This episode is all about helping academics understand why they have a hard time with self-promotion.
Hello writers!
I hope you are faring as well as possible in the uncertainty of the current moment.
The United States is rapidly veering directly into fascism with tech billionaires at the helm.
As you well know, the government is decimating higher education as a whole and slashing funds for any research that aims to improve peoples’ lives.
Tens of thousands of PhDs researchers in federal agencies have been let go of overnight. Many millions in funding just canceled.
Never the mind the fact that all of this is illegal, but it’s purposefully overwhelming in its scope and scale.
As academics and universities face rapid fire assaults, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless.
I’ve seen a lot of scholars despairing at the state of society. They are understandably having a hard time focusing on their own work.
In response to this, I decided to host a free online workshop with my friend, writing coach Dr. Michelle Boyd.
It’s called “Writing as Resistance: How to Maintain Focus in Chaos and Uncertainty” and will take place from 12-1pm Eastern Time on Friday April 4.
We’re going to give strategies for not allowing the external climate to dictate your work and how to recenter your own purpose as a motivation to get your work done.
I’ll be sending out the sign-up link to my listserve and will include a link on this episode’s page on my website.
But getting back to what I was saying before, what’s been really sad to me is that most regular Americans do not seem to care–or even actively support– what’s happening to research and to higher education.
This is because your average American does not know that scientists and scholars do work that actually benefits THEM on a daily basis.
One of the major issues is a lack of critical thinking skills. I think that many of us didn’t fully develop these skills until college or even beyond.
And the truth is that as of 2022, less than 38% of Americans had earned a college degree.
Meanwhile, with the explosion of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, pretty much anyone can call themselves as expert. Misinformation has gained as much, if not more, influence than actual facts and evidence.
I remember when I was a postdoc at the University of British Columbia in 2010.
In a lecture about social construction, I used the example of the anti-vaccine movement, which was still somewhat in its early stages.
I talked about Andrew Wakefield’s flawed study that falsely linked the MMR vaccine with autism in children.
This study was debunked and ultimately retracted by the prestigious journal that published it. But when celebrities like Jenny McCarthy used it to advocate against all vaccines, the misinformation took on a life of its own.
When I lectured on that topic 15 years ago, I really thought the issue would disappear in a few years.
The fact that we are seeing a resurgence of preventable measles cases in the United States and beyond right now is proof of how hard it is for researchers to counter misinformation.
But as I’m going to talk about on this episode, there are big problems on our side of the fence too.
If you ask the average American who has not attended college about their image of higher education, they will likely draw from a stereotype of the Ivory Tower.
Their mind will probably bring up an image of Harvard or Yale or Stanford, which are truly elite spaces for mostly rich kids who had every opportunity given to them.
They do NOT tend to think about the non-elite spaces that actually comprise the majority of higher education institutions, including four-year regional schools and two-year community colleges.
And in fact, the New York Times editorial board just published an opinion piece called “Colleges Are Under Attack. They Can Fight Back,” in which they write:
“We understand why many Americans don’t trust higher education and feel they have little stake in it.
Elite universities can come off as privileged playgrounds for young people seeking advantages only for themselves.
Less elite schools, including community colleges, often have high dropout rates, leaving their students with the onerous combination of debt and no degree.
Throughout higher education, faculty members can seem out of touch, with political views that skew far to the left.”
These negative assumptions about academia have paved the way for this political administration to sweep in and obliterate knowledge production.
The road to fascism typically starts with the eradication of intellectuals. The goal is to create a society where people can’t think critically, either because they’re so distracted or they don’t have the tools to do so.
A distracted, unthinking population is less likely to challenge being governed by tech billionaires who think they know better than everyone else and are primarily looking to enrich themselves.
Meanwhile, intellectuals are rendered powerless to do anything about it, as we’re seeing with the sweeping federal budget cuts to universities.
And if you want to read more about this, look up the so-called “Dark Enlightenment” philosophy of Curtis Yarvin.
