Scholarly Communication

Finding a publisher for your book can be a difficult process. Here are some tips for finding a suitable publisher:

• Look for books on similar topics: start by looking at your own bibliography and check the publisher for any books that are similar to your own. Those publishers are more likely to be interested in your topic, and are familiar with the publication and marketing process for books in your area.
• Read book reviews: check the journals that you read the most often, and look at the book reviews they publish. Which publishers are publishing those books?
• Check in with your colleagues: find out if any of your colleagues, or other respected researchers in your field, have published books recently. Who did they publish with? If you can, ask them about their experience with the publisher.
• Consult publisher ranking lists: ranking lists, such as those from CERES or SENSE can be useful in evaluating book publishers if they are relevant to your discipline.

Once you have identified potential publishers, you will need to prepare a book proposal. Publishers will often have guidelines available for proposals. Here are a few examples of publisher proposal guidelines:

• Harvard University Press Proposal Guidelines
• Oxford University Press Guidelines
• UCD Press Proposal Guide

The resources below offer advice and information about preparing a book proposal:

There are several ways to publish content from your thesis; you can publish articles or book chapters based on different parts of your research, or you can develop your thesis into a book. If you want to publish a book based on your thesis, here are some things to consider:

• If you are approached by a publisher about publishing your thesis, please first consult our Predatory Publishers guide.
• You will need to edit and restructure your thesis to make it suitable for publication as a book. Consider your expected audience and potential publishers when you are adapting your thesis.
• Use the checklist at the top of this page to search for suitable publishers for your book. You can also consult your supervisor or subject librarian for advice about publishers in your subject area.

Open Access Theses

When you submit your final thesis, it is archived in the TCD open access repository, TARA. Having your thesis available in an open access format on TARA is a good thing, as it allows you to reach a wider audience and increase the impact of your research. 

Even if your thesis is openly available in TARA, you can often still publish other outputs based on your thesis. Many publishers do not consider a thesis to be prior publication, including SAGE, Wiley, and Elsevier. If you are interested in publishing with a publisher that does consider a thesis to be prior publication, you can apply for a stay of up to five years on your thesis, during which time it will not be openly accessible. You can read more about the thesis submission process here.