Writing the first book is time-consuming. So, you may wonder, why should people still write one—especially if a book is not required for tenure at their institution? Many people may advise you to just try to publish the best two or three chapters from your dissertation.
But I say instead: Do write a book, no matter what, because it can give you the freedom to shape your career the way you want. In this essay, I hope to re-examine the general advice about writing and publishing the first book in the specific context of an academic’s early career: why is it important to write the first book, what makes it so difficult and how best to do it.
After graduating from my Ph.D. program in Chinese history in December 2015, I started my first job at a regional university in the Midwest, where I worked for seven years. Due to its heavy teaching load, the job didn’t officially have a book as requirement for tenure. During the first three years, I published three peer-reviewed articles, with one from my dissertation.
In 2018, however, I took a research trip to Beijing and started revising my dissertation manuscript. I turned in a proposal with two sample chapters in June 2020 during the initial stage of the pandemic. IÂ received two rounds of feedback, one from informal readers and the editor, the other from external reviewers whom the press chose. Each time, I spent about a year making the revisions without taking major research leave, except several course releases, including a one-course release when giving birth to my second child in 2021. Finally, in 2023, the Harvard University Asia Center published my book, which was about a type of organized lottery in which people bet money on the surnames of people who would pass the civil and military examinations in 19th-century China.
Like most people I know, I found the writing process long and challenging. Indeed, it is so intense and detail-oriented that it is almost like a testing ground to prove one’s physical and intellectual fitness. So why should we write? Many people describe the first book as a “tenure book,” which means you need to write a book to get tenure. But I discovered that the reward of writing a book goes well beyond gaining tenure at a single institution.
Revising a dissertation into a book provides a full spectrum of writing and publishing experiences. It enabled me to discover through my research a much broader historiographic framework and carry a consistent argument across several chapters. I got to develop a relationship with an experienced editor for more than four years and learn from the way he worked. I also experienced the commonly encountered encouraging reviewer No. 1 and the critical reviewer No. 2. In addition to content development, I also learned to index a book, design a book cover, work with a copy editor and make maps with a professional cartographer.
Since the book appeared, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss it in talks, keynotes and podcasts. I’ve seen it take on its own life and be discussed in different contexts beyond my original plan.
As William Germano describes in From Dissertation to Book, a scholar’s life is ultimately a writing life. Although scholarship can be defined in more than one way in today’s society, “a life of thinking, however, is incomplete unless all that celebration is turn into something outlives the moment of its creation.”
Working on a major book project connected me to my field. I was the only East Asian historian at a teaching-focused college, and my research was not something that would be mentioned in daily conversations with colleagues, so I appreciated all the communications about the book with editors and reviewers. Writing itself establishes its own rhythm—I had to take time to think and respond, so I did not feel lost in other responsibilities. Plus, being busy with a book project in mind helped me let go of other obsessions. “Yes,” I would tell myself, “the class did not go well this morning, but let’s move on and write.” It was like a sweet little secret that would warm my heart.
Better researchers make better teachers. By researching and writing the book, I was able to share the exciting stuff that I was reading with my students. Also, having an active research agenda made me a more confident teacher and sharpened my thoughts. In addition, being in the writing process myself, I learned to be more empathetic when I commented and coached students’ writing projects, as well as more purposeful when I designed those assignments.
The experience shaped my vision about what I want to do with my career. I want to write more, and I want to share my research and writing experiences with students, especially graduate students. This book gave me the confidence to make it happen. In 2022, the year that IÂ was up for tenure, I decided to go on the job market again and landed my current job at a more research-oriented university in Texas.
Thus, a book is not only a learning experience, core scholarly identity and enrichment to teaching. Most essentially, it can provide the freedom to shape the career you want. Even if I had decided to stay at my previous institution, I would have had much more confidence in my standing among my fellow historians. And having a book listed on your CV especially helps if you seek a position somewhere new. In this increasingly competitive job market, meeting the rigorous external standards required to be published by a major university press usually better attests to your scholarly bona fides than subjective recommendations. So while many people may advise you about writing your way up, it is more important to write your way out, broadening your potential academic career beyond a single institution.
Of course, the earlier you are in that career, the more difficult it is to write. Those first years are usually uncertain and turbulent, allowing little opportunity to write a first book. For scholars who publish more than one book, the first one always takes longer.