That’s all I will say about this for now because it is a big, scary, deeply disturbing rabbit hole that very much explains where we are right now.
According to the New York Times, academics need to stop being so insular and welcome more debate in the classroom and on campus.
All of this has made clear that research has an image problem. Academia has an image problem. Higher education has an image problem.
These are vast, structural issues long in the making. So what can we do, as individuals, to help?
In this episode, I’m going to propose that more than ever, researchers need to start engaging more with the public and translating the broader implications of their findings into accessible language.
This may go against what many academics think, but I believe researchers have a moral obligation to make sure their insights reach broader audiences.
Because right now, staying silent isn’t neutral.
However, what often holds people back is their struggle with self-promotion.
I’ve been thinking about this topic for quite awhile now and have A LOT to say about it, so I’m splitting this up into two different episodes.
In this one, I’m going to talk about the reasons why I think academics struggle with self-promotion and give some strategies to reframe this narrative so you can give your ideas the visibility they deserve.
In the second installment, I’ll discuss how to share about your work in ways that are meaningful and align with your values and priorities.
In short, how you can self-promote without losing self-respect.
What I’m going to argue is that self-promotion, done in the right ways, is actually academic activism.
Why Self-Promotion is So Hard for Academics
So let me start by telling you what I see as the three main reasons why self-promotion is so difficult for many, if not most, academics.
#1: First, there is a very popular notion that publicly sharing about your work or accomplishments is equivalent to bragging.
By extension, a good academic needs to stay humble (and therefore, quiet) about the awesome things they’re doing.
Here’s an example that I’m sure you’ll relate to: someone in my larger social network just published a book on an important topic years in the making.
They should be so proud. But their social media announcement started with the words, “Forgive the self-promotion.” Like they were sorry about it or something!
I commented, “Congrats! And self-promotion of your work is a great thing. Hope you do much more of it!”
Because I want academics to seize the opportunity to have more public impact and to really own their expertise.
But when academics experience success, it seems like many downplay their accomplishments or try not draw any attention to them whatsoever.
This confuses me.
I know someone who is an incredibly successful academic by mainstream standards. They’ve served as chair of their department at an R-1.
They’ve published tons of articles and multiple books. They’ve won major awards and big grants.
And yet their social media mentions none of it.
I think this individual conflates self-promotion with being egotistical and doesn’t want to seem that way, which is perfectly understandable.
We all know academics who are extremely arrogant, usually because they’re really insecure.
But I think there’s an opportunity that’s lost when you don’t talk about what you do on a daily basis.
I find this paradoxical because so many academics conflate their identity with their work. So to not share about your research means hiding a lot about yourself too.
Honestly, when I was a professor, I used to subscribe to this as well. I would get super embarrassed and very nervous to post on social media about my work and publications.
I compared and contrasted myself a lot with another scholar I knew who it seemed like was ALWAYS shamelessly boasting about their achievements.
For example, when they won a bunch of awards one year, they posted pictures of themselves lying in a bed surrounded by the plaques. It was not a good look.
And I didn’t want anyone to see me in that way.
But then, when my first book was about to be published, I decided to go all out with publicizing it.
My logic was that I didn’t do more than a decade’s worth of arduous research and writing for nothing!
So I hired an RA to create a personal website for me where I could have a page devoted solely to my book.
This is somewhat tangential, but once I had my own website on Squarespace, I just kept adding pages whenever I would do something new.
I had pages devoted to research and teaching, and other ones that were just about coaching when I started my training program in 2018.
It became a place where I could tell people about myself in my own words and in the style of my choosing.
If you don’t have your own website yet, I strongly encourage you to go make one.
Or, if you can, hire a student to make a simple one for you! It’s useful in an endless number of ways.
I also created a Facebook page just for my book and invited people to join, which I’m not sure is really that effective anymore to be honest. But it was a place I could post announcements.
