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Publishing books and the academic job market

Brian Leiter

A job seeker writes:

I'm a recent Philosophy PhD and I'm on the job market. I also published my first book with [name omitted] in 2015. However, it seems that the publication of the book has not influenced my prospects.

So I wonder if monographs make a difference to hiring committees when dealing with early career scholars?

Do large research universities no longer place much weight on the publication of books?

To preserve anonymity, I've omitted the name of the publisher of the book–it's an established publishing house, but was not close to  the top 7 the last time I surveyed reader opinion about publishers.  My own sense is that a book from one of the major presses in philosophy would be a huge boost, but that it is too easy to get a book published by the less prestigious presses, and so, at least with major research universities, that won't count for much.  What do readers think?

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9 responses to “Publishing books and the academic job market”

  1. Daniel A. Kaufman

    We've had something like this conversation before. Our criteria for hiring are overwhelmingly teaching-oriented, so a person with a book or an armload of articles would not be chosen over someone without those things, but with evidence of very strong and broad teaching abilities.

    Given two candidates with identical teaching abilities and breadth? Certainly, research publication would then be one of the things that we might use to tie-break. It has not happened yet, however, in the 5 or 6 search committees I've either been on or chaired.

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  2. Search Committee Veteran

    Brian's take on book publishing seems right: a book will help at research intensive places, but probably not if placed outside a top press. In my view, philosophers (especially those without a book) exaggerate the extent to which philosophy is "paper driven" (it manifestly is not, compared to the sciences), but the fact remains that philosophers believe, not without justice, that it is much easier to place a book with a top press than to place a comparable number of pages in top journals.

    Note also that people will *read* the book, if they become serious about your candidacy; it goes without saying that a book won't help, if the perceived quality is weak.

    That is the situation at research intensive places; a trickier question is how a book gets received at places where the faculty don't publish books, or publish very little.

    The sickening reality is that in the current market, fabulous publication records, books or otherwise, do not come close to assuring secure employment.

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  3. Mohan Matthen

    It's very difficult to rationalize, but my sense is that often books by recent PhDs are regarded with some suspicion. Maybe I am reporting a biased sample, but people are more likely to go 'wow' if there are one or two papers published in top journals. Go figure.

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  4. Tenured simplificator

    Mediocre presses publish anything, and 'top' presses only publish through recommendations by big shots. So book publishing is far more useless and/or corrupt than journal publishing, because it lacks the middle tear of solid but not too clubby venues.

    BL COMMENT: Although this may, indeed, be a slight oversimplification, I think this is basically a sound point.

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  5. Sara L. Uckelman

    My experience on a number of interview panels (in philosophy, classics, and medieval & early modern studies) and in short-listing meetings in the last 2 years (in the UK) has lead me to be rather astonished I was hired to my current position without a book published or in contract.

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  6. Search Committee Veteran

    Why suppose top presses are any more clubby than top journals? The stories about top journals are too well known to need rehearsing here.

    BL COMMENT: Many (maybe most by now) top journals do have genuine blind review of manuscripts.

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  7. Brendan

    This is a fair point. And while blind review is admirable and necessary, it is unclear how blind it is when it comes to the rarefied air of certain questions that articles address in top journals. Philosophers who are hyper-specialized concerning certain questions, questions that the most established philosophers spend a life addressing, can I think often identify an author. even under blind review.
    I just read a ton of Hilary Putnam recently and the style, voice and arguments are so identifiable that I am sure I could pass a test on two passages, one from another philosopher and one from Putnam, as to which is Hilary Putnam's.
    It is true that less established philosophers will not be recognizable in their prose by 'blind' reviewers, but this itself is something that can alert reviewers that the author is not a 'star'. This might influence a reviewer, and it could be in the direction of sympathy for someone who is perceived as 'young' or an 'outsider' or in perceiving someone as less a talent as they don't register at all and the reviewer has read *all* the relevant literature. Now , these aren't the only two positions, and in fact we can incorporate this insight into our own reviewing in the attempt to be as fair as possible. This is good and commendable, but it certainly isn't what the word 'blind' suggests.

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  8. harry b

    Brendan's point, though, helps explain why publishing in a top journal can be such a benefit to someone who is manifestly not a star (as most applicants for jobs are not), nor the advisee of a star (the cv will reveal whether the applicant is that or not). If neither a star, nor pedigreed by one, publication in top journals is quite informative about the candidate's quality as a researcher.

    If you want a research-intensive job I would guess 2 or 3 good publications in journals are better than a book (whatever the press, especially if the press isn't a top one). Then there's Daniel Kaufman's comment: I hope that his department's practice is standard in non=research intensive universities, and wish that public research institutions — the philosophers in which are funded almost entirely through undergraduate tuition and state subsidies (increasingly tilted to the former) would take a leaf out of that book.

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  9. Anonymous

    Having been on both sides of the hiring committee/job seeker track in recent years, I would say there could be any number of ways in which the book helps you, hurts you, or makes no difference for your prospects.

    Is the book based on your dissertation? If so, I think that typically this is not seen as an impressive feat, unless the book is put out through an outstanding press.

    If the book is not based on your dissertation, then people might wonder about your research program, especially if the book is on a divergent topic. (It could confuse about what your interests/expertise are.)

    However, if anything, whatever prestige you might deserve from publishing the book is bound to be diminished by the realities of the dismal job picture. The market is such these days that so many candidates have excellent credentials. It is hard for even great candidates to stand out.

    For this reason, I think the other responses are right to say that the instance in which a book stands to really distinguish one is publishing through a top press, esp. Oxford or Cambridge. Even more so if you are applying to jobs at R1 universities. Outside of this, to publish a book through a merely OK press isn't going to look much different than having several articles in average journals.

    If you are trying to get a job at a teaching school it could be the case that the book actually hurts you; the hiring committee might look at your CV and think you'll only be happy at an R1.

    Don't get me wrong – in a perfect world, having your book so early in your career would matter a great deal.

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