After months of waiting, I’m happy to announce that my first-ever book chapter has finally been published. And although I’ve yet to receive our complimentary copy of the book, the book is now available through Nova Science Publisher’s website. If you want a sneak preview, you can find the book here. The title of the book is YBCO Superconductor Research Progress.

The chapter I contributed (Chapter 2 in the book) was actually first submitted way back in 2005. Back then I was in the midst of preparing for two international conferences, so I requested for a one-month extension after the book deadline. I was granted the extension, and I managed to submit the chapter. I waited for several months on any updates about my submitted chapter, but none came. I almost gave up, but after a while the editor contacted me. But there was some confusion as to what book I was submitting to, and my chapter almost ended up in some obscure book on Lasers – as in the publishers actually prepared the page proofs and all and asked me to proofread it! Yes, I do use lasers for my work, but my study is nowhere near lasers and optics! Fortunately I had not submitted the figures with the text because the file sizes were too big, and so I kept the figures on standby while I waited for them to contact me about my chapter. There was no way they would publish it without the missing figures.

Anyway, long story short – after about two years I revised the chapter and resubmitted it for publication in another book, also on superconductivity. This time everything was okay. Good thing too, because in the span of two years since I first wrote the chapter, I managed to publish a few more journal papers and so I was able to include the results of those papers in the revised and updated chapter.

In a way, writing the chapter was like writing a dissertation – an extended paper summarizing the important results of several papers. Probably not the best way to write a chapter, but hey, it’s my first time. Hopefully this will not be the last. 🙂 I’m still hoping that I would get to write my own book somehow. Now if only I could decide on what to write about…

It’s a shame, though, that the book is too technical and perhaps too nerdy to interest the general public. It would most likely end up as a reference book for scientists and engineers who work in the field. Still, it’s a welcome departure from my usual journal publications.

And yes, there’s another good news which arrived today: the paper I submitted to the Journal of Applied Physics is finally accepted. Phew! I was sort of worried that the year is already halfway through and I’ve yet to publish anything. You know how it is in my line of work:

No publications = No results.

I know of some people who manage to publish 10, 20 papers or more in just one year. Well, good for them. But I still believe in quality more than quantity. Someone could just write a single paper in a lifetime and still end up as a Nobel Prize winner, you know. (Not that I have any delusions that I will.)

Publishing technical papers is no mean feat. It takes time to gather all those data and make a coherent story out of them. It takes time to revise and proofread the manuscript. And after that, the nerve-wracking wait while the paper undergoes the peer-reviewing process (this is where the paper is submitted to referees and its quality is evaluated). I had experienced impatiently waiting for several months for the results of one of my papers, only to receive a really nasty review from a referee in the end (and the paper was actually rejected). That was a real downer.

But when the paper does get accepted, it’s euphoria. It’s a just compensation for all those hours I spent at the bench working. These rewards are few and far between, so indulge me in these euphoric moments from time to time.

As you can probably tell, I’m now in cloud nine. Boy, I love my work. 🙂