Also, having worked in two different places, I realize how much the type of institution also matters—how much support for writing you receive in more research-oriented institutions when it comes to the number of conferences you can attend, the length of research leave you can take and the likelihood you can hire research assistants. Such R-1 jobs are limited, however, and few people obtain one at the beginning of their careers.
Thus, the earlier you are in your career, the more likely you land a teaching-focused job and various contingent positions. You teach a lot, you move a lot and you spend a lot of time looking for the next job. The more you do so, the less time you have for writing, the less likely you can get a book published and the less likely you’ll get a different job. In From Dissertation to Book, Germano acknowledges that turning dissertation to book can be “the most difficult hurdle to jump” in a scholar’s career—and the most ironic aspect is that the people who need to write the most probably are the least able to write. As Claudia Goldin, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, observes, certain jobs are “greedy”—they demand people to work overtime and put in long hours. Both writing and teaching are greedy, especially for new instructors.
So what can you do, especially when you cannot increase the total amount of time, to approach the use of time more strategically? Here are a few lessons, based on my own experience.
Learn to teach very well during the first several years. Many people recommend cutting corners in teaching to maximize the time to write, but I do not. Teaching is part of the job, and if you cut corners of teaching, you cut corners on a very important skill set. During the first few years I was working, I took time to attend many teaching workshops that my institution offered. I observed all my colleagues’ classes in a small department, and my colleagues observed my classes and I took their feedback to heart. I also took notes and analyzed students’ feedback every semester.
Later, as teaching became easier, I was able to devote more time to writing. And I discovered that learning how to be an effective teacher can improve your writing in various ways. Writing in general is a craft of storytelling, and you are trained to be a storyteller in class every day. You learn to engage a diverse body of students and address questions in different classes beyond your own field. You come up with a few takeaways to end each class before students rush to lunch, which turns out to be good practice for summarizing a book chapter. And that’s not to mention how much broadly reading good books and being exposed to different subject matters, theories and methodologies when you prepare for classes can contribute to your writing.
Join a writing group and be realistic about it. My institution did not have a writing group. I initiated one with one of my colleagues in 2018 when I started to revise my dissertation. We met once a month for 90 minutes—first in person and then online during the pandemic. About 10 people from different disciplines came regularly to discuss their writing progress and strategies, as well as to workshop each other’s writings. It was especially helpful to work with people who shared a similar teaching load and were realistic about the writing progress.
Always write before teaching. If you cannot increase the amount of time, focus on the quality of the time. The No. 1 rule I’ve followed for many years has been to write first thing in the morning. After my first child, I wrote between 6 and 7 a.m. Now, with two children, I write between 5 and 6 a.m. before everyone else gets up. I’ve found it is especially important for me to write before teaching so I can continue to think about those ideas for the rest of the day. Sometimes, even if I have only five minutes before class, I will use it to revise an outline or to add a footnote.
Determine the time when you do your own most productive writing, which might be quite different than mine. Joli Jensen has called it “the A energy,” and Cathy Mazak has called it “the tiger time,” both referring to the best energy you have during the day. You should also write consistently every day. Writing is no different from practicing music and sport—regardless of how talented you are, you must create the environment to practice.
Play the hand you have. Writing a book is a long process, and it’s especially hard to discern much progress in the early stages. It’s tempting to rush it or to feel bad about not doing enough. I’ve had to remind myself that I only have so much time and can only do a few things well in life. I did not have a whole year of research leave, for instance, so I applied for a course release here and there, and some of them were granted. In pursuing those small ways to carve out time to write, I learned to be honest and realistic.
I’ll sum up with an analogy. My first book was about gambling, so I regularly taught my students to play mah-jongg in class. In some ways, writing the first book is like playing mah-jongg. Very few players get promising tiles to make a winning set right away. The earlier you are at a game, the more random tiles you get. So you need to play the hand you have and take and discard your tiles strategically. You need to be patient and wait for your winning set.
Similarly, when writing a book, it may take several years, and you may never be in the optimal position to write. But the reassuring thing is that, like a mah-jongg game, you don’t need just one best set to win. So, again, I encourage you to go ahead and write a book, as it can allow you to ultimately make your own winning set.