In Search of a Publisher

I am a new writer in search of a publisher, and I thought it prudent to post here in the hopes that someone might be able to give me a lead on a publisher or an agent. Shameless, I know, but the query process demands the total abandonment of humility. Please post below or contact me by Freepmail if you are an interested publisher or can point me in the direction of one. General comments are also welcome, of course.

I've posted an excerpt from the 45,000 word manuscript, "Ethereal Plain: A 21st Century American Philosophy," below. Essentially, the manuscript speaks to and for the demographic that is lately being called “South Park Conservatives.” In addition to the "will to power" being our primary and quite possibly only certainty (though it is not exactly what one might be prone to conjuring at face value), I argue that our fate paradoxically makes free will possible; that god might exist but humanity is bound to agnosticism; that the soul is a chimera; that the subjectivity of existence is irrelevant; and much more. Politically it offers a strong rejection of liberalism and religious dogma in favor of a Nietzschean/libertarian approach (he is more conservative than most people believe). It is a young American’s exercise in artistic and philosophical self-discovery writ large. Sometimes crude but always eloquent, creative and a bit facetious, the manuscript invites the reader to journey with me as I explore the meaning of life through an interpretation of the modern world and encourages him to use my manuscript to help form the meaning of his own life.

I believe the treatise holds a broad appeal for several reasons. First, the culture war is raging in America, and this speaks to and for the “South Park Conservative” crowd. Books by young conservatives such as Brian C. Anderson and Ben Shapiro are selling reasonably well. My book would lend an artistic/philosophical voice to the work of these young authors. Second, Nietzsche continues to enjoy wide popularity, and my treatise could also serve as an informal interpretation of his work (he is my guide in the style of Dante walking with Virgil). Finally, my writing style is bold, distinctive and different than anything out there. This is very much a philosophical proposal for the post-Baby Boom generations.

Thanks in advance, Freepers, for your thoughtful consideration. My apologies for being HTML-deficient. I've lost my italicized words, but you should be able to get the idea.

Humans are nothing more or less than self-conscious animals lacking a discernible a priori reason for existing. Beware of anyone who tells you that they know the reason for existence--they want you to concede them power in the form of money, labor, life or all three. The first rule of Existential Club is that there is no first rule without existence.

Understanding why we exist is as exhausting as it is futile. Time, space, spacetime, multiple dimensions and numerous forces miraculously unite to hold everything in this universe together and tear other parts of it to shreds, and perhaps scientists will some day discover exactly how this works – maybe even why? – but this seems about as likely as Jesus’ return to earth. While we wait for one or the other until death summons us, our efforts would be well spent utilizing self-consciousness to concentrate on how we became, what we can know and what we can do to ensure the best of all possible worlds now and in the future.

Other than the very first (formal) cause, which cannot be known, every action since has been a reaction, including each and every (re)action of our own. Humanity (and everything it entails) is the current result of an atomic struggle toward greater power that is limited to the means of our dear Earth, a reaction that began officially 3.5 to 4 billion years ago with the appearance of DNA but in actuality began, presuming it occurred, with the creation of our universe.

That life is driven by something – that some impetus compels all life on this planet to be – is an absolute certainty. We can sit around the teleological campfire and speculate ceaselessly about what it is life is striving toward and what within it – nay, within us – compels it, but this would be tantamount only to a sophistic indulgence, a creative diversion full of empty hope and denial of the greatest and possibly only truth. All evidence available points to only one definitive conclusion: that life is a force striving forever toward greater power.

Nietzsche stripped away everything – truth, error, objectivity, subjectivity, morality, immorality, cause, effect, his clothes – and was left only with the will to power. Ultimately, everything biological (including the body, self-consciousness, emotion, sense/feeling--everything that defines humanity) is the result of an inconceivable number of atoms raised to an inconceivable power synthesizing into entities that are stronger (more dominating over the world) than what they were initially by utilizing any means necessary and, more importantly, available.

“Indeed, the truth was not hit by him who shot at it with the word of the ‘will to existence’: that will does not exist. For, what does not exist cannot will; but what is in existence, how could that still want existence? Only where there is life is there also will: not will to life but – thus I teach you – will to power.” (Z, On Self-Overcoming)

Why, since they already existed, would biological molecules will or develop into myriad forms of life? They would not do so unless there were advantages, for all of nature, to creating stronger entities. Life forged life forms to increase its strength, to increase its dominance over what it found in the world through what it was able to make of itself within the world--everything else is secondary and serves this end: greater power.

