Eventually, I’ll have something to say on the topic, but in the meantime, here are links to two very useful blog posts for first-time authors of academic books:
Laura Portwood-Stacer on “7 Mistakes I Made When I Published My Academic Book.”
“Writing for Readers,” by Ken Wissoker, my editor at Duke University Press, provides lots of great advice to first-time authors, including some tips he offered me way back when.
I also routinely recommend William Germanno’s two books: Getting It Published and From Dissertation To Book