Episode title: How to Turn Your PhD Into a Book

Podcast: Research Culture Uncovered

Host: Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths (Researcher Development Advisor, University of Leeds)

Episode overview

Turning a PhD into a book is rarely a straightforward process. It’s not simply about rewriting or revising a thesis — it involves rethinking purpose, audience, and identity as a researcher.

In this episode, Heledd speaks with Dr Hilary Potter about the challenges and opportunities involved in transforming doctoral research into a book. From the emotional weight of returning to high-stakes work, to developing confidence and recognising your own expertise, the conversation explores what it really means to “turn” a PhD into something new.

Hilary also shares insights into her activity-based approach, the role of creativity and writing by hand, and how her portfolio career — including teaching, translation, and periods of precarity — has shaped both her thinking and her book.

Together, this episode highlights how developing authorial agency can shift not only how researchers write, but how they see themselves and their place within (and beyond) academia.

Featured contributor

Dr Hilary Potter — Project Officer, CERIC (Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change) University of Leeds. Academic background in German Studies, with experience across teaching, research, and roles inside and outside higher education. Author of How to Turn Your PhD into a Book: A Pocket Guide (Peter Lang, 2024).

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-hilary-potter-1495262b

🦋 Bluesky: @hilarypotterphd.bsky.social

Key themes explored

• The challenge of reconceptualising a PhD beyond its original purpose

• Why turning a PhD into a book is not simply rewriting or revising

• The shift from being supervised to working independently

• Developing authorial agency and recognising expertise

• Creative and tactile approaches to writing (including writing by hand)

• The influence of portfolio careers, teaching, and precarity on academic work

• Writing for different audiences and purposes

Memorable ideas

• A PhD is written to be examined — a book is written to be read

• Distance from your thesis can be essential before returning to it

• Creativity and physical engagement (writing, drawing, mapping ideas) can unlock thinking

• You don’t need permission to be the expert in your own work

• Research careers are rarely linear — and that can be a strength

Related episode

The Art of Saying No: Power, Permission, and Research Culture

This earlier episode explores how agency, confidence, and decision-making are shaped by power, culture, and career stage in research environments — themes that connect closely to this conversation around authorial agency and recognising your expertise.

🔗 Listen here: The Art of Saying No

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Transcript

[00:00:24] Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths: Hello and welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast. I'm your host Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths. In my episodes, I explore different aspects of research culture from doctoral journeys and supervision to coaching identity and what research can become beyond the PhD.

[00:01:00] Hilary Potter: Thank you. And thank you for having me.

[00:01:11] Hilary Potter: Yeah, sure. So, my work at the minute, I'm a project officer and I do various things in that role, including working with PGR directors and PGRS in CERIC. But going back across my sort of work over the years I've been involved in early career, academic related, sort of voluntary roles in my subject area, which is German.

So the, kind of roles that I fell into, I was interested in doing, you know, that just the right thing at the right time. So, I worked as a, the, early career rep. jointly with Corinne Painter at Women in German Studies for a few years. We did that role and I was also involved in what's now called the University Council for Languages.

And feeling like I could turn those experiences into something constructive to help build that kind of community with my peers, and also it was kind of, in that sense, it was a kind of continuity for me when I was jumping between one temporary contract and another, I had these bases that kind of centred me a little bit.

I had a sense of belonging and of course all of that was really enjoyable, useful as well. But like, being part of that was just a really wholesome thing. to be in and indirectly then that sort of fed into, into the book in many ways, which I'm sure we can kind of talk about in a bit more detail as we go through the podcast.

But that's how I got into it. And then the book comes about, as we'll talk about is a mixture of something that I've been thinking about for quite a long time and an opportunity that arose, and I jumped on it.

And I could see that that was a key driver for you there. What makes turning your PhD into a book particularly challenging? For example, in comparison to writing a book based on a new project.

You're really proud of what you've done. It's really exciting. But the thought of, certainly from my point of view, the thought of turning it into a book, I just can't look at it. So, I put off writing my, turning my PhD into a book, not for very long in the end, but I needed space from it because, you know, whether you have a straightforward journey or, non straightforward journey, it's an immense sort of cognitive, but also emotional investment.

So suddenly you've got that sense of being on your own. And that can be quite overwhelming or just difficult to navigate because you're used to people checking your work and basically going, it's okay. And you can still do that. You have peer networks, but it's just a change that takes a while to adapt and get used to.

And of course that links into the kind of, the point of origin of what is later your book. It starts as your PhD, which is kind of, you know, it, it's written for a purpose. It's written for the, you know, obtaining a, a doctoral degree. And it's a high stakes undertaking, if you like. At least it feels like that at certain points.

