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Thank you so much alfonso for the thorough and honest feedback! > position yourself as somebody that is not only knowledgeable ... but also recognised as being

Thank you so much alfonso for the thorough and honest feedback! > position yourself as somebody that is not only knowledgeable ... but also recognised as being as such Do you mind expanding on that? I think I get the point, but I don't understand concretely how it could be done.

adg001 5y ago
Absolutely. There is no one fits all solution, because everything is context dependent a non trivial. Set aside (a) the contents to be published, the publication of a long form essay requires both (b) a readership and (c) marketing. There are multiple strategies that can provide you with the required readership and marketing; it is important to be inventive. But those strategies typically resemble one of the following. You either 1/ have gained in your career the kind of reputation in your field of choice (e.g., doing research and publishing papers) that allows you to approach a publishing house and reassure them that a large enough number of readers will be purchasing the book you have the ambition to write – in such case the marketing will result from the combination of your personal efforts, some marketing done by the publishing house, viral marketing, and the support of the network of distributors - or, 2/ you are such a powerhouse of marketing (I'll get back to this in a second), that you can publish essentially everything, even suboptimal contents. When it comes to (1) there are endless examples I could make; but let's consider for instance the excellent 'The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity' by David Graeber and David Wengrow – a work situated at the interstitial space that exist between comparative archaeology and anthropology. For an example of (2) think Tony Robbins and the various self-help blockbusters he published. He provides some massive training events and he leverages those events to market all kind of additional materials and contents to his clients. Now Tony Robbins offers a digested form the results in (applied) psychology obtained by academic scholars; it is more a vulgarisation work equipped with top marketing, then first hand research. I hope I provided you some entry points to dig further. All the best!
- samh748 5y ago
  This is all really great stuff! Thank you so much for all the help! I really appreciate it :))

adg001 5y ago

Absolutely. There is no one fits all solution, because everything is context dependent a non trivial. Set aside (a) the contents to be published, the publication of a long form essay requires both (b) a readership and (c) marketing. There are multiple strategies that can provide you with the required readership and marketing; it is important to be inventive. But those strategies typically resemble one of the following. You either 1/ have gained in your career the kind of reputation in your field of choice (e.g., doing research and publishing papers) that allows you to approach a publishing house and reassure them that a large enough number of readers will be purchasing the book you have the ambition to write – in such case the marketing will result from the combination of your personal efforts, some marketing done by the publishing house, viral marketing, and the support of the network of distributors - or, 2/ you are such a powerhouse of marketing (I'll get back to this in a second), that you can publish essentially everything, even suboptimal contents. When it comes to (1) there are endless examples I could make; but let's consider for instance the excellent 'The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity' by David Graeber and David Wengrow – a work situated at the interstitial space that exist between comparative archaeology and anthropology. For an example of (2) think Tony Robbins and the various self-help blockbusters he published. He provides some massive training events and he leverages those events to market all kind of additional materials and contents to his clients. Now Tony Robbins offers a digested form the results in (applied) psychology obtained by academic scholars; it is more a vulgarisation work equipped with top marketing, then first hand research. I hope I provided you some entry points to dig further. All the best!

samh748 5y ago
This is all really great stuff! Thank you so much for all the help! I really appreciate it :))