Alternative Publishing 101

Introduction: Have I Got a Deal for You in Academia

Hey, all you writers out there! Do I have a proposition for you? Here’s the deal. You take your best ideas. You take your most current thoughts. You take your observations on the hottest topics in your field. You take your opinions on the top issues in the media and or in the minds of the general public. And then what do you do with them? Well, if you’re an academic, you take these and, in effect, shove them in a drawer for six months, a year, or two years - or maybe even longer. This sounds like a great strategy for building your personal brand, strengthening your social media presence, and marketing your expertise, eh?

And yet, this is precisely the dilemma facing all of us academic writers and researchers. And yes, I’m talking to all of my fellow college professors - and wannabe professors who are in grad school these days trying to grab their Ph.D. “union card” and the brass ring!

The Academic Ballgame

Here’s the deal. To succeed in the academic ballgame, one simply has to publish - full stop! They don’t refer to this as the “publish or perish” business for nothing! The truth of the matter is that for most colleges and universities, exactly what and how much you write, publish, and research does not matter as much as where and when it is published. In most instances today, the tenure and evaluation game does come down to numbers. What did you publish? When and where was it published? What’s the impact factor or ranking of the journal in your field?

Many universities - well, most universities - and the departments and colleges within them - have some sort of journal ranking system. This is where academic journals are differentiated by an “A, B, C” scale or some sort of point system (and no, there is not one universally agreed upon system or source for ranking journals really in any field from archaeology to zoology - and specifically, from biology to business and from medicine to marketing!

In other words, what, where, and when you publish - as well as who you publish with - is always going to be open to the subjective judgment of those who control your fate in the academy. How about that for a system? For many - to most - higher ed faculty today, this means that you want to publish in the best journals so that each publication that you achieve can give you the most possible ROI - Return on Investment - on the time, effort, and expertise that you poured into that particular article for perhaps weeks, months, or even in many instances - years! You want to publish strategically. You want to write and have articles accepted for publication that “earn” you the most points in your school’s unique journal ranking and scoring system. You want to publish in the way that makes the most strides for you in terms of your tenure process and the highest possible impact on your annual evaluation.

And, you want to “play the odds,” getting your work published in the journals with the highest prestige - and to do so in one movement (one submission that produces a successfully accepted article), as going through 2, 3, 4 … submission cycles with journals to do so will certainly mean that your research will not be published for years (kinda tough to make that research part of your personal brand and your “sales pitch” for your expertise when it simply can’t be seen!).

But to top it all off, academics are the only people on the planet who pay for outlets to publish their research! Yes, most academic journals today charge their authors publication fees - fees that can range into the hundreds, and in many cases, thousands of dollars, just for the privilege of seeing the article actually get published that took - quite often - years of blood, sweat, and tears that went into researching and crafting it!

And conversely, publishing in the “wrong” journal, i.e. one that may be not as highly regarded, or, as is often the case today with the proliferation that we see in academic journals today, a brand new journal, can actually prove to be deleterious to your career. In regards to the former, some journals out there are regarded as being “predatory journals” - journals that are basically out there only to make money off the backs of, you guessed it, faculty willing to pay high publication fees just for the privilege of seeing their work published by any journal! And then there are very legitimate, but newly established journals. By definition, any journal that is new in the field in which you research - and thus has not been evaluated yet for its “prestige” and “impact” by experts (i.e. the gatekeepers of legitimacy for journals in every field) is viewed as suspect - and even perhaps predatory - until it is deemed “proper” and ranked in the field.

So, what a fun and ideal environment we have to publish in as academics today! The choices are expensive. The choices are risky. And with every submission, your career could be riding on how it will be received by a single editor and 2, 3, or 4 nameless reviewers, who may - or often may not - have any real expertise (and sometimes even knowledge) in the specific area that you are writing about. Even worse, some (perhaps many) of these reviewers may have no interest in seeing others “climb the publication mountain.” They can view their role as a journal receiver simply as being there to deny others entry into “the club” which is the social caste system that develops in the academic world between prestigious faculty and schools and the rest.

Thus, academic publishing as it stands today is a hard - and expensive - and time-consuming - and stressful - and often quite frustrating game to play in the way much of the publishing world works today for academic actors! Many a career, and sadly, marriages, families, and even lives have been lost out of the degree of struggle that academic publishing has become in many fields today. Such is the impact - and importance - placed on getting published in the “right” journals in most academic careers today.

