In the first part of How to Set Up a Publishing Pipeline That Works for You, I talked about what a publishing pipeline is and what it can do for you. I also shared several examples of pipelines from other academics.
The next step is for you to set up your own pipeline. You can of course use the systems others have shared, either by following them exactly or adapting them to your own specific needs. Or, you can build your own publishing pipeline from scratch. Whichever you choose to do, before you get started I recommend that you ask yourself a number of questions as your answers will help you create a pipeline that works for you.
What to Consider before Setting Up Your Own Publishing Pipeline
Question 1: What is your long-term publishing goal?
The first thing you need to determine is what your long-term publishing goal is. What do you want to achieve by publishing? Have you just started a tenure-track job and are now working towards tenure? Are you hoping to secure a promotion in your department? Or are you publishing because you want to ensure your good standing in your academic field?
Question 2: What is your motivation for achieving this goal?
The next thing to consider is your motivation. You might think answering this question is easy. For example, you might immediately respond “Money!” since achieving goals like tenure or a promotion usually mean that you will benefit financially. But with this question, you should dig deeper. If it is (more) money you are looking for, ask yourself, why? What do you want or need that money for? Why are you striving for greater financial security? Perhaps you want to make sure your aging parents are taken care of or that your children are able to go to college without having to take on loans. It’s these kinds of things that are your motivation. Knowing what actually motivates you deep down will help you as you work towards your goal.
Question 3: What publication targets must you minimally hit to achieve your goal?
With publication targets, I refer to the minimum number, type, and quality of publications you must produce to be able to achieve your goal. The answer to this question will not only depend on the goal you have in mind but usually also on the institution where you work and the discipline that you work in. Therefore, before you set your publication targets, you should talk to individuals who have recently achieved the same goal you are aiming for to find out how exactly they succeeded. Invite them for a chat over a cup of coffee and ask them: How many books did you publish? How many articles, in journals of which tier? Were they first, second, third author papers? How about chapters in books or other publication types? And so forth.
These questions are important as all disciplines have different publication norms. What matters in applied math is not the same as in translation studies. Equally, institutions have different expectations when granting tenure or a promotion, and what was required 10 years ago isn’t necessarily the same as what is expected now.
Note: There are usually additional factors that are important for achieving your goal (e.g., number and size of grants obtained, courses taught, successful PhD students you have supervised). My focus here is to help you set up a pipeline to track your publications. However, you may want to develop a similar system for other factors too.
Question 4: How much time do you have to achieve this goal?
Goals usually come with some sort of deadline (e.g., a tenure track appointment that is for 6 years), which can be either externally or internally imposed. Deadlines can be fixed and unchangeable (particularly if they are externally imposed) or more flexible.
While having a deadline can be stressful, there are also benefits. For example, having a deadline allows you to break down your goal into the specific steps you need to take to get there and the time you have for each step. Matthew Lebo, by the way, calls these steps micro-goals (more about these below). Another benefit of having a deadline – particularly a strict, inflexible one – is that it can motivate you to do things in a way that an open-ended timeline often will not. It also gives you a specific moment in time to assess whether you have been successful in achieving your goal or not (or something in between), which can be valuable in its own way.
Tip: If you don’t have a deadline for achieving your goal, I recommend that you set one yourself.
Question 5: What kind of tools and tracking methods do you prefer?
Unless you are one of those rare individuals who can do it all in their head, you will need some tools and tracking methods for planning your publishing pipeline.
Tools
Depending on your personal preferences, these tools can be digital, analogue, or a combination of both. Analogue tools include paper planners, calendars, notebooks, a white- or blackboard, Post-its, and/or index cards. Digital options are equally varied: you could use a digital planner, Google calendar, organisation and task manager apps like Todoist or Notion, Excel spreadsheets, and/or digital flashcards.
Tracking Methods
Your tools should be complemented by your preferred tracking methods. You could use movable Post-its in your paper planner, colour coding for your calendar or Excel spreadsheets, a point system for each stage completed, a time tracker (e.g., Toggl), or a journal for reflections and check-ins.
Depending on the method or combination of methods you choose, you will be able to see your progress at a glance, identify bottlenecks in the system, gain helpful insight into your levels of productivity (e.g., when you are more productive and when less), and learn how to better balance your writing, workload, and other life commitments in a realistic and sustainable manner.
Tip: Don’t feel like you are married to any tool or tracking method. Figure out what works for you and be honest about it by reassessing the usefulness of each tool and method chosen after a few months. Sometimes using tools and tracking methods can turn into procrastination and thus avoidance of the actual tasks that need to be done.
Question 6: How will you hold yourself accountable?
Even when you have a well-planned publishing pipeline, you need to ensure that you actually do what you planned to do. Because we are all individuals, the ways you hold yourself accountable have to work for you specifically.
