Query on junior scholars writing books

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Amanda writes:

So what are everyone's thoughts on writing a book as a Junior (non-tenured) scholar, particularly when you are not from somewhere fancy? So here are some things I have either seen or heard:

• If you do write a book, even if it is very good and published with a very good press, or even the top press, it is likely to be ignored.
• If you are searching for research jobs, then *maybe* a book with Oxford, Cambridge, or Routledge might help, but other presses likely not. And even with the aforementioned presses great articles are probably better.
• For tenure at a research place, books with the above presses can help but you better have had great article publications as well.
• For teaching schools books are more competitive with articles? Maybe? I am really less sure on this.

Good questions - I'll be curious to hear what readers think! Here are a few of my thoughts.

Although I don't know for sure, I wouldn't be surprised if Amanda is right that most books--even ones with top presses--tend to be largely ignored. Still, I'm not sure that's any reason for a junior person not to write a book. Most articles are largely ignored too, and you never really know whether your book or article will be ignored unless you give it a shot. And of course sometimes books make an impact out of the blue, or sometimes only years later!

In terms of research jobs and tenure at research places, I suspect a book with a top press can help a great deal. But, or so I've heard, what really matters is whether the book is any good and/or gains uptake in philosophical discussion. Is this right? Given that I don't work at an R1 I don't know for sure - so it would be great to hear from those in the know.

As for "teaching schools" (SLACs), my experience is that a book contract or published book with a respectable press can make a huge difference--both in terms of interviews and getting tenure. I'll be frank here. When I was still in a non-TT job and began thinking about publishing my book, more than a few people I talked to said a variation of the following: "You shouldn't try to publish a book unless it is with a top press, and unless you already have publications in top-ranked journals." Their thought--and, as far as I can tell, it is conventional wisdom in certain places--was that if a book isn't with a top-ranked press and/or you don't have top-ranked journal publications to go with it, it's unlikely to help with getting a job or tenure.

I didn't listen to that advice, and I'm glad I didn't. My own experience with "teaching schools"--both on the job and in the tenure process--is that the above advice is false. First, getting a book contract with a good but not top-ranked press (Palgrave) was followed by dramatic increases in my number of interview at SLACs (and a few research schools). Second, my experience working at a SLAC is that books can make a big difference in the tenure process. This is for several reasons. First, tenure and promotion committees are not comprised simply by philosophers. While you have a department T&P committee, they make their tenure recommendation to the college T&P committee, who then makes their own recommendation. The thing about college T&P committees is that they are comprised by people in other disciplines, such as English, History, and so on. Further, in some of these other disciplines, books are a very big deal--they may be expected for tenure in those disciplines. Since faculty in those other disciplines may not know philosophy culture very well, they may come at tenure decisions on the basis of their own expectations (the expectation that a book is a much bigger deal that articles). Finally, my sense is that for similar reasons, administrators may look much more favorably on books than articles--and since tenure recommendations have to go through them, having a book in one's tenure file may once again be very helpful.  

Last but (certainly) not least, while I can see why these sorts of strategic considerations matter to people (who doesn't want a job and tenure?), for my part I wouldn't advise that any of these things settle whether a junior person should write a book. Rather, I'm more inclined to think one's philosophical interests should dictate that. You want to write a book? You have a book length argument you think is worth publishing? Then try to publish a book. If not, then don't! ;)

Or so I'm inclined to think. What say you?

Comments

[Agreed]

Marcus,
I think you are correct that a book can really matter for tenure at a teaching college. But I am not so sure it is a good gamble. If you cannot sell your idea to a press you can get screwed; you may not have enough to show for tenure. And, you are also correct that at many state colleges the quality of press matters little, as long as it is not a vanity press, where you pay to publish. But a book with an excellent press can be a career changer.
Further, you are also correct that you should not write a book unless you have something to say in book length. Then it can be quite rewarding. Some books, even some good books, allow a person to synthesize their thoughts on a topic on which they have already published, pushing things further.
My book attracted the attention of some good scholars in the area, and this has led to some nice invitations. But it probably helped that it was with an excellent publisher.

