, but some people make it" and find out that one is not the lottery winner with huge opportunity costs.

[Caracal]

You do not have good faith. You have assumptions about me, and you're twisting information to confirm those assumptions.

Certainly true, however, the part to pay attention to about Poly's post, unpleasantness aside, is that you want to be careful about the way this could be perceived. Maybe it would help to imagine that it isn't you talking about this, but a difficult, arrogant person who has too high an opinion of themselves and lacks self awareness. I'm not suggesting you are this person, but if you keep that person in mind it might help you to avoid seeming like that guy to others.

Basically my advice is that regardless of whether you do end up sending this proposal, don't be the person in grad school who is talking about their in progress second book. It's the kind of thing that could rub faculty and other students the wrong way and raise doubts about your judgement and understanding of academia.

Hello, thank you for your input. Could you elaborate on those two points because I am unsure I understood them right.

Thanks!

Even if you understand that finishing a dissertation and completing grad school is a ton of work all by itself, and you are really just interested in this idea of a book because there's a neat idea that occurred to you, it could seem to others, including faculty, like you are trying to run before you know how to walk. There's a type of grad student who thinks they already are a brilliant scholar, but actually doesn't know as much as they think they do and is always planning the next stage of their career rather than paying attention to their advisor's critiques of their work. I'm not suggesting you are that person, but you want to be careful that you don't project that image.

[polly_mer]

Basically my advice is that regardless of whether you do end up sending this proposal, don't be the person in grad school who is talking about their in progress second book. It's the kind of thing that could rub faculty and other students the wrong way and raise doubts about your judgement and understanding of academia.

Hello, thank you for your input. Could you elaborate on those two points because I am unsure I understood them right.

Thanks!

Another point from this advice is that many bright, ambitious people with fabulous ideas get sidetracked along the way and never finish their degrees.

This happens frequently enough that I am flat out stating, "Don't work on the book until your dissertation is done and defended".  That is the blunt advice that people need to hear before they get distracted on the book.

As to the other point, I have indeed seen far too many people pull attitude on "I won't get distracted because I'm not an idiot" and then end up not finishing the dissertation in a timely manner because of the distractions to believe anyone who uses variants of those words.  People with a high likelihood of not being distracted respond with a concise variant of "Yeah, that's a good reminder".  People who write at length that they won't get distracted and are offended at the very notion are saying one thing while actively demonstrating their distractibility.

As one easily distracted person to another, you've got a few ideas written down.  Let those ideas live in the notebook for now and get back to something that will help with your coursework, your comps, or your dissertation.

[adel9216]

Where have I said that I would give up on my dissertation to write a book?

[adel9216]

You do not have good faith. You have assumptions about me, and you're twisting information to confirm those assumptions.

Certainly true, however, the part to pay attention to about Poly's post, unpleasantness aside, is that you want to be careful about the way this could be perceived. Maybe it would help to imagine that it isn't you talking about this, but a difficult, arrogant person who has too high an opinion of themselves and lacks self awareness. I'm not suggesting you are this person, but if you keep that person in mind it might help you to avoid seeming like that guy to others.

Basically my advice is that regardless of whether you do end up sending this proposal, don't be the person in grad school who is talking about their in progress second book. It's the kind of thing that could rub faculty and other students the wrong way and raise doubts about your judgement and understanding of academia.

Hello, thank you for your input. Could you elaborate on those two points because I am unsure I understood them right.

Thanks!

Even if you understand that finishing a dissertation and completing grad school is a ton of work all by itself, and you are really just interested in this idea of a book because there's a neat idea that occurred to you, it could seem to others, including faculty, like you are trying to run before you know how to walk. There's a type of grad student who thinks they already are a brilliant scholar, but actually doesn't know as much as they think they do and is always planning the next stage of their career rather than paying attention to their advisor's critiques of their work. I'm not suggesting you are that person, but you want to be careful that you don't project that image.

It is absolutely not the case. I am very methodical, realistic and thoughtful about the things I do and plan to do. But I understand that I must not give the opposite impression. Thanks for your input.

That being said, I still think polly_mer has not good faith.

[Caracal]

As one easily distracted person to another, you've got a few ideas written down.  Let those ideas live in the notebook for now and get back to something that will help with your coursework, your comps, or your dissertation.