I also threw a book party with four other Asian American women authors in my field at our annual conference, which we all publicized. So there was compounding effects from that.
That experience helped me start to get over my fear of being judged for advertising my work.
Instead, it was a way to let people know I was about to hit this major milestone, and invite them to share in it with me.
Because honestly, when it comes to academic books, most of the marketing is really on your own shoulders.
So let’s move onto the second reason I think academics hate self-promotion: which comes down to the idea that your work should speak for itself.
As in, the quality of the work is all that matters.
Or potentially, there’s the hope that once it’s published, people will somehow find out about it.
Whereas I think the truth is that, even if it’s published in a flagship journal, most folks are not going to know about it unless your school puts out some kind of press release.
Some schools are good about doing this. Mine was not. I essentially forced them to put out statements when my books came out.
Again, if you want people to know about your work, YOU have to talk about it!
I just described how much marketing I did for my first book, which ended up doing very well according to all kinds of metrics.
Then my second book came out in 2021, and I did almost no marketing beyond the bare minimum.
It was the height of the pandemic. I was taking care of a baby full-time. No one was out and about. Plus, I had decided to leave the academy, so I was not putting my efforts into book promotion.
I never did any talks about it. I didn’t throw a book party. I didn’t create a Facebook page. You get the picture. As a result, very few people have read this book!
In fact, I just got my royalty statement from 2024 from Rutgers University Press, and I think I made something like $29 from it all year.
Now, I’ll never know for sure if the lack of engagement with my book came from lack of publicity on my end. But it sure seems correlated!
So, the truth is that you can write the best study ever on an incredibly interesting topic and people won’t find out about it unless YOU tell them. And not just once, but many times.
Finally, the third reason I believe scholars hate promoting their work is that it’s seen as “selling” yourself.
In other words, it can feel gross or even sleazy to talk about what you do.
There are a couple of parts to this. One is the totally false idea that scholarly work, or even higher education in general, is somehow separate from capitalism.
As I talked about in Episode 51 of this podcast, one of the major things that holds folks back from leaving the academy is the idea that the work is more moral or ethical than the for-profit sector.
This is ironic, because at the same time, the very same people are also highly aware and critical of the neoliberal university structure that now dominates.
It reinforces publish or perish culture. It feeds on academics believing that the chance to do work they love overrides the need for boundaries or adequate compensation.
But of course, I wouldn’t be a good sociologist if I put all the responsibility on individuals.
The other big piece of this is that universities don’t reward public engagement—which is one of the biggest axes I have to grind with higher education.
Public engagement—whether it’s in the form of public talks, opinion pieces, appearing on podcasts, writing public-facing books—can be viewed as a distraction from the so-called “real work” of peer-reviewed publications and grants.
As a sidenote, at a lot of elite R-1 schools, prioritizing teaching and service is often viewed in the same negative way.
This is fundamentally counter to the public mission of universities.
If you want to learn more about the shaming of service happens in the academy, check out the great new opinion piece by Dr. Cullen Merritt in Insider Higher Ed on this topic.
Imagine how much more academics would be sharing their work if there was professional incentive to do so!
Because when you know that something that won’t “count” toward career advancement, and there’s a possibility that others will judge you for it, why would you do it?
When I was a faculty member and would get shy about sharing my work, I would think about journalists.
Someone I know was a journalist for many years prior to obtaining a PhD.
Even as a grad student, she would share on social media all the time about her in-process academic work and her findings.
She was also writing short journalistic pieces about her topic throughout her program.
This person did not follow the same rules as other academics because journalists do their work primarily for the sake of a broader audience!
Rewriting the Narrative About Self-Promotion
This all boils down to the need to rewrite this narrative about self-promotion.
You know I’m all about mindset shifts because our thoughts greatly influence our feelings and actions.
There are two big reframes I am advocating for today:
The first is that your work is not about YOU. It’s about helping OTHERS to think or do something differently or better.
