Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: April 8, 2022

Where are you starting with your writing? Anne Lamott says, “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” Whether you are starting as a graduate student, a post-doc defining your research agenda, a new writing project, or a more extensive writing career, your new “first” effort will be a start (perhaps terrible) but not the end.

In this collection of articles from around the web, we find advice on academic authoring in the first person, writer’s block, research agendas, and protecting your ideas. We also find content on achieving goals as young writers, making writing a career, and considering University Presses for your next publication.

Whatever you are writing, start where you are and move forward. Happy writing!

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: January 21, 2022

Three weeks into 2022, most textbook and academic authors have begun a new semester of teaching, learning, and (of course) writing. As the new calendar year often comes with good intentions, plans for improvement, and resolutions to do and accomplish more than the year before, our collection of articles this week shares some tips and strategies for approaching your future efforts of writing, marketing, and producing your content for readers.

As you work on your writing this week, remember the words of Philip Pullman, “Read like a butterfly, write like a bee.” Happy Writing!

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: January 7, 2022

How do you write? As we begin the new year of 2022, it’s a perfect time to reflect on your writing goals, habits, accomplishments, and shortcomings from last year and look at what adjustments may be necessary for the year ahead.

Our collection of articles from around the web for this first week of 2022 includes The Scholarly Kitchen‘s year in review, Jane Friedman’s insight on what writers need to do, and the publishing industry’s projection on the continued effect of COVID-19 on returning to the office. The set continues with a vision for a new model library, Joanna Penn’s creative and business goals for the new year, and ends with four strategies for writing in a world of distractions.

Stephen King once described his answer to our opening question, saying, “When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘one word at a time’.” It may be too much to look at the entire year ahead and plan your writing projects, so if necessary, start with just the next word in your project. Happy writing!

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Goal setting vs. plan making – what matters more?

Let me ask you a question – do you have publishing goals or do you have a plan for writing? Perhaps a trick question, as you may very well think to yourself, don’t I need both?!? However, what I want to clarify in this post is that goals are different than plans and one should hold greater weight than the other in your daily writing efforts.

So let’s start with identifying the difference between goal setting and plan making.

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7 Ways to share your dream of publication

Sharing your dream with others is one way to help that dream become a reality. There are two primary benefits that can be realized by sharing your dream. The first is accountability. The second, shared ownership. Regardless of which or both benefits you seek, sharing your dream is essential.

In this article, we’ll explore seven ways that you can share your dream of publication to increase your overall success.

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What is your dream worth?

It’s one thing to have a dream. It’s another to do the things needed to achieve it. Every dream, including your dream of publication, comes at a cost. That cost will be different for every dream and every dreamer, but there are some common realities to all of them, perhaps the most important being that it is possible to pay too much for your dream.

To avoid paying too much, you must first identify what your dream is worth and measure the likely costs of achieving it.

So, what is your dream worth? Unfortunately, only you can determine the answer to that question. And you must answer that question before you can answer the bigger cost question of “Are you willing to pay the price for your dream?” To help you evaluate the value of your dream, let’s explore how to measure the costs of pursuing a dream.

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