We considered how to rewrite your PhD or How to revise your PhD. And I said it doesn't quite capture it because rewriting its. It's more than doing that because you are writing it essentially. Again, it is like the basis data for a book, but you're writing it for different people and for different purposes.

You're no longer writing to be examined to say, you have achieved this level and you can be awarded this degree. You are writing it to share that knowledge, to disseminate it. You've got different audiences within the one, book, but at the back of your mind, you do remember everything that went into writing.

[00:06:18] Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths: Yeah. I can absolutely relate to that. I mean, it's 20 years ago or so since, = I started my PhD anyway, and I certainly remember finishing my thesis and thinking, Nope, I don't want to look at you again. And it was quite painful to go back and look at it in preparation for the viva because it, like you said, it's such a huge undertaking and there is that pressure, that pressure to feel like you need to perform and get it right, to get your PhD essentially.

[00:07:03] Hilary Potter: Yeah, definitely. You are aware of all the things that are put on you to, like, there's the pressure to publish, but it's a case of publishing either publishing quickly or publishing well, and I think if you. If you run into it too soon, and that's going be how soon too, is too soon is going be different for everyone, then I think you are going make it harder for yourself.

And I did. So, my Viva was in the January, it was all signed off by the March. I saw my now editor yeah, I think in the April at a conference and said I'd put in a book proposal, but I sat on it for a few months before I did anything. Because again, I just couldn't bring myself to it. And then I, I really felt like I wanted to do it.

So, there was quite a long road in from there, from, you know, the first year of having that contract signed, I didn't get very far at all. but that actually is quite a good thing because it just needed time.

And I guess you maybe didn't know what it was going to look like initially, would you say that took a little bit of time to

So there are lots of other things going on and I kept sort of going back to the book, but my head was so full of my new job and then went, what's going to, whether I was going to get the next contract, that it was hard to sort of sit down and really focus on the book and what it looked like. So, I, I let it, and this is what I learned to do, is let those ideas just percolate in your mind for a while. You don't have to be physically writing [00:09:00] all the time. And it'll, it'll work its way out when you're ready to write it.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

You know when you are like, I want to do something, I don’t quite know what it should be. And at the time I had my own website, and I'd started a blog on that topic and not got very far with it. Life took over and I left it. Then I was working on a project at the University of York. The team was then called NCELP, and it was to do with creating resources, so research informed resources for the what is now live [00:10:00] modern languages. GCSE. So, I was working on German section with Emma Marsden and Rachel Hawkes and their team. And so that kind of creating resources idea was just uppermost in my mind because it's what I'd been doing. Then the government tender ran out and wasn't renewed.

So, I was suddenly redundant and a little bit frustrated, to say the least. But at the same time, just this timing would have it, I was writing a blog post for Peter Lang, my publisher on my monograph. Just, there was an anniversary coming up, so I'd written a blog post about it and I was having an email exchange with, with Laurel, my editor, and she just, you know, it was, it was one of those moments where she just said, oh, how are you?

Perfectly, normal, everyday question. We ask it multiple times a day and I very automatic or almost automatically went to say, oh, I'm fine. And I just thought, stop yourself. You are really fed up. You've known Laurel for years. Just say honestly, you know, she's asked how you are. Give her an honest answer.

And I was instantly like. Yes. So that got it going and because I think, activities, resource teaching was so in my mind I just sort of had this light bulb moment where I thought, this is how I want to do it. It's got to be kind of like a map, you map your way through or you, you know, take, follow a journey and it's got to have activities.

It's got to be creative, it's got to be slightly different from the actual act of sitting down and, and writing. And it's got to be creative and have a lot of variety in it. And, and my mind was just buzzing, so I didn't know all of the activities that I wanted to do, but I suddenly just thought, this is how I do it.

So, there's really early versions in here, with all my thinking, with sort of like little, you know, pop out boxes and just ideas just shooting off from all of that. And, that kind of got me thinking about how to do it and, and just also writing by hand, that, it's something that I like to do.

It might seem quite a slow way of doing things, but it, I find for me, it really works. It's that. Sort of idea of the, of the tactile. So that's, that all fed into it. And that's also then fed into the book as well because some of the activities, you know, there it is intended that you can write in the book and there are activities that you can do, you know, that, that require you to do something physical.

[00:13:03] Hilary Potter: Yeah, sure. To go back to kind of my German background, there's a sort of a saying in German that it goes ‘from the hand to the head’ that you know, and I find that's very much the case with me. There's nothing that stifles my thinking more than a kind of a blank word document with the cursor just pinging at me.

