Dear Dissertation Writer,
Well, I did it. I loaded the dissertation book to both Amazon Kindle and IngramSpark. Self-publishing at its finest. I also received the bound copies that I ordered. See the picture above. Isn’t it pretty? Now, this blog post is to let people know it’s available in both print form and e-book. The audiobook will be out in a couple of months narrated by me!
HELLO, FOLKS! DEAR DISSERTATION WRITER: STORIES, STRATEGIES, AND SELF-CARE TIPS TO GET DONE IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON IN BOTH PRINT FORM AND E-BOOK. OTHER BOOKSTORES ARE ABLE TO ORDER IT AS WELL.
There, that’s done. All announced. Ha! I wish that were all I needed to do. Now I have to do the part that is actually harder for me than writing a book. Marketing. This blog post is marketing. The Twitter and Facebook posts I’ll make when I post this are marketing. More to come, but I can do this!
Let me tell you why this book would be helpful if you are writing a dissertation or know someone who is. I take a light-hearted approach to this daunting task. I acknowledge that it is hard (in Chapter 1 “PhD stands for…” the “h” stands for “hard”). I also encourage writers to realize that it is daunting but doable. The first section of the book is called “First, Get Over Yourself “because often we are our own worst enemies. I say “we” because believe me I went through the same thing. I call how we get in our own ways the “Committee in Your Head.” To illustrate student problems, I tell stories about composite student characters, such as Amy Get-It-Right and Steve Social-Star. Know anyone who fits those names? Of course, we all do. Interested? Buy a book.
I also want everyone to know about the proceeds of the book. I’m not putting them in my bank account even though we all know it isn’t free to self-publish a book. Regardless of that, all of the proceeds are going to the Susan D. Corbin Graduate Fellowship for Communication Studies. When I retired, the department and I set up the fellowship. We ran a fund-raising campaign and many faculty members and former graduate students donated to it. Over my retirement, my husband and I have donated to the fellowship. Giving the proceeds of this book to the fellowship will get it fully funded, then the department can finally begin to use the money. It’s been eight years since it was set up and I really want the Communication Studies graduate students to benefit from the money that many contributed.
My plan for the fellowship is for the department to use it for small grants of money to students who don’t need a lot but could use help with a little bit of money. For example, students may want to print copies of surveys (do they do that anymore?) or need a little extra to go to a conference. I also remember when we’d have in-state tuition waivers left over, but the Graduate School required that the department give the student a thousand-dollar fellowship to go along with it. Often the department didn’t have the fellowship money. I want the department to use this fellowship for those kinds of student expenses.
That’s my news for now. I’ll keep you apprised of how the marketing goes. Your support of me is invaluable to keep me and this project going.
Warmly,
Your Dissertation Coach
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