Focus in edited volumes

Edited volumes are tricky to put together. Too often they arise from a conference panel that thematically may be coherent but the contributing papers are all over the place. In addition, the tendency is for the panel organizer(s) to be expected to take on the role of volume editor. That is not always the best choice.

No surprises, then, that quite a few publishers turn their noses up at edited volumes, equating them with raw conference proceedings.

That is a mistake in my opinion. Strangely, it is often faster to get a chapter peer reviewed and published in an edited volume than it is to have an article appear in a top-flight journal. Quite frequently, then, such a chapter is the fastest way for new research to get out into the public domain. Moreover, because this chapter will appear with others dealing with the same research area, its impact will likely be higher than if published as an article hidden among journal articles covering all manner of subjects.

Sadly, it is not only a lot of publishers who are blind to this situation; the research assessment bureaucrats devising points ratings in different countries for the various types of publication also often miss this important truth.

How then to improve the image of edited volumes? That will be a long, hard slog. Essentially, these collections need to be focused, and visibly so.

The second part (visibility, recognition) completely relies on the first – focus. Here is where I shall concentrate today.

To bring focus into an edited volume, especially that arising from a conference panel, I would suggest the following as a minimum:

1. Ensure the volume editor is credible and strong, able and willing to take the hard decisions.
2. Stamina and time are also necessary in volume editors. Sometimes, then, the combination of a well-regarded senior scholar with an energetic junior doing much of the heavy lifting works very well.
3. Contributing chapters cannot be the same as the papers presented at the panel. Some will be unsuitable and must be (regretfully) dropped; others may need to be recruited.
4. Moreover, all papers should be rethought in terms of them now being an integrated chapter in a focused volume. They should “talk” to the overarching themes of the volume and where possible offer concrete linkages to other chapters in the volume.
5. There will be instances where the chapters are simply too diverse to bind the volume together of their own accord. In this situation especially – but ideally in all cases – a strong introduction to the volume is vital. Not only must this introduce the chapters to follow and draw linkages between them; it should also transcend the chapters to create a discourse that the rest of the volume talks to – in musical terms composing a riff that each solo instrument then plays in its own way.

Normally, volume editors and contributors may have met at a conference but thereafter only interact remotely – by email, conference calls and document sharing, for instance. Missed deadlines, misunderstandings and even misbehaviour are not uncommon as a result. Focus in a volume can be vastly improved, then, if everyone involved gets to met again at a workshop aimed at critiquing and refining their contributions. Sadly, lack of funding means this is a rare thing unless all of the contributors come from the same area.

Currently, I am involved in two such publication projects where funding has been found to bring all the volume contributors together at a publication workshop – and, better still, together with discussants offering immediate but detailed feedback (a superior form of peer review in some ways).

Last week I attended the workshop for one of the projects, which has its origins in a defined research programme with invited participants rather than as a conference outcome. The workshop was only the latest in several workshops held. The presentations were very encouraging, the feedback excellent; focus was everywhere. I have high hopes for the success of this volume and the EverJust Myanmar research project it is part of.

Recruiting top scholars for your volume

Today I was asked, “how and when does one approach a senior scholar to write a foreword or afterword for a book? My book is a highly focused edited volume, if that makes a difference in your answer.”

That is an interesting (and very relevant) question.

The first issue is what and when.

A foreword and afterword are different beasts. In reality, the first is an extended endorsement of the work; it should be solicited after acceptance (following a successful peer review). In contrast, an afterword is a contribution – of a similar vein to a concluding chapter – normally needing to be peer reviewed, hence solicited beforehand.

Then there is how to approach.

Knowing the person is always easier but otherwise it might help if you can quote someone who does (“I am writing at the suggestion of …”). Then again, I’d probably be more impressed by someone writing to me saying that THEY had thought of me because of my expertise in that area. If you can be even more specific (showing you know their stuff), all the better.

I guess the only sensible thing I have to say is don’t scare the horses.

• An email rather than a phone call.
• A subject line that is intriguing enough for the person to read the mail (we all kill a lot of mails we receive without reading them).
• No suggestion you want a whole lot of work done (even if a decent foreword will take a day or two, an afterword maybe even longer).
• In this age of viral epidemics and ransomware, no attachments (you are a stranger – so just list the contents along with a short but compelling description).

In short, think of this as sending out another book proposal but this time to a potential reader/reviewer rather than to a publisher.

And if they haven’t the time to do this, out of guilt they might be prepared to write a short endorsement to go on the back cover. Always useful.

From conference organiser to volume editor

If you are someone who has organised a conference and is now being urged to edit the ‘conference volume’, you need to be wary of what you are getting yourself into.

Overcoming the prejudice against edited volumes means that the progression from conference programme to printed book is not simple; it is more than a matter of polishing the papers presented.

• The volume must be given a focus (more of a focus than the conference had, perhaps).
• Papers need to be selected that generally match this focus.
• Inevitably, some papers presented at the conference will have to be excluded; no matter how good they are, their subject lies far beyond the volume’s focus and they cannot be adapted to it.
• Ideally, other papers should be solicited that fit the subject but are missing from the original line-up.
• All papers must then edited to conform with the overarching focus of the volume.

And that’s just the outline. Within this process are a mass of issues, not least those of managing a complex project, handling many authors (some with experience, reputations and egos vastly greater than yours and no doubt all with many other demands on their working time), performing in the delicate role as first-line peer reviewer and dealing with a publisher. And perhaps worst of all, editors are often given little academic credit for such a difficult and delicate task.