Yeah, until you've actually tried to complete a dissertation, you really don't know how difficult it is. Seriously, I have never done anything else that required as much sustained willpower, concentration and determination. It took me years longer than I thought it would because marshaling all those resources was really hard. There will be enough distractions without creating any extra ones.

[adel9216]

I understand but I am not an easily distracted person. I am very focused and am notorious for how focused I am. I feel like there's a bit of projection in some of her responses.

I have done an empirical masters thesis. So I have an idea what to expect, And have been told by professors that my masters thesis resembled a doctoral thesis. But I am aware that its different and bigger in scope.

[polly_mer]

Where have I said that I would give up on my dissertation to write a book?

I understand but I am not an easily distracted person. I am very focused and am notorious for how focused I am.

You have asserted repeatedly that you will not be distracted and yet this thread is full of lengthy posts by you that can be described as distractions.

What new information do you get by responding to each post now that the overall conclusion is the book should wait?

Does posting on this thread help with your course work?

Does posting on this thread help with your comps?

Does posting on this thread help with your dissertation?

I've now spent about three hours on these fora this morning.  How much time have you spent on this thread that should have gone to course work, comps, dissertation, or free time doing something you enjoy as a break from courses/comps/dissertation?

You could even have put more time into that book proposal you claim is not going to be a distraction and it would have been a more compelling case for not being distracted from your courses/comps/dissertation since I couldn't then observe you making posts that are pretty good examples of wanting to be told something in accord with your dreams instead of reality in all forms including tone, wording, and assumed purpose.

Ignoring or blocking my posts doesn't erase my broader point to the reading audience that bright, hardworking people who have too many good ideas all the time can be distracted as I have, having spent hours this morning trying to save academics from themselves instead of devoting that time to the paper that will help my career.

[adel9216]

I am on vacation. I finished course work and got As in all four of my courses.

Do you need to see my schedule and report for proof?

Jeez.

[spork]

And you're speaking to me like I am an idiot. I am not.

My experience with very bright, very enthusiastic early career scholars with the most promise is that they only take advice counter to their desires when it is so blunt that there is no Professor Sparklepony possibility.  You are definitely in that category as you come back round after round with great ideas that are distractions from the important parts of your academic life right now:

* coursework since you're still in your first year
* comps since you're still in your first year
* dissertation since you haven't yet defended

Be angry with me all you like, but take the feedback that everyone is giving you to focus on the work that must be done to finish your PhD and be ready to get that next job.

You are free to do what you like, but the readers at home need to see both the blunt message and what happens when people insist on asking for advice and then not taking it while proclaiming loudly that they aren't an idiot.

This made me laugh out loud. It's reminiscent of the Monty Python dead parrot sketch.

[adel9216]

Polly_mer, I asked you to stop harassing me.

If I am wrong, let me be wrong. It's my problem, not yours. I don't know why you put so much energy trying to control and analyze the life of a complete stranger on the Internet.

I don't need saving. Especially from someone like you. One day, you'll see. And you'll realize how wrong you were to treat me the way you did.

I'll go back to watching Netflix and relaxing. You're a lost cause and you are not worth my time and energy.

[Ruralguy]

So long as you keep tabs on the diss, I  see no real problem with you writing the proposal and the book.  How much you need to do upfront and by certain deadlines and on what kind of timescale are very dependent on field, type of book, publisher, etc. I see no harm in at least writing a proposal, writing down some ideas for the rest, and having a conversation with publishers when you can. If this is a textbook or intended mainly as a subfield primer, collaborating with a more senior person at some point will likely help.

Polly's comments might be good as general advice and might certainly be insightful for academics and non academic alike, but as specific advice, who knows. We are giving you fair warning, but aside from that, telling you a bit about the pleasure and perils of book prep. and "shopping" to publishers seems apropos to your question.

[Wahoo Redux]

In other words, I would love to see more people have a life like mine and I am here to provide advice on how to best achieve that.

I don't think I've seen many people ask for that advice, Polly, and it sure doesn't seem like that's what you are doing with this Sparklepony crap.

It seems like you want to put academia down and are rooting for its dissolution, and you want to attack those of us who support academia and are looking for a future in it.

Maybe stop giving advice.