I feel 100% identified with you. I am working on a non ficton book about a niche topic and I wouldn't do it for the money at all. It's about the "prestige (or perceived prestige)". I am about to finish the first 1/3 of the book (the first draft, anyway), and I am already attempting to reach out to publishers to see if they would be interested in the book (at least the ones that don't require a literary agent!).

Some of them already replied saying the proposal seems interesting but they want to read a few chapters. I don't know if I am in the right path or not, but I'd love to read more about your experience and what can be shared!

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atlasunshrugged 10 hours ago | parent [-]

That's awesome, can I ask what the topic is? What I did for "selling" the book was to create a proposal -- about 45 pages that has a skeleton outline of each chapter (it changed significantly during the end writing process but gave the publisher a feel for the topic), a sample chapter, and some more sales/marketing details like what are comparable books (and how well they sold if you have that data), who your audience is and how you plan to reach them (OP was in a great place having a following), why you're the right person to write the book, etc.

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101008 9 hours ago | parent [-]

45 pages as a skeleton? Wow. I wasn't expecting that much! I guess your book is +120k words? Do you think having a clear vision/structure helped when sending it to publishers?

I think I lack all the last parts (that some publishers are requiring for) such as a social media platform to reach your potential readers. I find that a bit unfair because it means you first have to play the Instagram game and once you are popular there, you can write a book.

If you give me an email address I'd love to tell you more about my book!

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atlasunshrugged 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, it was pretty robust in the end! I think I cut down the final manuscript to just under 80k words plus the references (there was actually something in my contract about a max word count). I definitely think having the structure helped, both for the publisher and for me to have a sort of blueprint to follow.

It's not always a dealbreaker, I didn't have any social media following or anything -- the way I pitched it was by figuring out a bunch of conferences, niche podcasts, etc. and highlighting that there was an audience there I could activate (and marketing is a big part of the book process I've learned).

My bio has my email now!

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kennyloginz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Is this some sort of new llm that competes on spelling / grammar errors? Very odd back and forth between two “writers”

	▲	xp84 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Is this some sort of new LLM that wastes GPU cycles accusing everyone else of being an LLM? Seriously, I’ve seen this exact genre of comment daily on hn lately and I don’t get what you’re gaining by trying to sniff out bots. Not what anyone has to gain by truly botting on here. Nobody is selling their HN accounts right? And how many pretty run-of-the-mill comments like the above would it take to have an account worth selling anyway even if there was a market for that? 100,000?