The Publishing Dilemma for Academics Today

So, here’s the dilemma for all of my academic brethren and sistren: How do you build your own brand – showcase your personal expertise and enhance your reputation (and perhaps your side consulting/speaking/writing, etc. business) – while also trying to achieve and maintain tenure, promotion, and at least satisfactory annual evaluations (which do very much come into play, boys and girls, even for senior faculty today!)?

Indeed, the buzzword today in higher education is not just eliminating tenure, but also instituting some form of post-tenure review, and/or remediation of senior faculty. In other words, gone - long gone - are the days when one could achieve tenure, and then just simply say, “I’m done! I am off to the golf course!” Gone are the days when one could achieve “senior status” and simply go to the faculty lounge - or the bar - or off to world travels - or simply be able to spend more time with the family! It’s a “Brave New World” in the higher education field today and simply put, our evaluation processes for assessing the meaningful impact of one’s research and publications have not caught up with a fast-changing world. In fact, the manners in which institutions are performing evaluations on faculty in regards to research is really assessing but one small fraction (academic journals, well… certain academic journals) out of all of the potential ways in which one can publish - or rather, more broadly speaking - to publicize, one’s research and thoughts today.

So what to do? I am personally a professor “of a certain age. “ I do have tenure, but my institution is one that has indeed instituted post-tenure review and remediation. So I am by no means off “Scot Free” in terms of seeing my future as being on a glide path to retirement (which I am not looking at anytime soon, by the way!) where I don’t need to care about my evaluations - and my merit raises! Contrary to some - especially some senior somes - in the academy, I do think such measures are good and necessary, as yes, everyone in America deserves to - and should be - subject to job evaluations and the potential ramifications of poor performance.

But like many of my hard-working colleagues, just because the tenure finish line has been reached, that by no means puts us on the track for “Easy Street” in terms of how we work and, ultimately, a cushy retirement. Contrary to most popular assumptions about professors, with the widespread perception that if you teach 3, 6, 9 or 12 hours, that’s the extent of your work week, trust me when I tell you that anyone in the higher education business can tell you this is simply far from the case! For every hour in the classroom, there could be hours and hours of immediate preparation for that particular hour in the classroom, and that’s not counting the years of work that went into becoming an expert in the field to be able to talk about and/or present on that particular subject. Even at a school like my own that emphasizes teaching over research, almost all of my colleagues are actively engaged in one, two, three, or more research projects at any given time. Plus, there is the nebulous service component to our jobs, which encompasses not just all the committee “work” that must be done for the institution but also encourages faculty members to be active members of their local communities and the wider, global community that is all their fellow scholars in their respective fields. All of this adds up to many, sometimes many, multiples of 3, 6, 9, or 12!

The teaching, research, and service model is often referred to as the “three legs of the stool” that is an academic job. Often, however, research is by far the biggest leg on that stool - one that is viewed as being far more important - and thus far longer - than the other two. In fact, many universities so emphasize research that faculty, really, in truth, out of necessity - excessively emphasize the research part of their job over the other two legs of the stool! This is simply because there are only so many hours in the day, and if one works so hard and so long on their research projects, trying to get published in the “right” academic journals, certainly the service component - and even the teaching part of the professorial job can be not just neglected, but perhaps even be an afterthought. Do you wonder why the buzz today in higher education is to reemphasize “good” teaching? It is because the pendulum has swung so hard toward the publication part of the professorial job that teaching has been - in the minds of many faculty, and if the right “truth serum moment” is there, even among many administrators today, that acknowledgment has to be made! Remember, “publish or perish” is a very real thing - and threat - to those of us in the publish or perish business! And yes, it’s Psych 101: Threats do influence one’s behavior - and that of tens of thousands of faculty members!

Recommendation: Charting a New Course for Publishing for Academics

So what is an academic to do these days? This article spells out the advice publicly that I have given to my friends and colleagues, both one-on-one and in small groups, for some time now. The only difference is that here I am offering it to my contemporaries, both in the U.S. and indeed, around the world, in a very public manner as I believe that the time has come for me to become more of an advocate for faculty all across the country - and perhaps around the world - to better build your personal brand. And a part of that - in fact, a big part of that, is how you publish and market your research - and your insights, observations, etc. - and how, where, and when you publish in a world where there are plenty of good (i.e. ones that are actually read) publication venues for you to take advantage of right now!

