I wrote my first book! Journal Like a Philosopher is submitted once more.
It took me about a year to get 62k words down into the final manuscript for submission to my publisher. It needed a lot of work. I wasn’t used to writing for trade publication and there were all sorts of conventions that I stepped all over.
My editor was out on paternity leave when I first submitted the manuscript so two of his colleagues read over my first two chapters and gave me notes. Then my editor gave the two a look later and added his notes too. They passed it back with lots of helpful instructions.
Turns out, my first two chapters were just awful. I added way too much on the philosophy side of things and there were large chunks that had no business being in a book on philosophical notebook habits. So I took a machete to those chapters and then went through the rest of the manuscript and re-wrote lots and lots of it.
All in all, I ended up cutting at least 8,600 words and writing at least 3 to 4k words back in to bring the final manuscript down to 50k words. That may seem like a huge headache but I actually loved the process. Having an editor give you honest feedback and show you what they’re looking for is a breath of fresh air. I’ve received lots of feedback on my academic work, like journal articles, academic book chapters, and papers for class, but I haven’t received critical feedback on my popular-level philosophy stuff before this, so I ate it up. There are so many things you just miss when you’re writing on your own on your blog (I use far too many transitionary words but that comes from writing philosophy so it makes sense).
The manuscript is far better now! I’m sure my editor will have some more edits for me but now we’re back on track to publish the thing in August 2027. I cannot wait.
In the meantime, while you wait, you can check out this in-depth overview video I just shot on the book. I go over the major themes from each chapter and give lots of behind the scenes details on why and how I chose the whos and whats of each chapter.
A huge thank you to all of my paid subscribers who helped make this possible. I wrote a ton of the book in initial drafts/posts here in my Notebook Philosophy section for my paid subscribers to read over and give feedback. The final chapters are much different than those drafts but my paid subscribers have been able to follow along the journey with me as I write. This has been really fun and it’s helped me stay on track. I’m planning to do the same thing for my next book, The Productive Mind. So, look out for those posts starting soon.
If you want to support my work and get access to exclusive content like this video overview of JLAP, upgrade to a paid subscription today.
