Can anyone tell me how one goes about getting an article included in a book of articles? Do you have to be invited by the book's editor to write one? And if so how do you get to be invited? Also how do you get to write entries for encyclopaedias? Do you have to be invited for this as well? I often see these sorts of writing credits listed in examples of academic CVs.

The usual process is to be invited for edited books (at least in my field it is). Not sure about encyclopedias.

Sorry fat fingers! Pressed 'Add message' by mistake in my last entry. How to get invited? - The painstaking way - by becoming known in the field, presenting at conferences that the 'editor to be' has seen you at, maybe through contacts e.g. knowing your supervisor etc etc. I may be wrong but I don't think you can actively pursue an invitation as such - it happens in time with actively promoting your work. This has been my experience - others may have had different experiences.

it is mainly through networking- somone decides to make an edited book and then she or he rememmbers that she or he knows you and you are doing something related to the theme of the book. Encyclopedia- well, forget about them if you are not top 10 in your field;) If you are- you probably will get invated by the editor who definitely will know you:)

Thanks.

are there any advantages of publishing in an edited book as opposed to a journal?

takes ages though. Longer than publishing in journals. It took my friend 8 months to write the chapter, then 1 year passed with the editor sending back and forth for amendments etc... Then it took another year to actually take it to the print. Now her chapter is in a book but she is not even working on that project any more. Recently a professor asked to see publications and ignored this one because it was not related to her current research (although the topic is similar).

You can invite yourself to write a chapter - i heard that someone was editing a collection on my topic area, so i just asked him - sent him a of my proposed synopsis - and he said yes. So its always worth giving it a try.