My advice for all in the academic ballgame is simple: No one today is going to build your brand – your personal brand – unless you do it! For you to succeed as a professor - and to also be marketable in other ways, as a consultant, as a speaker, as a commentator, or indeed, as a contributing writer for publications that people actually read (not those academic journals that you’ve been trained and conditioned to write for), then you have only one option today. This is to actively build your brand - a task that will take you outside of the normal publishing process that all academics have been schooled to pursue and work - at least part of the time - in the world of alternative publishing. Publishing outside of the academic sphere and in the alternative publishing world will allow you to be far more immediate and far more creative in your research and writing. Yet, many faculty will find this far more difficult to do than purely academic writing, as it will be outside of their comfort zone of simply writing in and for those in their specialized field. However, if you do take on this challenge - and opportunity, you have the chance to build a solid brand for yourself - and then enjoy the many fruits - and opportunities - that come with being recognized as a thought leader well beyond the ivy-covered four walls of the academy.

This is not to say. “Okay, just publish everything on the Web for free and don’t publish at all in academic journals.” No! No! No! My advice is just the opposite! You must aim - first, foremost, and always - to satisfy your tenure and promotion requirements and those targets specified in your annual evaluation guidelines - full stop! You must do the things that will earn you tenure and promotion – and job security - in the academy - full stop!

However, at the same time, call me either naive or worldly - or just a bit - to a lot - of both - you need to be mindful that there is a world beyond the four walls of your institution and beyond the virtual four walls of your field of study. This world has an audience that is hungry for the insights and expertise that really, only you can provide! If you think that writing for the masses is beneath you, well, you need to think again and jump into the world of alternative publishing.

If you only write for academic people in your field, ignoring the many, many more practitioners in your field, you – and by definition, your research and your thoughts – will have far, far less impact and lasting effects if you ignore the more mass audience for your work by catering purely to the niche audience of academics in your field. Now lest you think this is true just in fields like my own (business) and fields that have subjects of wide interest (say science and technology, or even areas like political science, history, and language), math belies that belief. Even if you are an archaeologist, or a biologist, or a chemist, or any other kind of academic specialist, there is an audience out there for you if you write interesting “stuff” for them! You may have insights, findings, analysis, and even thoughts that are of interest to a far wider audience than you might ever imagine. But to reach them, you must reach out to them - and that’s something many in the academy are uncomfortable with doing at present.

So, here is the advice that I give to my colleagues when comes to what I presently do in terms of publishing my own research, thoughts, and expertise today. In short, I believe it is unbelievably important to put yourself out there and, as President Theodore Roosevelt put it so well, to be “the man (or woman) in the arena” now over a century ago:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man (or woman) stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man (or woman) who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes [out] short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself (or herself) in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he (or she) fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his (or her) place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither knows victory nor defeat.”

—- President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt

Simply put, to be in the arena today, you need to be publishing in places that people actually read! You need to be writing for publications and in forums that people actually pay attention to and that people are actually looking to for ideas and expertise. The truth is that most academic journals don’t get read - even by those in the field of the publication. And if your work doesn’t get read - and shared - and discussed today, then even if that academic journal “hit” is vital for your career inside the academy and with your present institution, it will not “drive the needle” at all in terms of helping your build your personal brand and market your expertise.

My argument is this: Beyond the academic audience, you as a professor have the potential to market yourself, your expertise, your speaking abilities, your writing abilities, and more to a wider audience. And by doing so, you can create not only new opportunities for yourself - opportunities that you may not be able to imagine today because of your training and focus on purely academic research for academic journals. Today, in an age of social media influencers, and yes, with the power of “Mr. Google” to drive folks who are interested in what you do to you is now vital to your success. Thus, establishing a presence on the Internet, with writing that has more immediate, more “to the point,“ more generally accessible versions of your thoughts, your expertise, and your research is now becoming essential for a successful academic career - and for career opportunities outside of the academy..

So how do I go about writing and marketing myself to a broader public? The first thing you have to realize is that, like it or not, you are indeed a brand today! With that being said, you need to actively build your brand, you need to actively protect your brand, and you need to actively market your brand. This is absolutely necessary today in order to simply better market yourself and to better position yourself for opportunities that can come your way outside directly of your academic role, but which can - I would strongly argue - help you in your academic role both as a teacher and as a researcher. As a management, professor, I can safely say that my teaching, and my research has been greatly strengthened by the fact that I regularly consult with businesses and write about topics that are both springing from my own research and that are really my expertise applied to the news and trends of today. As such, both through the written word and increasingly via the spoken word, I can speak to - and reach - business audiences based on my expertise (such as it is) and find an ever-growing audience for my writing outside of academic journals (which yes, I still contribute to as well on a regular basis).

