I recently came across this advice about publishing for early career scholars. It comes from a conference last year organised by the Institute of Classical Studies in London. Although written with Classical scholars in mind, much of what is said can be helpful to early career Biblical scholars as well.

The presentations offer advice on all forms of publishing, but two points stood out to me. First, many of the contributors said that they began by writing book reviews. This is indeed a good way to get started, and there are many good practical reasons to do book reviews (you get to keep that CUP book that costs $150!). But it must be remembered that book reviews don’t carry much weight on a CV. You should decide early on how to balance time between writing reviews and researching and writing for journal articles and books. If you are going to write reviews, one way to get a balance is to review books that are directly related to what you are researching.

The second point that stood out was the advice to edit a volume. I have just recently completed editing a massive volume (630 pages) and I can say that this has pros and cons. I spent a lot of time working on it, especially since I had to typeset it as well. And the indexing took forever. But the payoff has been worth it. I have had the chance to work with some leading NT scholars, and I have learned a lot about the whole process that goes into editing books.

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