Book publishing

The book publisher you choose will depend on the type of book you're publishing and your discipline. Choosing an appropriate publisher for your book plays a crucial role in determining the number of people who can access and read your work and whether you reach your target audience.

When choosing a book publisher:

Start by identifying a list of reputable publishers that publish books in your field
Use WorldCat to determine if recent publications for this publisher are held by libraries
Consider university presses as these are highly respected, reputable and well regarded by researchers and scholars
If publishing with an open access publisher, consider whether you have funding for any book publishing charges (BPC)
Consider your author rights and copyright
Consult with your supervisor and colleagues who have published books and chapters
Use the books and chapters checklist at Think. Check. Submit. to examine whether a publisher is trusted.

Open access book publishing

Publishing your book or chapter open access means it can be read, reviewed, shared and cited independent of readers buying it or libraries purchasing it. Open access greatly increases the opportunities for your work to be widely read and to have broader impact.
The Open Access Book Toolkit has been developed to provide academic authors with a brief introduction to the process of publishing an open access book and provides guidance through the entire process, from planning to publication.
The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association provide a list of scholar-led and professional publishers you may consider publishing with.
To browse and search for examples of books that have been published open access in the Directory of Open Access Books.

Publishing research from your thesis

You may be considering how you can disseminate the research findings of your thesis to a wider audience through book publishing. As part of this process, you will need to consider the following:

Your PhD thesis will be made publicly available through UOW’s open access repository
Whether there is an audience for the topic
A thesis is not written in the format of a book, transforming it will take considerable work
Whether other publishing options are more suitable, for example book chapters, journal articles, a blog post or a documentary
Be aware of predatory publishers or vanity publishers. Consider the quality indicators of the publishers who approach you to publish your thesis
There may be licencing and copyright considerations when publishing research from your thesis. Please contact the Library’s Scholarly Communications team for further information.

If you are considering turning your thesis into a book, there are many helpful guides from academic publishers or read about the process from The Thesis Whisperer, Professor Inger Newburn, Director of Researcher Development at The Australian National University (ANU).