: Re: How can I make a collection of essays / arguments more attractive to publishers? I've written several essays and am still working on some that I would like to eventually get published. The

@Heady158

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This will sound like a lame response, but your problem is that you are not famous. Keep in mind that publishers do not want to publish collections of essays, generally speaking, since they do not consider them marketable. Being famous is the way that people like Stewart and Hitchens have "solved" this problem of marketability.

Effectively, I am saying the same thing as the above commenters. You need to develop a following outside of the writing world and then use that profile to overcome the resistance that the marketing department will have for your book.

I would not recommend self-publication in this instance. Unless you have a strong, clear, core idea that has a niche audience that can be identified and reached, it's a bad option. You are talking about promoting controversial views on general and varied subjects. Consequently, you will quite simply be unable to sell this book until you have raised your profile - whether to publishers or individuals/groups. So you should focus as the above recommend on raising your profile and publishing the individual essays. Then collect them as a book when you are famous enough to do so.

Don't kill the book's prospects by prematurely self-publishing the volume. If it was marketable, you would be getting responses from publishers. If a publisher is not willing to market the volume, you will not want to take on this difficult job yourself. Self-publishing is currently still only a good option for non-fiction when a niche market exists that either (1) you could reach effectively yourself, and will receive no benefit from a publisher (in this scenario, you would have no problem finding a publisher if you wanted to) or (2) the same is true except that the market is too small for a publisher to care about.

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