Why I love blogging and creating videos

Fifth of nine posts based on my webinar for Georgia State University's CIBER - Interview by Tamer Cavusgil

I started my blog on “all things academia” in March 2016, posting mainly in the areas: academia behind the scenesacademic etiquetteconference reports, classic papers or books, my own researchpublish or perish tips, and positive academia. I generally blog weekly, and my blog now has nearly 450 posts, more than I ever imagined when I started eight years ago. I had a few key reasons for starting a blog.

  • First, I felt it would be a good way to share the experience that I had built up in academia with a wider audience than just my colleagues and my own network.
  • Second, I found that I really enjoyed blogging as it allows you to write something with real impact for a large audience in just a few hours.
  • Third, it really helps me in my job as Staff Development Lead at Middlesex, and as a research mentor more widely. Whenever I receive a question from a mentee that reflects a wider concern, I simply write it up as a blogpost. That way I can refer other mentees to it, rather than having to reinvent the wheel every time.

In 2018 I also started to write up multi-part blogpost series on for instance:

And remember, anyone can start a blog or blog as a guest blogger on an existing blog. I have had about three dozen of my colleagues, co-authors, mentees and CYGNA members blogging on my blog. You can blog about your own research too; it is a great way to reach a broader audience, and it may even increase citations to your work. It is ideal to reach out to a non-academic audience, but even academics like research blogposts as it allows them to get an overview of someone’s research quickly.

Why did you self-publish your career guides?

Well back in 2009, when I was looking for a way to make guidance for using the Publish or Perish software more accessible, I stumbled upon CreateSpace (now Amazon Kindle Direct publishing). This offered the opportunity to self-publish books and make them available for a reasonable price, whilst maintaining the flexibility of updating the books on a regular basis.

I therefore published two books providing guidance for the Publish or Perish software in 2010 and 2016. In August 2023, I published what I think will be the last and definitive guide for the Publish or Perish software.

In 2022, I also adapted my four multi-part blogpost series and self-published them as paperback, hardcover, and Kindle books in the series Crafting your career in academia. I designed my own covers by converting relevant pictures through PowerPoint’s artistic effects. I am quite proud of the result 😊.

Books are reasonably priced to make them accessible for individual academics, as well as universities who would like to bulk-buy books for their staff members. However, for those for whom this price is still a barrier, similar information can always be accessed for free from my blog. Here is a flyer with details for all five of the books that you can send to your Research Deans or University librarian. 

Aug 2022:

Only
 £5.95...
Nov 2022:

Only
 £5.95...
Feb 2023:

Only
 £5.95...
May 2023:

Only
 £5.95...
August 2023:

Only
 £9.99...

YouTube channel

During the first year of the pandemic, I discovered I loved video recording and editing. So, I did a lot of that and opened my own YouTube channel Harzing Academic Resources. It now includes more than 200 videos on topics such as:

Opening a YouTube channel couldn't be easier. So if you think you might enjoy sharing videos too, give it a go. If you don't like or are not satisfied with the results, you can always stop. But I can really recommend you to try.

Other posts in this series

Related pages