In other words, the purpose of self-promotion is not to make yourself look good or to increase your social standing.
It’s about making your expertise available to the people who can benefit from it the most.
I mean, arguably, not talking about what you do because you’re afraid it’s all about you is a more egotistical act than actually sharing it.
Second, self-promotion inspires connection and builds relationships.
So why do I talk about connection so much?
It’s because every single scholar I’ve ever done a core values exercise with has placed relationships and connection high on their list.
And how is connection formed in real life? Through telling people about yourself. Through stories.
Through sharing your thoughts, opinions and ideas on a vast range of topics. Through asking other people what they think.
Through allowing yourself to be known in a three-dimensional way.
Yet, for some reason, that tends to fall completely by the wayside when it comes to writing.
And yes, I am putting all types of writing in the same boat here—ranging from academic writing to posting on social media.
Authentic connections can be formed through sharing your ideas, even when it’s with strangers.
I mean, so many of my podcast guests have come from genuine connections I’ve formed with people on LinkedIn.
And you never know what your writing might inspire or others to do or think.
So, when you shift to thinking about how your work is meant to help others in some capacity, then self-promotion naturally becomes about connection.
So I recommend that you honestly ask yourself the question: who exactly stands to benefit from my research?
Is it policymakers who are shaping new legislation? Is it educators who are designing curriculum?
Is it activists who are organizing to create social change? Is it parents who want to cut the cycle of generational trauma or children on the receiving end of it?
Now, it’s possible that because you’ve been told to focus your attention on filling a scholarly gap, your answer might be, “the other experts in my subfield.”
If this is the case, then I would encourage you to reflect on your larger WHY for doing this work.
No one I know initially started doing research because they wanted to impress other experts in a subfield. I mean, when you’re just starting out, you probably don’t even know what subfields are!
This shifting of priorities happens over time as we’re socialized into a structure where academic incentives conflict with applied societal benefit.
Every new grad student is excited and passionate about their topic.
So I would try to reconnect with that earlier version of you who wasn’t yet scared to death of harsh reviewers because you had no idea they existed.
What did your past self care about the most? What did you initially want to use your research to help or change, and WHY did that inspire you?
Even if you’ve become really cynical and jaded in this profession, I bet that original WHY still does matter to you.
And there are many ways to enact that purpose in more immediate ways than scholarly publications.
Summing Everything Up
I’ve tried to convince you that scholars can play a role in challenging the deeply insidious attack on research and knowledge production that’s happening right now.
The very idea of expertise is now politicized.
Many of us spent years in environments where networking and visibility weren’t emphasized (or were even discouraged).
But today, when research is often locked behind paywalls and distrusted by the general public, getting your ideas out there in accessible ways is more important than ever.
Because higher education is in the crosshairs of this administration, I really see it as our moral obligation to speak up against what’s happening.
And let me just reiterate that I am NOT placing the blame for academia’s negative image or the responsibility for fixing things on individuals.
The system is at fault. But, if we wait for the system to change, we may as well give up.
It’s not a zero-sum game and I strongly believe that we as individuals need to focus on what is actually within our control to try to shift things even just a little bit.
If you take nothing else from this episode, please remember the two mental reframes I offered about self-promotion:
#1: The first is that self-promotion isn’t about you, it’s about helping others who stand to benefit from your work.
#2: The second is that self-promotion is truly about building relationships and connection with other people.
Your ideas have so much value! And people can’t learn from them if they don’t know they exist.
So ultimately, I believe that sharing about your work or even just your informed thoughts and opinions is an important form of academic activism.
So start small. Share one sentence, one insight, one story. The more you do it, the easier it gets.
I’ll go into how to self-promote without losing self-respect in the second part of this short series.
Finally, don’t forget that Michelle Boyd and I will be running a free one-hour workshop on how to maintain focus and keep writing in this chaotic, insecure time on Friday, April 4th.
I’ll be circulating a sign-up link to my listserve and on social media. Hope to see you there!
