Yesterday the NSMNSS network published its first ebook, a collection of over fifty blogs penned by researchers from around the world who are using social media in their social research. To the best of our knowledge this is the first book of blogs in the social sciences. It draws on the insights of experienced and well-known commentators on social media research through to the thoughts of researchers new to the field.
Why did we choose to
publish a book of blogs rather than a textbook or peer-reviewed article?
In my view there is
space in the academic publishing world for peer reviewed works and
self-published books. We chose to publish a book of blogs rather than a
traditional academic tome because we wanted to create something quickly which
reflected the concerns and voices of our members. Creating a digital text,
built on people’s experiences and use of social media seemed an obvious choice.
Many of our network members were already blogging about their use of social
media for research, for those who weren’t this was an opportunity to write
something short and have their voices heard.
Unlike other fields of social research, social media research is not yet populated
with established authors and leading writers, the constant state of flux of the
field means it is unlikely to ever settle in quite the same way as ethnography
say or survey research. The tools, platforms and approaches to studying them
are constantly changing. In this context works which are published quickly to
continue to feed the plentiful discussions about the methods, ethics and
practicalities of social media research seem an important counterpoint to more
scholarly articles and texts.
How did we do it?
Step 1 – Create a
call for action: We used social media channels to publicise the call for
authors, posting tweets with links to the network blog which gave authors a
clear brief on what we were looking for. Within less than a fortnight we had
over 40 authors signed up.
Step 2 - Decide on the editorial control you want to
have: We let authors know that we were not peer reviewing content, if
someone was prepared to contribute we would accept that contribution unless it
was off theme. In the end we used every submitted blog with one exception. This
was an important principle for us, the network is member-led and we wanted this
book to reflect the concerns of our members not those of an editor or peer-review
panel. The core team at NatCen undertook light touch editing to formatting and
spelling but otherwise the contributions are unadulterated. We also organised
the contributions into themes to make it easier for readers to navigate.
Step 2 – Manage your
contributions: We used Google Drive to host an author’s sign-up spreadsheet
asking for contact information and also an indication of the blog title and
content. We also invited people to act as informal peer reviewers. Some of our
less experienced authors wanted feedback and this was provided by other
authors. This saved time because we did not have to create a database ourselves
and was invaluable when it came to contacting authors along the way.
Step 3 – Keep a buzz
going and keep in touch with authors: We found it important to keep the
book of blogs uppermost in contributors minds, we did this through a
combination of social media (using the #bookofblogs) and regular blogs and
email updates to authors.
Step 4 – Set
milestones: we set not just an end date for contributions but several
milestones along the way tgo achieve 40% and 60% of contributions, this helped
keep the momentum going.
Step 5 – Choose your
publishing platform: there are a number of self-publishing platforms. We
chose to use Press Books which has a very smooth and simple user interface
similar to many blogging tools like Wordpress. We did this because we wanted
authors to upload their own contributions, saving administrative time. By and
large this worked fine although inevitably we ended up uploading some for
authors and dealing with formatting issues!
Step 6 – Decide on
format and distribution channels - You will need to consider whether to
have just an e-book, an e-book and a traditional book and where to sell your
book. We chose Amazon and Kindle (Mobi) format for coverage and global reach
but you can publish into various formats and there are a range of channels for
selling your book.
Step 7 – Stick with
it… when you’re creating a co-authored text like this with multiple authors
you need to stick with it, have a clear vision of what you are trying to create
and belief that you will reach your launch ready to go. And we did, we hope you
enjoy it.