Here are some options:
- Implement a system of rewards and consequences. Rewards could include a small treat for yourself every time you achieve a micro goal (e.g., a cup of coffee at your favourite café) or something more special when a piece is actually published (e.g., a day trip somewhere). Some people also use consequences, although personally I’m not convinced that punishing yourself is really the best way to inspire motivation.
- Share your goal with other people. How you share it is up to you: it could simply involve telling a few colleagues or friends about your goal or posting about your progress in a closed Facebook group for academic writers on a weekly basis. You could also publicly track your progress on a social media platform like Instagram, Substack, or LinkedIn, posting every time you successfully take a step forward.
- Write a daily or weekly journal. In your entries, reflect on your progress, including when things don’t go as planned. Confronting failures or hurdles can help you face them. I would recommend journaling every few days or at least once a week, because if you leave too much time in between entries, you are more likely to fall out of the habit.
- Schedule a regularly-timed check-in as part of your publishing pipeline system. Some people don’t need external accountability, they just need a to-do list and a plan. If that’s you, simply schedule an hour or two – each week, each month, every quarter, whatever works best for you – to check on your progress.
- Have an accountability partner. Team up with a colleague working towards the same or a different goal and check in on each other regularly. Check-ins can be via email, a coffee meet-up, or a Zoom call – whatever works best. It is important, however, that you select the right partner: you both need to be committed to pursuing your goals and to holding each other accountable. Decide what you want the check-ins to look like. Just listing what you have done? Setting and sharing micro goals? Discussing problems and exchanging ideas?
Tip: Focus on making the check-ins positive and constructive rather than sessions in which you only complain. While letting off steam once in a while can be great, it will sap both your and your partner’s energy if you just share frustrations every time you meet. - Hire an editor or coach as your accountability partner. For some people, paying money for something upfront means they will push themselves to do it. If you are the kind of person who only does yoga when signing up for a class, then hiring a professional to keep you on track may also be the right choice for you. Yes, you can hire me as your accountability partner!
Tip: You don’t need to stick to a single method of holding yourself accountable. Combining different options can be even more effective.
Start Planning Your Publishing Pipeline
Once you have answered these six questions, it’s time to sit down and start planning. At this point, you will have to think about your micro-goals (i.e., the steps you need to take to achieve your goal) and figure out how to divide the time you have to achieve your goal based on both your publishing targets and micro-goals.
Micro-goals (steps) are different from publishing targets. Publishing targets are what you need to publish in order to achieve your goal, whereas micro-goals are the steps you take to get to those targets. That is, a journal article is a publishing target, but to get that journal article published you will need to come up with an idea, outline your paper, draft it, and so on. If you are not sure what kind of micro-goals to set, check the examples of publishing pipelines from other scholars I shared previously and adapt them to your own needs.
How you organise your publishing targets and micro-goals is up to you. You could begin by planning just a single year or you could sketch out the entire time period you have available to reach your goal. Whichever you choose to do, keep in mind that you should reassess your publishing pipeline on a regular basis. Things will not always go according to plan. You might fall behind with your writing. Or a publication might get delayed or even cancelled for reasons entirely out of your control.
Some more tips to help you with the planning:
- Take publishing time into account when planning. It typically takes 4-12 months to publish a journal article. For books, Knox and Van Deventer, authors of the Dissertation-to-Book Workbook, estimate that “it will take a minimum of 1.5 years (24 months is more common) from the time you submit your complete manuscript to an academic publisher to the time your academic book is published” (quote source). That means if you need to publish a book during the 6-year timeline of your tenure-track job, you will need to have a contract in hand likely no later than the third year. If, as William Genaro writes in From Dissertation to Book, you are one of those young scholars “thinking about the second book before tenure,” you will have to start thinking about both books even earlier.
- To assess how your plan is going, you should do at least an annual check-in. More frequent check-ins – quarterly, monthly, weekly – may be preferable, particularly to assess the progress you are making in respect to individual publishing targets and micro-goals.
- Consider all factors honestly: Holidays, teaching requirements, personal responsibilities and duties, etc.
- Figure out when and how you will write. Will you block out hours on your calendar each week? Will you write a little bit every day or do focused writing on the weekend or at certain times of the year? Whatever strategy you opt for, integrate it into your publishing pipeline by both planning for and tracking it.
The Importance of Customising Your Publishing Pipeline
Setting up and customising your publishing pipeline requires some work but is crucial if you want to succeed in reaching your goal. As you saw in my first post, different academics manage their pipelines in very different ways. There is no point in adopting another person’s system if that system doesn’t work for you given your personal practices, preferences, and, simply, your life. To succeed, you need a publishing pipeline that works for you.