I don't have to kind of search. What did I, what did I file that under? What was the folder name? Where is it? I can just open, open the book. And I wanted that to kind of come out in the activities because I said, free up your thinking. So, we've got activities in here, which they're designed to make, help you, but also be kind of creative and fun.

So, step six, for example, there's quite a few activities in there and I want you to kind of think about your reader. So, I ask you to draw an imagined reader. I'm not, I'm not artistically gifted in that way. So, it is a stick person. and I'm so, so I don't ask you to do anything that I'm not capable of doing myself.

And you, kind of, you write your imaginary reader. So, for example, as an academic in my field, and you then put like the thoughts about what, what they're going to want from your book, what, what are they're not going to want. And you start to imagining your reader. So, you're doing it in a in a creative way.

So, you kind of find ways to swerve the problem. And rather than just sitting and talking about it or writing or just worrying about it, it's giving you something physical to get that out of your system and think, actually I can see it another way.

But I'd never look back to my main lab book. I'd always [00:16:00] have that picture in my head. I was like, I know it's written on that page. And so, I knew exactly where to go back for it. And it's almost that because I was in that moment, the thoughts in that moment were recorded, you know, because of that kind of connection I had with them. So it's, it's really interesting hearing you talking about in slightly different, different way, but essentially the same.

And so it, it went, you know, with me and if we were out somewhere going for a coffee or something, I thought, I've got an idea. I just, I can just capture it straight away and thinking about it, actually, I used to do something similar when I was writing up my PhD. I was in those final months where I was sort writing intensely.

so that I didn't, so I think I was worried about losing that thought. Like you say, it's like when you've got it in your mind's eyes, like that's where it is. So, I'm all for the tactile and, and nice stationary.

Brilliant. So, can you just expand a little bit on your approach in your book and, and the rationale behind it as well?

Which again, if we think about that kind of challenge thing, that recognising that you are the expert is something that takes time to embed in the way you think about your work and by putting you in the decision, you make the decisions. That's that key in the approach. So, I guide you, and it's called, it's called a guide, but I'm not didactic at [00:18:00] any point I point you in the right direction, but the decisions are all yours. So, when I'm proposing an activity. You know, it is your choice whether you do all of them, it's your choice how you do them. There are 30 steps in this book, and you can do all of them. You can do some of them, you can do them. There's a, the order is a suggested order that had to be an order to it, but you can, choose and you might say, you know, that's not relevant for me. I'm not going to bother with that. Or you might go back to a step more often. It's all your choice. You have the power to make those decisions about how you turn your PhD into book, what you use, what you, what you don't use, and then that will come across in your writing. That confidence will come through.

It's not just a randomly thrown in activity to make it an even number. There's thought behind everything. And so, you are then learning from me, not just about turning your PhD into a book, but the approach of why I'm asking you to do something that it's, that it has come from a strong foundation.

[00:19:38] Hilary Potter: I think it does. I think it gives you that sense of legitimacy, sort of, you know, we talk about imposter syndrome and I think I did feel, well, I know I did feel that for quite a while, but that process of even the process of writing my book when I was in an academic post and sharing how things were going, so doing little presentations or talking with my [00:20:00] students and getting them involved in it, it created that sense of, I'm legitimate, I belong in this, this sort of, world. And I gained in confidence and I then, because I felt that, you know, I, I had the agency, I'd written my book. I could go on and do other things, but I could also expand out. I didn't have to do just my thesis topic. I could develop as a researcher, and I had the confidence to do that and to say, yeah, I can, I am an expert. I can develop expertise in in a new subject area, for example, and I can drive things forward. You know, it might all just be self-perception of how you feel you are perceived, but I think it definitely helps to anchor you into, into the, into sort of higher education. I'm feeling that that's your, your natural home.

[00:21:06] Hilary Potter: It does, and I think, you know, you're talking about careers, even if it's, if you're doing your turn, your PhD into a book, you are outside of higher education. It showcases what you can do and your skillset, whichever, direction you go in. It gives you different skills that lend themselves to all kinds of, all kinds of different jobs.

[00:21:39] Hilary Potter: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:47] Hilary Potter: Yeah, I can. I'd say my portfolio career actually started before my PhD or during my PhD because I did a, I did, I didn't have full funding, so I worked alongside, and actually I [00:22:00] think that whole portfolio career thing has been a massive advantage in sort of the way I sort of view things.

So, one of the jobs that I did while I was still a PhD student, actually was as a translation project manager in a, in a little translation agency. They, they're Yorkshire based, they're called Synergy Language Services. So, Sabina, Kerry, if you're listening, hello, thanks for giving me that job. And so that was an early kind of influence and I've got a section in the book that is on translation and because not all people who use this book will need to translate some of their work, but I did because obviously my background is in German studies, but I don't assume that my readers speak German. So having that industry knowledge plus translation is something that I taught quite a lot. All that is distilled down into one section of the book. My teaching background obviously is a, is a massive influence on the book in terms of the research design.

