Why the SECOND book is so hard and what to do about it
Tenure in academia is egregiously rare. Once you are lucky enough to achieve it you’re all set, right? Publications should be flowing forthwith. Why did no one tell you the second book would be much harder than the first? It’s not you; it’s structural.
At the City University of New York, professors take on average 10+ years to go from Associate to Full Professor. In a recent COACHE job satisfaction survey at CUNY Brooklyn College, faculty named the lack of resources for research/creative activities, and nebulous standards for promotion and tenure as two of the top sources of dissatisfaction. Research beyond my campus shows that the years as Associate Professor should be the most productive, but it is also a time when most are unhappiest in their career trajectory. Given the unclear standards for promotion, many bank on a solo monograph as being enough to get them to Full Professor. But the second book presents an array of challenges.
The bottleneck between Associate and Full Professor is not just a problem at CUNY, it is academia-wide. See for example University of Michigan, Ann Arbor that is aware of the problem and actively trying to address it in various ways. Multiple disciplines are also aware of the issue. The Society of Historians of the Early American Republic has a wildly popular and always over-subscribed Second Book Workshop annually.
I convened a professional development panel recently at Brooklyn College to address this subject. The panel consisted of Dr. Karen Stern, a historian at Brooklyn College, Dr. Susan Burgess, political scientist at DePaul University, and Senior Acquisitions Editor in Politics and History for Princeton University Press, Bridget Flannery-McCoy. I am writing this blog post as a public service. It is a composite sketch of our discussion so others might benefit. THANK YOU to the panelists and audience members. Much of the following content is in their words, their questions, their advice—not mine alone.
CHALLENGES
Why is the second book and post-tenure research more generally harder than pre-tenure?
You are no longer working from your dissertation
With your dissertation, you had an institutional structure and intellectual scaffolding to undertake data collection/field research and write up. For most scholars, these things were done at a time when you had fewer responsibilities competing for your time. Your dissertation was a template to work from in your post-PhD creation of articles or a book. Although the second book presents an opportunity to depart from the audience and subject of your first book, the fact that it’s wide open may also be daunting.
Entering mid-career, you lose some of your intellectual supports. During your grad student years, and possibly early Assistant Professorship, you could still consult members of your doctoral committee for advice. One panel attendee reported that post-tenure, his dissertation advisor passed away and he felt adrift, not knowing who to go to for advice. Most departments also carefully mentor, as they should, Assistant Professors to tenure. Post-tenure, people feel at sea.
Service requirements go up after tenure
Most departments protect junior faculty from heavy service while they are pre-tenure. That protection goes away post-tenure and one is expected to take on a heavier service load. While all tenured faculty theoretically have an increased service load, POC and women faculty often take on more, slowing their ability to do research and writing and delaying promotion. COVID only exacerbated pre-existing inequalities.
Teaching release evaporates
At many schools, pre-tenure faculty may apply for a pre-tenure teaching release to get their research done in preparation for tenure. Post-tenure teaching release is rarer, although you could wait for a sabbatical, but not every school has it and you can’t get a book done in a year. Also in the era of COVID, students need more attention because they are traumatized and stressed out. Students may also need more letters of rec than before in this soft economy. Your teaching load whatever it is may feel even heavier.
Family care obligations increase
The second book often corresponds with one’s life cycle, a time coinciding with heavy childcare and eldercare, or both for the “sandwich” generation. You cannot control when your kids will need you or when your elders will have a medical emergency. You will spend a large amount of energy and time on care duties. You will have to fit your research and writing time into your teaching/service and also care responsibilities. Your energy and excitement for your research may be depleted by care obligations.
Raised expectations
Many of us want to do something different with our second book. While the first book was to satisfy first a dissertation committee and then a tenure committee, a second book might be the one a scholar actually writes for themselves, or for a different audience than the first book. Doing something new takes more time. The second book is often when a scholar finds their voice.
But the longer one takes on the second book, a perhaps unrealistic expectation builds. “OMG, I’ve taken so long this thing better be AMAZING.”
What to do?
1. Adjust and manage expectations
Do not let perfection be the enemy of the good. You do not have to write the most earth shattering thing in your field. If your mid-career book/articles/creative works meet with criticism, which it will, it’s better to have your work out there where you engaging with your field rather than not at all. Instead of putting undue pressure on yourself, think of it as what is the best research that you can do given the resources and constraints that you have. It doesn’t have to be the best thing out there; it has to be as good or better than most of the things out there.
Be honest with editors about what constraints you face in meeting deadlines. Be realistic about setting deadlines for yourself and with an editor instead of promising a manuscript by an unreasonable deadline for you. Editors are human and they understand COVID and care obligations too. Provide them with context of what is happening instead of ghosting. (They may be wondering if you’re talking to another press.)
2. Schedule research and writing time
Think of setting aside time for research and writing as a commitment you make to yourself. Your commitment to your research is a relationship you have with it and should be up-kept and tended like any other relationship.
Know your work style. Do you work more efficiently in the company of others and if you’re in a group which will hold you accountable? Or will joining a writing group stress you out and you’d prefer to write alone? Do what works for you, but set aside the time on your calendar as you would your teaching or a doctor’s appointment.
Accountability and community help productivity. One panelist has a Zoom writing group with friends. They use the time for writing, not to workshop papers. They start with 15 minutes of socializing and then dive into an hour of writing at a time, while online with the others. This way, they know they will spend that time each week doing research. The advantage also is that people won’t be pressured to bail if they don’t have anything to workshop. The group time on Zoom is the writing/research time.
3. Do a weekly and monthly audit of your time
We are all so busy that we may forget what we have agreed to do. On a weekly and at least monthly basis, write out what you are signed up for regarding teaching, research, and service. If one area is out of balance with the rest, re-calibrate by saying no to more of that category. You can’t say no to everything, but regularly audit what is already on your plate before taking on more.
4. Consider how you best receive feedback
Are you an inductive or deductive researcher? If you’re inductive, you might have to reign in your conceptualizations of the scope of your project. If you’re a deductive person, you might want to take seriously the critiques that push you to broaden out. Know your style and your blind spots and take criticism in that light. If you’re working with a coauthor who has a different style than you, you’ll have to negotiate to find the sweet spot of how both of you feel comfortable getting feedback from each other and from others.
5. Become a resource for your students
Recognizing that you are on your own for post-tenure publications versus pre-tenure requires a mindset shift. You are no longer in the back seat being driven by your committee. You are now driving the car. Your students need you to become the mentors that your dissertation committee was to you. Get the post-tenure publications out; cement your academic stature with promotion, so you can be that person for them.
Academics are awfully hard on themselves. They hold themselves to sometimes arbitrary standards of productivity in an academic system that was designed for men with little to no care duties and who had time to concentrate exclusively on their research and writing. None of us are conducting research in a zero-gravity environment. Who are you comparing yourself to and why? Truly, it’s not you; it’s structural. Don’t individualize the challenges.