Publish Don't Perish: 100 Tips That Improve Your Ability to Get Published (review)

The proliferation of books on writing for scholarly publication seems to indicate a continued need—or at least a perceived need—for such texts. Perhaps a truly comprehensive work on the topic is not yet believed to exist; perhaps the scholarly publishing landscape is evolving so rapidly that additions to the literature are believed to be continually needed. Or perhaps well-published academics, feeling qualified and compelled to compose books on writing for scholarly publication, are now doing so more frequently. Robert N. Lussier's Publish Don't Perish is a recent offering that, perchance unintentionally, speaks not only to prospective academic writers but also to budding copy editors and academics who study scholarly writing. Not an academic text, Publish Don't Perish is nevertheless a valuable example of a work in the how-to genre that can be read by members of multiple audiences on multiple levels. Ultimately, though, the book may be more successful on the levels for which it was not intended.

Lussier, professor of management at Springfield College in Massachusetts, is a prolific writer who has—the reader is thrice informed—'more than 340 publications' (14, 16, 124). In a volume that does not claim to be exhaustive, he offers well over a hundred tips on writing for academic publishing that are geared toward doctoral students and new faculty members. Organized into nine chapters that average twenty-one pages apiece, Lussier addresses such issues as selecting topics and outlets for publication; writing with co-authors; managing time; promoting one's publications; writing about empirical research; and writing book reviews, textbooks, cases, and refereed and non-refereed journal articles. Scattered throughout the text are fifty-four 'application' boxes, in which readers are invited to jot down brief responses to questions about writing-related habits and attitudes. Lussier's advice is personal and casual, as are his tone and language.¹ Throughout the volume, he refers to 'prep time,' 'intros,' 'lit reviews,' 'stats,' 'sales reps,' and 'guys'; 'I met a guy at a conference …' is not, in fact, the beginning of a joke (161). He seems genuine in the rather intrepid money-back guarantee he offers in the preface: 'If you don't get any new tips [from reading this book], send me a letter of explanation and a copy of your purchase receipt and I will personally refund your money' (viii). In that guarantee, Lussier is wise not to promise that readers who follow his suggestions will necessarily succeed in seeing their work published—although their chances, at least, should increase.

The ideas presented in Publish Don't Perish are based primarily on the author's own experiences and on materials he has gathered from others while presenting numerous writing workshops at conferences and at colleges and universities. Good advice includes scheduling one's writing time—and skipping or cutting a writing session short only for reasons that would genuinely interfere with a class meeting: 'Do you answer your phone and check voice and e-mail messages during class? If not, why should you during your publishing time?' (93). (Yes, Lussier peculiarly uses publishing time to mean writing time; he occasionally conflates publishing with writing for publication; and he quite confusingly uses the word sources to refer to potential outlets for publication.) Lussier stresses that readers should familiarize themselves with the publication requirements and expectations of their institutions (or, if graduate students, of the institutional types at which they aspire to work) and not waste time writing for outlets that don't 'count.' He emphasizes the importance of using keyword-loaded titles for books and articles (so the works will be easily found—provided they are indexed in online catalogues and databases). He suggests making use of college writing centres, as many such facilities assist staff and faculty...