Hello everybody,

I am finishing my Ph.D. soon and I am thinking about a PostDoc position.
The idea is that (it will probably sound strange to you) I did a Ph.D. in music composition. Therefore, most of my dissertation will be made in the form of portfolio, and will mainly include musical works.
Meanwhile, I have brought on some theories that are promising enough to give birth to a musicological book.

I am therefore looking for a PostDoc position in order to conclude my theoretical research and have the time to write a book - thing that I can't do during my Ph.D. time.

I would like to ask you if you could tell me how is the copyright working for publishing a book during a PostDoc - had I to find a contract for publishing.

Kind regards,
Luca

If the work is nothing to do with your PhD or postdoc and you do it in your own time, it will be your copyright.

This is actually quite a complicated question I think. It really depends on whether your PhD is considered a publication post-examination and thus copyrighted by the university. In my experience (but does not equate to universal truth) post-docs are meant to build on research ideas, or work on new ones, I don't know if post-docs are given just to allow to write a book from a PhD, I've known people who tried to submit post-doc applications like that and get knocked down pretty quick. However, those people were just rewriting their PhD, where it sounds like yours would be a new project.

Different countries have different laws relating to PhDs and publications, I know in some countries PhDs are automatically considered publications, while in others, unless you opt to have it published as is as a university e-book, it is not and you can propose it as a proper book because the copyright is yours (but again, this varies across disciplines as well). Australia, or at least Victoria where I am, does not consider PhDs publications (at least humanities/social sciences, can't speak for hard sciences) UNLESS you opt in for the e-book option, which I didn't do and thus allowed me to publish journal articles and secure a book contract based on my PhD research while currently completing a post-doc (on a different topic).

To get a contract for publishing, what worked for me was reaching out to commissioning editors in my discipline at publishing houses with a brief summary of my idea. If interested, they requested some materials from me which I provided, this was then followed by a full and proper book proposal including sample chapters that was sent out for review. Research the presses, see what they produce and be sure to avoid predatory presses. Before contacting a commissioning editor it's a good idea to have written the proposal and have a sample chapter ready.

Thank you all for your replies. It is indeed true that I am thinking about a postdoc to extend my actual research.

When I said that the theoretical output of my Ph.D. is promising, I mean that it is a good framework for future research at Postdoc level.

But I came to experience that to win a scholarship in the humanities, it is worth to have a "dissemination strategy", and mine would be in this case to collect research material into a book-form.

From what I read above, I understand that copyright issues depend on the specific University, but generally: "if the Ph.D. or Postdoc dissertation is considered a publication, the copyright is bound to the University; If not, the copyright is own by the researcher and he/she can forward the content for publishing". Is it right?

So, I would have to check about this with the specific program I apply to.

I heard that the thing works different for researcher associates and lecturers, for example: there, the copyright of all the material published is shared with the University, isn't it?
I believe that Postdocs are considered employees in the UK, so it is a confusing matter.