First, the dissertation must be revised considerably so that it resembles a book rather than a dissertation. This may involve discarding a good bit of the scholarly apparatus (footnotes, appendices, etc.), and incorporating notes into the text. This may involve eliminating some chapters, and writing new ones. This will almost certainly involve reframing the central argument to something a bit more accessible to a general reading public (rather than a scholarly audience). This will also almost definitely involve reframing each chapter in some way.

Then begin the process by thinking about publishers in your specific field of study that might be interested in a work on your topic. Visit their websites and consult their guidelines for manuscript submission.

Then, write letters of inquiry to one or two publishers, containing a brief description of your book. Wait for a reply. If one is interested, then submit the complete manuscript. If not, submit more letters of inquiry to other publishers.

That’s pretty much it!

In the sciences however, it is very common to take published papers and stack them into chapters for a thesis. Mine for example (assuming I ever finish) will be:

Published Review

Published scientific paper 1

Published scientific paper 2

Published scientific paper 3

Conclusions chapter I wrote up to tie it all together

So most of it will have been published, but not all together.

Did that make any sense?