If you’re writing an academic book, at some point, you’re going to have to ask for feedback. Feedback is invaluable. It can help you have an aha moment or point you in a direction that you would have never considered on your own. Yet, for many reasons, academics hesitate to seek feedback on their books. In today’s episode, I am going to remind you of why feedback is so important and how you can go about asking for it. Let’s get into it.

Welcome to Academic Book Writing Simplified. I’m your host, Jane Joanne Jones, a writing coach and developmental editor who’s here to give you some tough love about the way you write. This podcast is for women and non-binary scholars in academia who are writing academic books but feel as if the process is a little or a lot like a mystery. If you’re ready to trade your confusion and frustration for ease, clarity, and purpose, you’re in the right place. Let’s head into today’s episode.

Hello, hello, and welcome to Academic Book Writing Simplified! I’m your host, Jane Joanne Jones. I really hope you’re doing well today. As of the time of this recording in March 2025, it’s a really hard time for academics in the United States. I think one of the antidotes to what academics are experiencing right now is joining together in community. And one straightforward way for academics to create community is through sharing their work. That’s what I’m going to focus on today—seeking feedback for your work.

Now, I know that some listeners are going to hear the word feedback and immediately tighten their shoulders, grit their teeth, and feel a bit sick to their stomach. That’s because sometimes feedback can be unnecessarily mean or unproductive. I remember a workshop I participated in during grad school where some guy said to me, “I haven’t read your work, but based on the title, I have some opinions about it.” Okay, dude. You’re just trying to show off here and make some type of name for yourself in our grad school workshop. But yeah, tell me everything you think.

I know that’s a real risk when you get feedback—some people make it about themselves and give you advice that gets you nowhere. But we’re not going to talk about that kind of feedback. We’re not going to talk about bad-faith feedback. We’re going to discuss how to seek feedback that is actually useful.

What Do I Mean by Useful Feedback?

Useful feedback helps you sharpen your work, learn how to accept critique without beating yourself up, and helps you build relationships. Let’s get into each of these benefits.

Sharpening Your Work

One of the best ways to explore an idea is to talk about it. That’s why people present their work at conferences, roundtables, and workshops—because it gives them an opportunity to be in conversation about their ideas. As academics, we know from history that genius is not cultivated in isolation. Your work gets better when you can clearly explain it and persuasively defend it. And you can only do that when people talk to you about it.

Learning How to Accept Critique

It’s hard to hear that your writing misses the mark. It’s easy to take feedback personally. But when you build the habit of seeking constructive feedback—especially when that feedback feels intense—you practice putting some distance between you and your work. If you want to have a career as a person who shares ideas, it’s important to not personalize everything people say about your writing. Otherwise, you’ll be in a constant state of stress and anxiety, worrying that you as a person are doing something wrong simply because someone reacts critically to your work.

These two benefits are important because they guarantee that the first time you deal with critique or challenges to your ideas will not be at the point of peer review. You want to make sure that you learn how to accept critique and defend your ideas before you reach formal peer review for your academic book manuscript. The last thing you want is for peer review to be the first time you engage with criticism, especially from readers unfamiliar with your work.

Building Relationships

When you ask someone to read your work—and when you offer to read someone else’s work in return—you’re creating trust. It’s vulnerable to share your work, so reaching out to somebody is a sign of trust and respect.

It’s hard to ask someone to read your work. We talked about how it can be nerve-wracking to sharpen your arguments and engage with critique, but asking for feedback also builds your intellectual community. We want to be in conversation with people who care about the same things we care about in our scholarship. To engage those people, we have to show some vulnerability—ask for their feedback and be willing to offer ours.

That’s how we build relationships in academia—by writing together, co-authoring, organizing events, reading each other’s work, and reacting to each other’s ideas. Asking for feedback is a fundamental part of this process.

Common Hesitations to Seeking Feedback

Many academics hesitate to seek feedback. Some of the most common concerns include:

• Thinking that everyone is too busy to read your work.
• Worrying that your work isn’t good enough.

These two concerns are related. If you’re worried that people are too busy, you’ll likely also worry about wasting their time with what you perceive as bad writing. You might think, “If I’m going to ask somebody, I need to give them the absolute best version of my writing so they don’t waste their time on my rough draft.” But writing goes through different stages, and rough work is part of the process.

Another hesitation might be that you don’t have a system for getting your writing done. If you don’t have structured deadlines, it might feel impossible to commit to sending work to a colleague or mentor.

How to Overcome These Hesitations

In my coaching and developmental editing program, Elevate, we solve for these issues by creating a low-stakes environment where feedback is expected and structured. Our editor reads work-in-progress pieces in a judgment-free zone. We create deadlines early so you submit before you feel ready. This is intentional—not to rush you, but to fend off perfectionism that delays submission.

While you may not be able to recreate the full Elevate experience, you can implement some strategies:

1. Create a low-stakes environment for feedback. Get a writing partner and agree to exchange rough work. Or, start a lunch group in your department where people just talk about their work—no written submissions required.
2. Enforce a self-imposed deadline. Use conference presentations or workshops as external deadlines. If you need more ideas, check out episode 14: How to Create a Consistent Writing Practice.
3. Identify three people to ask for feedback. Pick two people you already know and one new person. Make a plan to approach them. If you’re worried about idea theft, start with people you trust and build your network thoughtfully.

Wrapping Up

Today, we discussed why feedback is so important, why you might hesitate to ask for it, and how you can overcome those hesitations. Seeking feedback might feel hard at first, but it gets easier. And you will quickly realize how valuable it can be.

As always, thank you for listening—especially today, since we went a little past time! I hope it was worth it for you. Take good care, and I’ll see you in the next episode.Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode! Remember, writing an academic book is challenging, but that doesn’t mean you have to overcomplicate it. If you liked what you heard, please leave a review. This helps get the word out about the podcast so more people can listen, and we can continue the conversation. Take care, and tune in for our next episode!