So, in that section where I talked about like swerving challenges, it's like, well actually how can you use that? So, you're spending lots of time teaching. You're not working on your writing. Well actually one of those solutions is all the while you are teaching, you are learning, you are getting to know some of your potential readers.

So, you are thinking about how your book will be useful for them. And then there's the more sort of practical elements. The, very first qualification I had was in TEFL in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. And that's an influence in kind of the, again, thinking about activities structure, of book formatting.

It's not, again, just random, but it all comes from that different, there's different bits of my career and also that being precariously employed for. I don't wanna know how many years it was precariously employed. Don't wanna think about it. But that experience is also valuable because I'm thinking about my reader now and they're going through those experiences and I know how challenging that is, but I also know how you can mine it for useful information.

So, using that precarity, that's always those activities of, kind of just moving home and settling down how that's, I find it tedious, but then that drives me to when I do get time to sit down and write, to write. So, it's using all those experiences and just being reassuring as well. Just saying, you know, like, it's okay.

[00:25:07] Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths: I like that. I like to hear that you've, you know, it's not just the, the opportunities that you've grabbed onto, but also the challenges and how you've then used those challenges to help drive you as well and to help pull it all together.

I think it's really for our listeners for, you know, particularly, you know, people who are maybe in the final stages of their PhDs who don't know what to do, what, what's gonna happen next, and the precarity around funding and these kind of next steps potentially in academia and beyond. Just to hear that it's okay, things aren't linear, and there might be challenges and stepping stones. Even in those so small stepping stones, you'll learn so much, you know, in a different night that could then, like you say, and that's come together for you, that you've learned different things at diff each different stage that's kind of married it all together. So it's really nice to hear your story and I'm sure it'd be really empowering for others who are in the similar situation.

So, what would you say to early career researchers who are trying to build something meaningful while also navigating that uncertainty?

The second thing is, I would say be kind to yourself in every sense, and that also that includes saying yes to things that you want to do, but it also includes saying no if something [00:27:00] isn't right. You know, I think early on, and this is, if I could go back and tell myself this, it would be you don't have to run after every job because there are fewer jobs in your field.

Sometimes saying no is the best thing that's, that's for you. You know, I chased lots of jobs early on and, then I got more selective, even if it meant I wasn't going to work in that field for a while or at all because it's, it is about having that balance. It's a work-life balance. And there are points where I just said, no, that's not for me.

Likewise, you know, you don't have to say yes to every opportunity at work. You can say no to things. That's really, you could do. I think when you do something, it's got to have value for you. Otherwise, it just becomes a negative and you, you're not comfortable with what you, with what you're doing.

And I'd, I'd got the four that I'd, that I'd put in for. So, I was quite surprised. And I mentioned it to my line manager at the time, who'd turned around and basically said, well, you can't do them all. You have to drop, or at least one of them. And I was like, why? sort of shocked. I was really sort of almost speechless and it was, uh, you know, it was basically, you know, you've got too much on, and I just thought, no.

I walked away from the meeting, and I thought, I'm not having a conflict, but I don't agree. And I thought, I'm just going to do it anyway. I thought, I know, I know what I'm capable of. And so, to the listeners, you know what you are capable of. Someone might say no, but that doesn't mean that you have to do it.

And I did those, but I just felt that I had to follow my gut. And that's, that's always proven to me to be the right way to go about things. I remember way back in the days of being at secondary school, one of our teachers said to us, you'll regret more in life the things that you don't do than the things that you do.

So, basically, go forth and do what you want. And that's, that's kind of always stuck with me really.

And you know, does this feel uncomfortable for me to say, you know, why am I saying yes? And almost really kind of thinking about what that looks like, you know, for you and you moving forward. yeah. Powerful thing to bring forward to think.

[00:30:18] Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths: So, thank you. So Hilary, thank you. There's so much that you've shared there.

I really enjoyed our conversation today. You know, particularly things around agency creativity and that you've brought into, into that book. It's, it sounds really thoughtful, and also that kind of really thinking differently about what a PhD can become beyond that thesis. Um, so thank you so much for everything that you shared today.

I think it's been a really thoughtful conversation.

[00:30:45] Heledd Jarosz-Griffiths: And just thank you to, uh, our listeners for listening to our research culture covered podcast. Uh, I really hope that you've enjoyed this episode and do share it with others who might find it useful. Uh, there'll be links and additional information which will be [00:31:00] included in the show notes.

So do take a look and thank you and goodbye.

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