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Originally Posted by bennelson
The idea is that it wouldn't a technical "how-to" book. There's already plenty of books on "How to build an electric car". Nor would it be a book on ecology, with 10 chapters of how the planet is going to crap and only chapter 11 mentions what we might maybe be able to do anything about it.
Instead, it would be a book about what happened in my life when I started learning, doing, modifying, and just trying to be a positive change, no matter how small.
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This is why a publisher acquaintance told you it sounds promising, because you seem to know what is pat and know how to identify what is unique and interesting in your story. That can mean marketing distinction. I follow your progress on your projects, though I rarely ever comment because I know so little. But three things always stand out: your DIY chutzpah, the project's effectiveness, and your sense of the story within it.
Rather than a single narrative, an autobiography of your adventures in a straight forward tale, you might consider a narrative that tells short flashback stories as a subset of some larger simpler story. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" notably did this using a cross country motorcycle trip with a father/son to tell a larger tale in flashbacks, some of which were of an earlier identical trip with lost friends.
I like this clause too: "a book about what happened in my life when I started learning, doing, modifying, and just trying to be a positive change, no matter how small." It begs the question: what did happen? That's obviously your "story" but it also sounds like you are suggesting a point about a consumer culture that emphasizes passivity, rather than learning. That's a theme that connects DIY culture to larger American cultural values that are partly drawn from the "frontiersman" and partly from the figure of the "visionary inventor."
Enough outta me.
I think it is a great idea. Give it a go. If in the end publishers are harder to persuade, then move it onto a self published e-Book platform and see if you can get lucky with a steady seller that makes publishers take a second look.
Good luck!