Given the prejudice against edited volumes and the demanding requirements to produce something that brings you credit, not opprobrium, it may be that another outcome for the conference is best. Perhaps your best course of action, then, is to suggest publishing the conference papers online, essentially as a cluster of working papers.

Unfortunately, your bosses may think it makes perfect institutional sense to publish a volume based on the conference programme and this year it’s your turn.

Of course, you may not be forced into the role of volume editor; there are indeed a number of good reasons to offer yourself as editor. Editing a book could be a way for you to build your academic network and gain name recognition in a wider circle. You might feel that your field needs a collaborative volume on a particular subject, and that there is nobody else who can make it happen, or happen well. Perhaps you have to offer a route to publication in order to attract good contributions to a workshop or conference you are convening.

But, whatever your reasons, be aware what you are getting yourself into.

Contributing to an edited volume

What to do with that conference paper you presented recently? Chances are you are thinking to rework the text into a journal article. Sometimes, however, something else is on offer – you are invited to submit your paper for publication as a chapter in an edited volume arising out of that conference. Despite a prejudice against edited volumes, you would be wise to pause before rejecting this offer.

Why would you write such a chapter instead of an article? Why indeed, given that an article in an international refereed journal counts for a lot, and in some research evaluation systems a chapter in a book for almost nothing – always assuming any publisher takes the edited book, which is by no means a given.

There are good reasons. Like an article, a chapter can be a quick way for you to assert your ‘ownership’ of new ideas and research material. But what a chapter adds over and above a journal article is that it is published in a collection of such chapters on a common issue; the edited volume and its attendant marketing activities create a magnet for specialists working in your field (and related fields) to discover your work.

Moreover, this need not be an either-or choice. Given the differences between the two prose forms, you should be able to write chapters and articles so significantly different that they complement each other and build your publication list. Just make sure that the titles are different. There is no point giving the impression you are recycling your research (heaven forbid!)

Prejudice against edited volumes

There is a widespread prejudice against edited volumes in the scholarly world, the idea being they are collections of unedited conference papers with a cover slapped on. In a few cases this is true, the culprits even found among the published lists of certain eminent academic presses.

Such blatant inferiority is not the case for most edited volumes but many do have their issues. A commonly perceived fault is that some editing has been done but not enough; the editors have started with a disparate collection of whatever papers came to hand (papers from a conference being the most common source) and not done enough to bring these bits and pieces together into an integrated whole.

As a result, the mere mention of ‘edited volume’ can prompt many people and the majority of publishers to blindly reach for their nose.

But this judgement is unfair, the charge they are rough and raw is far from the truth for most edited volumes. They may have their flaws but many are actually focused and subtle works. Moreover, often these volumes are the earliest channel for new scholars to bring fresh insights in their field to a wider readership. As a result, a few such edited volumes – especially those that can truly focus many minds together (often from different disciplines) on a single subject – can actually be path-breaking works.

Of course, edited volumes require contributors and editors. As can be seen in my next post, authors may have other ideas. Moreover, the role of the volume editor is not utterly joyful (as seen in my subsequent post).

Why do publishers hate edited volumes?

Not all publishers hate edited volumes; I don’t. But there are compelling reasons why publishers are reluctant to consider accepting an edited volume when offered it.

Number 1 reason: the conference proceedings.

In the ‘good old days’, it was common to produce a proceedings volume as a tangible result of a conference (otherwise an ephemeral event) but generally the number of copies were limited, often only going to the participants. As part of the hyping up of the academic world that we have witnessed these last few decades, there has been a push to give these proceedings (and their conferences) more weight by their publication as ‘real books’.

For a while publishers were happy to produce and libraries to buy almost anything that moved. But then came the collapse of the library market (described elsewhere), a growing global rash of conferences and a glut of often incoherent volumes edited by hapless conference organizers with few clues about editing books.

And the result? There are a few publishers whole entire raison d’être seems to be to publish tarted-up conference proceedings, and they look to do well in this line of business. But, today, many publishers will not touch edited volumes even with a barge pole, while a lot of others are deeply mistrustful of any multi-author volumes offered and will run a mile if mention is made of an originating conference.

Which is a great pity, actually, because there are also compelling reasons why publishers should consider accepting an edited volume when offered it.

All too often – because the barriers to getting a journal article or monograph published are much higher (and usually it takes longer, too) – an edited volume is the first publication in which new, innovative research from young scholars arriving in their field is make known. From hearsay, I understand that some often mediocre volumes sell well because of the attractions of maybe only two or three of their chapters. (With the increased possibility of buying e-chapters, however, I would expect such a halo effect to diminish and the decline in sales of edited volumes to worsen.)

Moreover, edited volumes can offer cross-disciplinary insights that a single author would struggle to find. There are, indeed, examples of excellent collections where the collaboration of many minds on a single subject, perhaps from different disciplines, brings about real breakthroughs. Such outstanding works often suffer, though, from the general taint attached to edited volumes.

In other words, do not despair if you are being pressured by the departmental mandarins to edit a ‘book of the conference’ in order to justify their funding priorities and events programme. The experience need not be bad. Indeed, there may be very good reasons to offer yourself as editor. Editing a book could be a way for you to build your academic network and gain name recognition in a wider circle. You might feel that your field needs a collaborative volume on a particular subject, and that there is nobody else who can make it happen, or happen well. Perhaps you have to offer a route to publication in order to attract good contributions to a workshop or conference you are convening. Or maybe it is just simply your turn.

But, if your editing experience is to be positive (even an outstanding success), then you do need to approach the task in certain ways to maximize such success. How? That is the subject of a later post (or read these pointers now in Chapter 4 of our book).

Happy editing!