Should junior scholars write trade books?

Question:

“John, so much of your content seems heavily geared towards senior scholars who want to pivot to writing for trade during the latter half of their careers. But what if I’m a relatively new assistant professor on the tenure track? Or a VAP? Or post-doc? Or (heaven forbid) even a graduate student? Would it be completely insane for me to publish a trade book? Is it going to kill my academic career? Or maybe open up a whole other kind of career I had never imagined?”

Answer:

What a great question. And I’ll be honest, it’s one I get at almost every single workshop and retreat that I do. And as always, the answer isn’t a simple yes or no.

So let’s dig in.

Junior scholars have long been cautioned against writing trade books too early. The reasoning is straightforward. Hiring, tenure and promotion decisions are still overwhelmingly driven by peer-reviewed scholarship. A first book, in particular, is expected to demonstrate methodological rigor, engagement with the field and clear positioning within an academic discourse.

A trade book, by contrast, is not written for specialists. It typically dispenses with jargon, minimizes literature review and prioritizes narrative and accessibility over disciplinary signaling.

In the eyes of some committees, that can raise doubts. Is the work sufficiently “serious”? Does it demonstrate the candidate’s ability to contribute to the field?

Those concerns are not entirely misplaced. In certain departments and subfields, especially more traditional ones, a trade book alone may not carry the weight of a university press monograph. Ignoring that reality would be naïve.

But treating it as the end of the conversation would also be a mistake.

And there are several reasons why….

The landscape has already changed

What the traditional advice often fails to account for is how much the world of academic work has shifted.

University presses are under financial pressure. Monograph sales are declining. Meanwhile, there is growing institutional interest in public engagement, impact and visibility. These are no longer peripheral concerns. They increasingly shape funding decisions, hiring priorities and the broader narrative around what scholarship is for.

At the same time, the boundary between scholarly and public writing has become more porous. Many of the most influential voices in the humanities and social sciences today move fluidly between academic and trade audiences. They publish op-eds, appear on podcasts and write books that reach well beyond their disciplinary peers.

In that context, a well-conceived trade book is not necessarily a distraction from an academic career. It can be an extension of it.

The key phrase there is well-conceived.

The real question is not “should you?” but “what are you building?”

The mistake many junior scholars make is treating the trade book as an alternative to academic work rather than as part of a larger intellectual trajectory.

A strong trade book is not simply a simplified version of your research. It is a reframing of a central idea in a way that makes it legible and compelling to a broader audience. Done properly, it clarifies your argument, sharpens your voice and often deepens your understanding of your own material.

In other words, the process itself can make you a better scholar.

But that only holds if the project is anchored in genuine expertise. A trade book untethered from a solid base of research is unlikely to succeed, either commercially or intellectually. And from a career standpoint, it risks leaving you without the scholarly foundation that institutions still expect.

This is true whether you’re a junior scholar or a senior professor with an endowed chair.

So the more useful question is this:

Can you articulate a project that works on both levels? One that satisfies the demands of your field while also speaking to a broader audience?

If the answer is yes, the trade book becomes far less risky.

Timing, strategy and positioning

None of this means that timing is irrelevant. It matters a great deal.

In some cases, the most prudent path is to publish a traditional first book and then pivot toward a trade audience with a second project. This approach establishes credibility within the academy while creating space to experiment later.

In other cases, particularly for scholars working on topics with clear public resonance, a hybrid approach is possible from the outset. A book can be rigorously researched and grounded in scholarship while still being written in an accessible, narrative-driven style. Increasingly, some university presses and even trade publishers are open to this kind of work.

But making that path viable requires intentional positioning. It means being able to explain, clearly and confidently, how your work contributes both to your field and to a broader conversation. It also means understanding how to signal seriousness without reverting to the conventions that make academic writing opaque to non-specialists.

That is not something most doctoral programs teach.

The hidden upside

There is another dimension to this conversation that is often overlooked.

Writing for a broader audience forces clarity. It exposes weak arguments, unnecessary complexity and the habits of obscurity that academic training can sometimes encourage. It demands that you answer a simple but profound question: why does this matter?

For scholars who take that challenge seriously, the result is often transformative. Not just in terms of audience reach, but in terms of intellectual confidence.

And, practically speaking, it can open doors. Media opportunities, speaking engagements, cross-disciplinary collaborations and even new streams of income. None of these should be the primary motivation. But they are real, and they increasingly shape what it means to have a visible academic career.

The unexpected advantage

There is also a quieter, less frequently discussed dynamic at play on the publishing side.

Agents and editors are not only evaluating ideas. They are also thinking in terms of trajectories. When they encounter a compelling project from a junior scholar, they sometimes see not just a single book, but the beginning of a longer arc. There is a certain excitement in discovering a new voice early, in helping shape a career—and in building a relationship that can extend across multiple books.

That does not mean senior scholars are at a disadvantage. Far from it. Experience, authority and a developed body of work remain enormously valuable, and in many cases decisive. But there are moments when a fresh perspective, still in formation and not yet fully settled into established patterns, can feel especially dynamic and appealing.

For a junior scholar with a strong idea and a clear voice, that can translate into real enthusiasm on the publishing side. It is not a guarantee of success, but it does complicate the assumption that youth is always a liability in this space.

A more nuanced answer

So, should junior scholars write trade books?

They should, if they are doing so from a position of genuine expertise, with a clear sense of how the project fits into their broader intellectual trajectory, and with an awareness of the institutional context in which they are operating.

They should be cautious of doing it as a shortcut, or as a way of bypassing the expectations of their field. That path rarely ends well.

But they should not be dissuaded by outdated assumptions about what “counts”. The reality is more fluid than that.

The scholars who will thrive in the coming years are not those who choose between academic and public writing. They are the ones who learn how to do both, and who understand how each can strengthen the other.

The question, then, is not whether you are “allowed” to write a trade book.

It is whether you are ready to write one that actually matters.