Before we proceed, I must make clear that the will to power does not explain all--x’s will remain perpetually in the equation. For instance, neither the formal cause nor the reason for the existence of everything and anything can be known; we are forever bound to speculative hypotheses in these instances. At this point, we cannot even thoroughly comprehend the atom, and they compose everything. The incandescent theory of evolution sheds a brilliant light on the history of our becoming, yet it does not and cannot explain creation and leaves much to be desired in the way of an ontological explanation. That life strives collectively toward power, however, is clearly evident; and though this does not reveal all, it gives us more than enough ground to establish a solid ontological footing, the only footing we may ever have. The will to power is the end that is present in the beginning. “Power,” in this context, is the ability of a living organism to exercise control over itself and its environment—-existence is primarily a matter of power over that which is.

I am not positing some sort of omnipresent force beyond the force of life. Even if you believe that life is nothing more than an extensive series of accidental biochemical reactions and energy becoming what the world is presently, it would be difficult if not absurd to deny that life itself maintains a definitive pattern. Some sort of an impetus has driven life to become what it is, the same impetus that makes it possible for molecules to react with one another to eventually become something other than what they were by themselves. The will to power is as close as we will ever get to why but still farther away than most of us would prefer. This is a matter of looking at life inductively and asking, “What is it that nature is doing universally?” The answer, simply, or at least the best we can surmise after ridding ourselves of all our masks and costumes, is that it is existing and trying to maintain that existence through growth and expansion; and the more power it accumulates, the more freedom and ability it gains to determine its destiny.

The profundity of the will to power cannot be overstated: every living thing from amoebae to zebras is subjugated to it—nay, every living thing is will to power. As this plays out in human reality, sometimes this means the accretion of a large army or a vast fortune, and sometimes it means dusting one’s furniture or clipping one’s toe nails. Any action committed willfully by a human is technically an expression of power—-existence is a constant game of give-and-take, of acting and reacting to power. Naturally, each of us is, to the degree life has made possible, his own arbiter as to those actions that can truly call forth the feeling of empowerment. Everything follows from the will to power-—nay, everything is power. Humanity – and all life – is a reaction to the world that has only one goal: ensuring its survival and becoming through the accumulation of greater power.

At the most basic level, all life is a series of yes’s and no’s, of affirmation and negation, in which the signifier’s primary task is to accrue greater power, which manifests in myriad forms but which is ultimately the ability to affirm or negate an increased volume of phenomena--and this is all that matters and not what matters in the least. What matters on the surface is that to which yes and no is being said, that to which it is possible to say yes and no--but this is only possible because of the will to power.

I expand on the will to power in section seven and plunge deep into the will to power to begin the second half of the treatise, but I must touch on a few subjects before full immersion into the event horizon—-once you have fully comprehended the will to power, there is no return.

I hope this isn't too shameless. Any and all comments are welcome. I look forward to hearing from you (it is dinnertime, however, so I will be away for a bit). I would be grateful for any and all advice--critiques, too (though this barely scratches the surface of the will to power). Thanks.

Daniel

Nonfiction is a tough sell if you don't have a hook, such as a regular column or some university press publications or magazine articles.

Your best bet would be to start selling smaller pieces and build up a base of fan support so someone will be interested in representing you.

Ignore those agent books in the book store and instead go to the reference room of your local public library and get some potential agency names from a volume called Literary Market Place.

Write a BRIEF--usually one page--query letter that explains your book in a sentence or two along with another short paragraph about why you should be the one to write this book. Then offer to send a sample chapter and outline and table of contents at their request.

There are a lot of books you can find on writing book proposals. You need an outline to give to potential agents.

45,000 words is a little light for a nonfiction book, and your not being a known name might mean you'd have better luck at the small press level. You won't be getting rich off this but that's not why you're doing it, anyway. Good luck.

Thank you, Dark Wolf. I have already followed your advice to the letter, though I did purchase an agent book, too. No luck through queries sent to those agents thus far.

I know I am a little light, but I aimed for simplicity. If I haven't had any luck by the end of the summer, I might develop some of my arguments further and give it some more weight. Goodness knows I'm revising it everyday anyway, though I'm also anxious to move on to another book.

Thanks again.

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