Turning dissertations into books

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Big Dawg writes:

I would sincerely appreciate if you could create a thread that seeks advice on the general topic of turning a dissertation into a book. I understand there is already a series on "book publishing" but this is obviously a different scenario.

I am looking for the following advice:

Where does one begin?

What is the best way to think about how to do this?

Is there any advice from someone who has done it themselves and what they would recommend?

Are there specific things one can do to make this process easier?

I realize advice may vary depending upon the specifics of the dissertation itself but any general advice would be much appreciate.

**Please note: I am not looking for advice on whether to do this. I have a book contract.

As I don't have any experience turning a dissertation into a book, I don't have much advice to give here beyond the following two things.

First, although Big Dawg reports already having a book contract, I think it may be worth discussing whether there are any differences in the process of seeking a book contract for a dissertation as opposed to a non-dissertation. Here, my anecdotal experience is that the process may be similar but not identical. In particular, I have heard that because some publishers may be resistant to publishing revised dissertations (for reasons we can discuss), it may be especially helpful to have an 'in' of some sort (i.e. an influential senior mentor in the profession able to speak to the value of your dissertation, perhaps to the press's commissioning editor). Indeed, I've heard of cases where this seems to have made a difference.

Second, I think a lot of people who have published books (and some who have struggled to publish dissertations) will tell you that books are typically written very differently than dissertations--and that the conventions for them differ. Specifically, dissertations typically contain a great deal of background exposition and literature review--things designed to show a PhD committee that the PhD candidate 'knows their stuff.' In contrast, my sense is that books tend to contain far less background exposition and literature review, focusing primarily on laying out an original view. My sense is that editors and reviewers in the peer-review process can hold authors to these very different conventions, raising concerns that the author focuses too much on summarizing other people's views rather than developing your own. Just take a look at any influential philosophy book you like, ranging from Rawls' A Theory of Justice to Mills' The Racial Contract to Nussbaum's Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (I could go on). One of the more striking things about them is how little background exposition they contain: they just don't have anything remotely like extended literature reviews. They just get right on with the task of laying out the author's view. While I expect there may be some books with more background exposition than these, I also know through second-hand experience that editors and reviewers can have problems with a manuscript with too much exposition, asking the author to focus less on other people's views and more on their own before offering a contract or accepting a final manuscript.

However, this is about the extent to my experience with these matters. Do any of you have any experience and insight on turning dissertations into books? To return to Big Dawg's questions,

Where does one begin?

What is the best way to think about how to do this?

Is there any advice from someone who has done it themselves and what they would recommend?

Are there specific things one can do to make this process easier?

Comments

[Associate Prof]

Great points and I agree. In my experience, one exception to the pattern of books having less exposition of competing views is when they use a "process of elimination" format to reach their own view.

For example, Tom Regan's "The Case for Animal Rights" gives significant attention to competing views, but in a way that wraps these discussions into his central argument.

[Angelo]

I am currently turning my thesis into a book. I found this book of William Germano very useful to understand better the difference between books and PhD theses, and on how one best proceeds:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo16835829.html

[Trevor Hedberg]

I actually just finished writing a book loosely based on my dissertation, but my remarks would be way too lengthy for a short comment. Instead, I'll plan to write up a post on the subject in January after the holidays have concluded. For now, I'll just say that I think the two points Marcus mentions in this post are accurate.

[Marcus Arvan]

Sounds great, Trevor—I really look forward to the post!

[Recent Grad]

Regarding the second point: "Specifically, dissertations typically contain a great deal of background exposition and literature review--things designed to show a PhD committee that the PhD candidate 'knows their stuff.'"

I've heard people say things like this before about other disciplines, but I've always felt it's less true for philosophy. From personal experience, my dissertation didn't contain something like a literature review, nor did I feel any pressure to show a committee anything about "knowing my stuff". I didn't get the impression I was doing anything unusual in this in my (American) PhD program.

It's also the case that plenty of books get published which do provide a wide range of background knowledge. For example, I was just reading Adriaenssen's "Representation and Scepticism from Aquinas to Descartes", winner of the 2018 JHP book prize. (It's also explicitly a revision of a dissertation, which might count against my first point, but it's also a European dissertation, and I've always felt that European dissertations were expected to put more emphasis on organizing that sort of background material.)

[Amanda]

My dissertation didn't have lit review, and I think it's a bit odd to require that one does. Of course, you should use good citation practices like you would for any article or book. But I think of a dissertation to be a work showing that you can do professional philosophy, not something like a grad seminar paper. In most cases you do not need a lit review in professional philosophy. There are expectations, of course. So I don't think it is always bad to have a lit review, But I find it very strange that this should be a standard, and I am skeptical that it is a standard. Either you are writing good, professional level philosophy or your aren't. Most of the time writing that kind of philosophy does require knowing the literature, even if you don't do the review.

[Matthew Duncombe]

Begin by (re)writing the abstract: state the thesis, say where it is new, state your argument for it.

Second, start mapping every section of the dissertation. Write one sentence summary for each section.

Third, compare the two. Using your abstract as a guide, see what you need to add to prove your thesis. Include all and only sections you need to prove your thesis.