Inking the Deal: A Guide for Successful Academic Publishing (review)

The list of writing-advice books for academic authors has expanded noticeably in recent years. Joining them is Stanley E. Porter’s Inking the Deal: A Guide for Successful Academic Publishing. Porter is the president and dean of McMaster Divinity College of Ontario and writes from a disciplinary perspective—biblical scholarship—that makes much of his advice a rough fit for writers in education and the social sciences. But some sifting through the less relevant contexts and assertions yields some valuable counsel. My own sense of this genre—for it seems to have become such—is that a few flecks of gold in a pan of sand make the effort worthwhile for the reader.

Porter initially and through the book offers rationales for being an academic writer. For him, it is to be a “legacy writer. That is, I write because I am in pursuit of making a significant and enduring contribution to my field of academic endeavor” (p. 2). He touches on a variety of other reasons to write—to secure and advance in an academic career, even to make money, among several—but the opportunity and responsibility of original contribution are the motivations of his focus.

Porter is an exceptionally well-published author. His authority on this point is asserted by an initial and thereafter occasional, brief essay on his own significance. Some of that is quite helpful; it is important to his credibility, particularly for those outside theology. But there is a fine line between establishing credibility and simple crowing, and Porter crosses it with some frequency. What else to make of the book’s endnotes that continue, here and there, with a few paragraphs of boasting?

Porter gives good attention in the book to working with an editor. One wonders if the endnote pattern is a compromise between the writer’s need to express greatness and the editor’s expression of the need for some humility. I am saying this, not to discount Porter’s advice, but rather to alert the reader that his best advice is worth the work of getting through such jarring patches.

Perhaps Porter’s most useful chapter is “Living a Publishable Lifestyle.” Like most advisors on the writing process and its products, Porter gives substantial attention to the habits of mind and effort that lead to publication. Among his ideas is the “the rule of one and five.” Early in his career, he set the goal of publishing one significant article each year, and a book each five; modest enough. But over the course of an academic career, this would result in several books and dozens of articles. Porter has well exceeded this pace personally, but setting out with a goal of hundreds of articles and dozens of books is hardly a goal at all.

“Never say no” is another of the author’s practices. He takes on virtually all requests for authorship or co-authorship, while a colleague of his takes on only projects that fit a long-term plan and which he knows he can fulfill. The colleague meets 100% of his commitments and publishes modestly. Porter, by his own count, fulfills about 70% of his obligations but publishes much more. Perhaps that record of reliability is acceptable for a high-demand scholar, but it seems thin ice on which to launch a career.

The topic of “paralysis of analysis” gets some attention. Porter believes it to be rooted in “deep-seated” insecurity, if simple laziness can be discounted (p. 161). Such potential authors, Porter believes, are so afraid of being found wrong that they do not try. Little technical advice is offered to counter this, other than on time management, but some rather brief encouragement to face the reality that one must try and to develop what one thinks by writing, not writing after ideas are perfected.

Chapters on handling rejection and always writing for publication are quite helpful. Other chapters are...