Publishing and Authorial Credibility

This blog discusses the notion of authorial credibility, which comes in different forms, depending on who you are and what you write about. The more credibility you have to write about a given issue, the more readily publishers and readers will want to invest time and resources in your book.

By: Oliver Daddow | Published: Mar 03, 2026

Before becoming a true crime writer, I was a university lecturer. I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the University of Oxford in 1992-1995. In 1996 I completed a Masters in International Relations at the University of Nottingham, which included a 10,000-word dissertation about Hitler’s role in making Nazi foreign policy. In 1997-2000 I wrote a PhD on Britain’s often awkward policy towards European integration after 1945, culminating in the rise of British Euroscepticism and the early origins of the political movements that culminated in Brexit. I worked across the fields of international affairs, public policy and communication during a career that took to me speaking all around the world and various UK institutions, starting at King’s College London and ending at the University of Nottingham in 2020. It was a busy career and I enjoyed many elements of lecturing, although I could take or leave the interminable meetings, marking, bureaucracy and rampant egos of many academics. The undoubted highlights of the job were the international conferences, with the opportunity to share ideas with like-minded researchers from all around the world. I was also lucky enough to spend a semester living and researching at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010, as a Visiting Scholar at its Political Science department.

The most fulfilling element of my career was, however, seeing different pieces of writing through to completion, whether as a single author or co-author. I enjoyed the planning, structuring, design, research, the sharing of ideas and critical eyes being cast on my work by patient colleagues. I never understood the academics who found writing a drag, or too painful to see through. In my time lecturing, I published a range of research monographs, edited books, journal articles and blogs for professional websites. Every piece of writing boiled down to my ability to convince editors, publishers and readers that I had something interesting or original to say, and that I was qualified to say it. In a nutshell, authorial credibility was key to the entire process, and it is something on which I have been reflecting as I have been drafting the agent proposal for my true crime book about the 1991 murder of my father – a very different type of writing.

At the specialised, technical, academic end of the publishing industry, print-runs and projected sales are tiny compared to those in the world of commercial publishing. Even for experienced academic authors, the standard run would be 500-1,000 books, mostly in hard-back for library shelves. New, untested, authors would be lucky to get an initial print-run of  few-hundred, although if demand is high paperback runs can follow. Author royalties are minimal and academic publishers have, or choose to put, very little into sales and marketing. My own top-selling publications were reasonably-priced textbooks. It is rare, but not unheard of, for academics to break out into the general market. Some in the academic world still frown upon such ‘dumbing down’ – wrongly, in my opinion. Most academics I knew wrote because they were passionate about a subject, wanted to learn more about it, and educate succeeding generations about their discoveries. There was also a career advancement element, in that the greater your reputation as a respected author, the more opportunities you had to speak at prestigious conferences and move between institutions to higher ranks within the profession.

In academic publishing, your credibility as a writer comes from the currency you have to pronounce on a given specialism. It is forged in the furnace of education and specialist research, demonstrated through your previous writings in a given field. You are only as good, or as bad, as your last book or article. Despite the number of universities globally, academic publishing is a small industry, meaning you might be one of only a few writers in a field. The ‘competition’ within tight transnational networks will likely know of your previous work, meaning that reputation is everything. Establishing authorial credibility in the academic publishing world is, therefore, about making it clear: firstly, that you are on top of the most relevant literature about your topic; secondly, that you are familiar with recent and emerging developments that may be reshaping our understanding of the key issues at hand; and, thirdly, that you have something new to bring to the table. Your account could be based on some new primary sources you have unearthed, some interviews with the main protagonists, or centred on a novel framework/theory for making sense of research puzzles others have been unable to solve. In the social sciences, at any rate, it is less about claiming ‘big break throughs’ that revolutionise the world – we cannot all be Galileo or Marx, as my PhD supervisor used to say – but discovering incremental additions to knowledge that bring cumulative improvements to our understanding of how the world works over a period of time.

My step into the world of true crime has relied on bringing credibility of a different sort to the project. I am helped by the credibility of having written books previously, so I possess the credibility that comes from a proven history of seeing extended projects to completion. In terms of subject-matter, however, things are different. Establishing my credibility to write a true crime book has meant grounding my credibility, not in my professional reputation for academic excellence, although it has enabled me to include academic writings to contextualise what I say about my father’s case. Instead, my credibility has to come from a much more personal space, as the son of a murder victim, who, for that reason and that reason alone, is equipped to tell the story about the murder of Terry Daddow. I am writing not as an amateur sleuth or casual observer, but because I lived through it. I was part of the investigation (initially a potential suspect), attended the trial, took abuse from people in the street, and witnessed firsthand what the murder did to myself, my family, and my local community. I have, over the decades since, tried to achieve closure knowing that not one of the three people convicted for this horrific crime showed one iota of remorse for their actions. My credibility to speak on this topic is that which comes from living it every day for over three decades.

I have, ultimately, had to replace my educational background, fancy job title and academic publications record, with the credibility that comes from having a powerful story to tell about a callous and sadistic murder that I think others have done, and still do, want to hear about. Of course, credibility on its own will not guarantee that I secure an agent or, subsequently, a publishing deal, despite true crime being a huge market. We all have interesting life stories to tell, challenges we faced down, trials and tribulations to recount. However, my father’s murder continues to pique the interest of true crime afficionados, as it has done for many years. I am confident that my credibility, allied to the shocking story I am able to tell, should give the book its place on the shelves. I am now aiming to craft an agent proposal that makes an economic case for investing in my story on the back of my credibility as a reliable narrator who lived through the tragic events described. Ultimately, I plan to make the case that there were no winners from this story, just different forms of trauma and loss. People often ask me how one comes back from such a seismic, life altering event. This book is the place to find out. There will be many twists and turns taking my book from idea to the bookshelves. What I can say for certain is that it will be one hell of a journey, or a journey into hell, maybe even both. It is a road you will be able to travel with me through these blogs. I welcome your feedback through my contact page on this website.