We recently reached out to some of our authors to hear about their experience in writing their book, advice they’d like to share with any of you considering writing a book and crucially, would they do it again?
First in our series of profiles is Claudia Tanja Mierke. Claudia is Head of the Department of Biological Physics at the Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics at Leipzig University. Her primary research areas are cell biophysics and cell mechanics, adhesion, motility (invasion) in biomimetic matrices, cancer and inflammation, cancer metastasis and tumor micro environment mechanics. She has published over 150 refereed journal articles, books and book chapters largely dealing with soft matter physics and the physics of cancer. Over the past 18 years, Claudia had taught courses in biophysics, soft matter physics, cell biology for physicists and cellular biophysics, to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Claudia has published four books with IOP ebooks, Physics of Cancer and Physics of Cancer, volumes 1-3 all published in partnership with the Biophysical Society, with her 5th and 6th titles due to publish later this year.
- Why did you pick IOP ebooks as a publisher for your book?
In 2013, I had lead-organized a small International Physics of Cancer Congress for the second time. IOP then asked me to write a book for the new ebooks section at IOP on the oncology orientation of physics. I was immediately bright-eyed and very honored to be asked to do so at such an early stage in my career. Of course, I immediately agreed, even though I had never done anything like this before. IOP is exemplary as a publisher of ebooks and I would recommend them again anytime. I have since written a total of 4 volumes of my Physics of Cancer series and plan to write many more. All will of course be published by IOP and in cooperation with the Biophysical Society.
- How did you find the experience of working with the ebooks team?
The collaboration has always been very pleasant, fully supportive (helpful) and fast, which is really unique. All my ideas and wishes could be fully implemented. The promotion of my books by IOP is fantastic, like the free availability of the first two volumes of my Physics of Cancer ebook series on World Cancer Day. It is only a pity that I could not see the IOP ebook booth at any conference, as no funds for business trips are provided by Leipzig University.
- What was the most challenging part of writing your book?
The biggest challenge in writing all of my books is, and has been, staying on schedule. With all of my books, I’ve often had to adjust it at the end because I could only write them in my spare time, which added significantly to the workload. Some chapters are harder to write than others, so it’s important to start with a medium or even light chapter. The references should already be inserted completely when writing, otherwise it costs a lot of time to search them out again afterwards.
- What advice would you give to anyone thinking of writing a book?
When I have an idea for a book, I immediately write it down and completely plan out the content of the chapters. Of course, I make sure that such a book does not already exist. You should start writing books right away and not put it off until later.
- Would you recommend IOP ebooks to any new author?
I can recommend IOP ebooks to all my colleagues anytime. Nowhere is it so easy to write the book pages, IOP takes care of the formatting completely. There are very few formal things to take care of, such as the form of the table of contents and the naming of the files. Likewise, proofreading and inserting changes is very convenient and goes much faster here than with any other publisher where I have written book chapters or books so far.