From Monograph to Market: 5 Mistakes Scholars Make When Trying to Write for a General Audience
...and what to do instead
Over the past few years, I’ve worked with dozens of tenured and tenure-track scholars across the humanities and social sciences who’ve wanted to reach a broader readership — whether through trade books, essays or public talks. The good news? You already have the intellect and the ideas. The hard part? Translating those ideas into something that grips and moves people outside your field.
Here are five common mistakes I see scholars make — and how you can avoid them.
Mistake 1: Burying the story under the argument
Too many scholars start writing with their thesis, not their story. They want to prove a point instead of taking us on a journey.
What to do instead:
Start with scenes. Moments. Anecdotes. Think like a novelist or a journalist: Show us a compelling character in a moment of tension or change, then reveal your deeper insights through that story.
Mistake 2: Over-explaining (or underestimating) your audience
Academics often either dumb things down too much (“This is what the Cold War was…”) or they assume too much prior knowledge (“As Derrida has shown…”).
What to do instead:
Respect your reader’s intelligence and their limits. Think of them as curious, worldly and smart — but not familiar with your field’s jargon. One great trick: write as if you're talking to a well-read friend in a STEM department.
Mistake 3: Writing like an academic trying not to be an academic
This one’s subtle. You can tell when someone’s trying to write “accessibly” — but the prose is still hedgy, overly careful, or weighed down by throat-clearing.
What to do instead:
Be direct. Be bold. Use short sentences. Vary your rhythm. Let your personality come through. Readers want you, not the ghost of Reviewer #2.
Mistake 4: Pitching a topic, not a book
“I'm writing about gender and photography in post-revolutionary Cuba” is a fascinating area of study — but it’s not yet a book pitch that will make a literary agent or trade editor perk up.
What to do instead:
Frame your project around a clear, urgent question or narrative arc. What’s at stake? What changes by the end? What makes this book necessary right now?
Mistake 5: Waiting until the manuscript is done before seeking guidance
Many scholars write hundreds of pages before showing their work to anyone outside their field — only to realize they’ve taken the wrong approach for a general audience.
What to do instead:
Seek feedback early. Work with someone who knows the trade publishing world and understands academia. (That’s what I do, by the way.) A little early course correction can save you months of rewriting.
Final Thought
If you’re serious about writing for the wider world — whether through a trade press, a popular magazine or even a TED talk — it’s not just about simplifying your work. It’s about reframing how you think about storytelling, authority and audience. That’s not easy. But it is learnable. And it’s worth it.