[Amanda]

I am not sure articles are ignored the way books are ignored. On research gate I get a lot of people requesting and even sometimes recommending my articles, where I am doubtful if I were to write a book right now (before I am really established) whether anyone would read it. The difference is not only is a book longer, but you can get my articles for free online, and that couldn't happen with a book.

[Peter]

I cannot speak to the reading habits of others, but I don't think I treat articles and books of junior people differently. If I learn of a book that I might be interested in but do not have immediate access to, I just request it through inter-library loan. It still ends up being free for me. Now what might hurt such a book is if I don't learn of it in the first place; I am much more likely to look through the contents pages of journals than to look through publishers lists of recently published books.

[Lisa]

My experience with writing a book, for what’s worth it, has been very positive. It was a good press, and it got pretty wide attention (over 20 reviews), whereas many of my articles seem to go unread. But what I like most about books is that you simply have more space for developing ideas, so you can be more innovative. My experience with peer reviewed articles has been that you have to stay reasonably close to established paradigms, and better just write about small questions. But philosophy is also about big questions, and that’s what books are for.

[Paul]

While I think a book on a good press is a an excellent way to secure tenure at many universities (I think Marcus is correct that the UTCs are often composed of people that value books over articles), I also think that you are probably going to get more traction with a series of articles. As Amanda mentioned, the academic social media sites really help get your articles out there very fast and to lots of people with similar interests. The potential problems I see with pursuing a book is if you are putting all your eggs in one basket and it is going to take several years. This can KILL you on the tenure track because committees in my experience want to see regular signs that you have an active research agenda. And then, once the book is out, it can take years in philosophy to get reviews (if you ever do). A member of my tenure committee pointed to this as a real problem. Whereas most articles in even mid-level journals have gone through several rounds of peer-review and revision (because you probably started at the top and worked your way down), the book might have only been reviewed by the editor and 2-3 reviewers. So, if you need say 8 articles for tenure, that is a LOT of external validation of your work that you can point to in your tenure letter, whereas one book has very little validation. I think that this is important to consider for R1 TT jobs. But I think it might be different for teaching jobs and for getting a job. In either of those cases a book makes a lot more sense to me...

[Peter Furlong]

In this thread some have pointed out that tenure committees are often composed of people from different disciplines with different views of the relative values of books and articles. I have heard (but perhaps I am wrong) that there also tend to be different attitudes about the relative values of books and articles between analytic and continental philosophers. Do you all think there is any truth in this? If so, do you think that this is a consideration junior scholars should take into consideration, not merely based upon which tradition they work in, but also the traditions of those in one's own department (or the departments one hopes to join)?

[Untenured Ethicist]

Different institutions are different. For tenure-track professors, I think the answer is to ask your chair and other senior members of your department.

[Chris]

Peter- Its also true that there can be sub-disciplinary differences - it might be more expected for historians to have a book and for formal epistemologists a bunch of articles. Many tenure letter writers will comment on what is standard in your subfield. But as Untenured Ethicist says, check with your* department.

*One caveat: some people will advise you to publish whatever it would take to get tenure at most (reasonable) institutions, that way if things go sideways at your institution for some reason (i.e. personal conflicts, etc), you'll be in a position to move if you have to.

Also: on Paul's point about books putting all your eggs in one basket. There is some truth to this, but you can hedge your bets by also publishing a few articles along the way on the same topic of your book. Most books have at least a chapter or two that is a rewritten journal article. So you don't have to put all your eggs in one basket if you go with a book.

[Paul]

Chris - yes, if one can generate other publications while writing a book then I don't see it being a problem. But I have had a couple colleagues that took years to write their well-received books, but in the meantime published basically nothing else (in one case literally nothing else). And since both hiring and tenure committees want to see an active research agenda, that could be disastrous. So, if you are someone that knows you can maintain multiple research agendas at the same time, or you can get a few articles related to the book, or you are confident you can get the book done reasonably quickly, then go for it! But if not, I might hold off until after tenure...

[Marcus Arvan]

Paul: I agree. I don't think it's a good idea to put all of one's eggs into one basket (a book). It's a huge risk. With perhaps rare exceptions, I would think it's probably a good idea for junior people to try to publishing a book only if they already have a track record publishing articles. In this kind of case, I think publishing a book can be a good idea--and indeed, make a candidate stand out (for jobs and for tenure).