Too late to publish?

[Sunriseatsix]

Hello,

Ten years ago I submitted my thesis and was told to consider looking to publish it. I was just so relieved to have passed and experiencing a lot of serious health problems so I did nothing more (and have been unable to work since).

The subject was an unusual take on a relatively well-known but not well-read Victorian poet. There isn't a lot written about him and study doesn't seem to have moved on hugely.

I think the thesis would work best as a single publication rather than a series of articles as it is quite through-composed and the same approach used on a number of different aspects of his work.

What would you do next or is this a pipe dream? I thought of contacting one of my examiners (have him on Facebook) to see if he remembers and has any thoughts but is that demanding? There is no literature survey or anything like that.

Any thoughts, please?

One of my friends is publishing his thesis as a book. He wrote it 20 years ago, and he found a publisher for it. I don't think this is an unachievable pipedream!

In the Humanities research doesn't date in the same way as it does in STEM (*). I would say give it a try. Most academic publishers have instructions on their website on how to submit a book proposal. But you can also write a tentative e-mail to the publisher's relevant subject editor asking if they'd consider a proposal on XYZ. In my experience, if your book doesn't fit their collection they tell you straight away. Unlike is the case with articles, you can send your proposal to more than one publisher.

(*) I would say that a way in which your research might be "dated" is if there are new theories in the field that you would be expected to engage with because of the nature of your research subject's writing - for example, say they wrote a lot about nature; a publisher or reviewer might feel that this all has to be analyzed through an Environmental Humanities/climate change lens. My experience is that this can change quite a lot between publishers/series editors - in my field, some seem very attached to a small number of such new scholarly currents, while others are not. If you look at what they've published before it is likely that you can identify threads, not just in terms of topics/authors they publish but also in terms of theoretical framework.

Oh I wanted to write two asterisks and this italicized half my text! Sorry!

Thank you so much for those replies. I thought I might be laughed out of here. Some good food for thought too.
I'll start thinking about this a bit more seriously.

No problem in contacting your examiners, but do so via their .ac.uk address: you'll seem much more professional.

As for if it's too late, possibly not, but you'll need to review and revise the literature you surveyed for your thesis. It's worth looking at guidance on turning a thesis into a monograph that several academic publishers provide online.

Thanks. All noted. Quite excited to start working through things to see if there is any scope at all.

@Sunriseatsix I’m doing this! But 13 years later with a toddler 🤣 Fortunately my supervisor and I are still close friends and he is an em. prof. so still has lots of connections. Pm me if you want to negotiate this route together!