This morning I received a question about how to turn a dissertation into a book. This student had read my book, “Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author.” Here’s my response:
“Thank you for your interest in my work. You asked about the process of turning a dissertation into a book. Sounds like an interesting topic, by the way.
In response, let me suggest that you have read books. You know what a book contains and that most books have some sort of purpose. They are either designed to teach/educate, inform, offer new ideas for self-help, show a new way of doing something or to entertain. In order to turn your dissertation into a book, it’s just a matter of determining what you want the purpose of your book to be—what you want to offer your readers. Along with that, it is important to do some research and find out what else is out there like your book and to determine if there is, indeed, a readership for a book on the topic. If you decide there is, then you go to work either publishing your dissertation as is—or if it is not appropriate to your audience in that form, use parts of it in a new form that makes sense for your audience. A nonfiction book, for example, must have a beginning, middle and end and be appropriately organized and readable.”
You can create an interesting and entertaining book from a journal or diary. An incident in your life can be transformed into a book. One’s entire life, in some cases, can make a good book. You might be able to create a book based on some of your skills or talents (a how-to book on masonry, flower-arranging or restoring a 1940s vintage car, for example). Your knowledge and experience might be tapped to a degree that you could organize a viable book. And certainly imagination has been the basis for countless novels.
How do you use another form of writing to create a book? It’s the same process most of us go through in order to write our books whether we’re writing from the heart or the head. And the fact that this student has a copy of “Publish Your Book,” should help him immensely through the process.