reminder of some earlier advice

Today I was revising a proposal that I had made to a publisher about something. There was lots of good feedback on the first draft, but the relevant point here is that I was advised to add a paragraph talking myself up.

This is very useful advice for graduate students, made here before but always worth repeating: job applications and publisher proposals are almost opposite situations in this respect.

Any job application made to an academic department that has an air of cockiness about it is likely to be tossed in the trash can very early in the process. Established members of a university department don’t want to deal with some troublemaking blowhard who plans to come in and act like a big shot right away before even learning their way around. The rule of the game is that in cover letters and interviews you have to be polite, and even being a little bit deferential won’t kill you.

With publishers it’s really quite different. They don’t really care if you act cocky, because they’re never going to have to see you in the office, and all your dealings with them are governed by strict contractual provisions anyway. In fact, they almost always prefer to see a bit of pride in your attitude. Why should they invest thousands of dollars in producing and publishing your book if you’re going to be meek and self-deprecating about it rather than out there in the world, pushing it a bit? It makes good logical sense that they would see things this way.

In short: universities tend to hate self-promoters, while publishers tend to love them.

I remember reading this same advice somewhere before I ever published a book. And behold! The advice was right on target. Which doesn’t always happen.