So, I have this charge for you! Get out there! Get out there and start finding ways to express yourself and share your knowledge, your expertise, and your learned opinions with a world that today, well, is in need of learned insights! My chosen venues to date have mostly been to write for publications on two platforms, Medium and Vocal. You can sample my writing - and yes, please do follow me/subscribe for free to my articles - by checking out my profiles on both sites:

• Medium: https://medium.com/@davidwyld
• Vocal: https://vocal.media/authors/david-wyld

The reason that I have chosen to write for and publish on both sites is that they share a common characteristic: They each have a number of publications that you can write for, based on your area of interest/expertise. And by having an editor for these publications, who, in some form or fashion, reviews and approves your work quickly - generally within a day or at most a week - you can have the immediacy of publishing your latest research - or an application of an idea from your field - or your take on the news of the day - or simply your opinion on a matter, but not simply be publishing on your own website, blog, social media feed (on Twitter [X], Facebook, Threads, Post, etc.). Substack is a popular choice today for publishing your own work “direct to the consumer,” but you basically have to already have a following - through being a popular author, media personality, etc. to make Substack work for you, due to the fact that it is based on a subscription model (i.e. who will want to pay to actually read your latest works?). Also, my publishing success with both Medium and Vocal has built me a following within both communities, mostly outside of the academic realm (but does include other business professors, consultants, writers, etc.). And yes, you can earn real money from your articles on both of these sites based on the number of views and the amount of engagement (i.e. reading time, shares, likes, etc.). This won’t make you rich, but it does help the old personal bottom line. It is not - and should not be - the reason that you decide to embark into alternative publishing, but it is, as we say in Louisiana, lagniappe - simply a little extra!

What are the other reasons that you should publish in the realm of alternative publishing? To me, there are many advantages. First and foremost, you have a great deal more freedom than most academics (schooled in the world of academic writing and publishing) can ever imagine! You have complete control over the length, look, and feel of your articles written for these platforms. For instance, aside from a minimum article length requirement of 500-600 words, you can publish any length piece that you want on both Medium and Vocal. So, whether you have a 700-1,000 word short article or a 5,000 word more extensive piece (such as this one) or if you want to publish a more “manifesto-like” work far beyond those word counts, you have the freedom to do so.

Also - and I think that my academic friends will find this most intriguing, you have far more freedom and ability to include multimedia into your works, from pictures and graphics (either yours or that which you have rights to share, like all of the images with Creative Commons licenses or from sites like Flickr, Unsplash, and Wikimedia) to YouTube and Vimeo videos to Tweets or even Instagram posts. Just the format of academic journals would prevent you from including such media in their publications in most instances! Thus, you have new ways to illustrate matters and to get your point across in this world of alternative publishing, and these tools will enable you to write in a new and, yes, both challenging and exciting way, for your newfound audience!

Finally, and yes, most importantly, publishing on sites like Medium and Vocal directly enables you to build your brand better with each and every article that you publish - full stop! These articles can be - and are - readily available on the Web, and as such, they are easy to link to and to share in your posts (and those of others who might read and want to share your work) on Facebook, Twitter (X), LinkedIn, Threads, Post, Reddit, or literally any other social media platform! This enables you to enable others to help build your audience - and your reach. And today, being “out there” on social media is all important! Thus, my standard practice is to share my work at least on LinkedIn, Threads, and still (for now), Twitter (X). This becomes the “launch point” when my works are published on either Medium or Vocal, and typically, after I share, readers will take it upon themselves to either share my articles directly or simply reshare my posts about them. Synergy, baby!

Conclusion

So, my message to you is simple: Start remaking your publishing and writing strategy right now, in this hour today after reading this piece! Use this article as a guide to start your own journey into the world of alternative publishing - one that I believe can truly be career and life-changing! But - and this is so very important to reiterate one final time - do not stop what you need to be doing in terms of your writing for and publishing with the traditional academic journal track! You need to be focused on what your institution values today in terms of publishing, and that generally still centers around “traditional” academic journals.

However, I do believe - very strongly - that we are in the midst of a very real and profound shift in what the higher education world - or at least much of it - will consider the word “publishing” to mean. I encourage you to join me in the vanguard of this movement - and you and I are by no means alone in seeking to change the way publishing works in academia - all to help better build your personal brand in what is a fast-changing world, both outside of - and yes, inside as well - the four walls of the ivory tower! Buckle up and take the ride!

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About David Wyld

David C. Wyld is a Professor of Strategic Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, publisher, executive educator, and experienced expert witness. You can view all of his work at https://authory.com/DavidWyld. You can subscribe to his Medium article feed at: https://davidwyld.medium.com/subscribe.

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