Crafting My Book of Essays

Let’s say you have been writing essays for years. Might be blogs; might be Substack essays; might be short nonfiction in magazines. Perhaps writing essays was your primary goal, or you may have intended these pieces as publicity to lure readers to your books. But eventually these shorter works begin calling to you. Your essays want to be more than ephemera; they need to be read as a body of work.

You might resist the call. After all, where’s the recipe for a book like that? In a piece on Substack, author Debbie Weil said, “Back of my mind is the thought that somehow I could turn 100+ Substack essays into a book. But I know enough about book publishing to understand that this would not be straightforward or easy.” Not easy, necessarily; but it turns out there is great guidance out there on how to craft a compelling book.

My essays have tugged at my sleeve for several years. I had captured the vibrant life of our sixties in short pieces throughout that decade of my life. In addition to the many blogs on my own website, I had written essays for Crunchy Tales Magazine, for Joan Price‘s website, and I’d even been quoted in New York Magazine. I’d interviewed the characters in my first novel for Women Writers, Women’s Books. I’d been invited to write an essay for This Age Thing, a project of the Royal College of Art. It was great raw material, but material for what?

Then I had the good fortune to attend a workshop by the amazing Patrice Gopo called “Greater than the Sum of the Parts: Transforming Personal Essays into a Book.” Patrice had published two books of essays and generously shared her process. During that workshop, Patrice also discussed an essay by author Rebecca McClanahan called “Forest in the Trees: The Challenges of Shaping a Book (Not a Collection) of Essays.” Both these resources supported the development of my book of essays, Rock On: Power, Sex and Money after 60, which was shortlisted for the 2025 Nonfiction award by Advantages of Age.

First Step: Rediscover Your Material

The first step to create a book of essays is to gather them from wherever they are: on Substack or Medium, on websites, in magazines. Make a spreadsheet with the titles of your essays down the lefthand column. In the column to the right, capture the word length of each essay. Then—and this is crucial—read through each of your essays and create columns for the themes you find there. These may be topics, as in my book, where Creativity, Sexuality, Healthcare, and Purpose were some of the column headings on my spreadsheet. Or your topics may relate to time; for example, you might have essays that focus on the different seasons of the year.

Some of your essays may relate to multiple themes, and that is fine. Check all the columns that pertain to each essay. Some essays may be redundant, and that is good to know. Your essays may have different styles, different viewpoints; you may have evolved your views on certain topics. No doubt you have grown and changed over the years you have been writing. That’s as it should be. In this first step, we are just rediscovering what we have.

Next Step: Organize Your Essays

Once you have an inventory, you may sense intuitively how to organize your essays. Perhaps it will be by theme, but there are other ways. You might organize your essays chronologically, by the seasons of your own life. You may arrive at some other structure; this is your book and you know your material.
Think of this stage like the developmental edit for a standard full length book. What is duplicative and needs to go? What simply does not fit? On the other hand, what is missing? Patrice Gopo recommends using file cards at this stage to play with your structure.

When I organized the essays for Rock On, ten topics emerged as key. But initially some topics had two essays while others had seven. Some essays made sense in more than one category and were moved. Some covered the same ground and were deleted, or the best parts combined to make one stronger essay. I wrote more essays to develop the Spirit category, which was shorter than the other topics.

Then it dawned on me that each topic would be strengthened by a final essay profiling a woman in later life who was a total badass in that topic. I wrote profiles of women like financier Elizabeth White to end the Money section and Lyn Slater (the Accidental Icon) to end the Beauty section.

From Collection to Book

Let’s imagine you are crafting a book of essays. If you were to write a blurb, what would it say? What is the overall argument of your book? For example, the essential point of Rock On is that life after sixty is our time to rise above ageism, reclaim play, and reinvent our lives.

Each essay in your book should support your thesis. It is absolutely fine if your book includes pieces with different styles and different lengths. Variety is the spice of a book of essays. But as you continue developing your essays into a coherent whole, consider how they read together. Do you contradict yourself?

I certainly did, and needed to add an explanation in a later essay about why my thinking had changed. On the other hand, do your essays flow into one another? Can you add a sentence at the end of one essay that ties into the next? At the end of a themed section, can you allude to the next theme in a way that will encourage the reader to continue?

Your essays are raw material that can be modified to unify the whole. The form in which they were published before can change to suit your broader purpose. And, again, you may realize that a key aspect of your overall subject matter has not been addressed and needs to be added.

All this presupposes that your reader will read straight through from cover to cover, which won’t always be the case. I admit that when I read an essay collection, I often start with the subject of greatest interest. When you have a unified draft, read through it and determine where your sporadic readers will need information you supplied early on. If you need to repeat information, word it differently or examine it from a different perspective, so that those who do read straight through will not be bored.

Line Edit Your Book of Essays

Before the line edit stage is a great time to take a break from your collection. Your prose should sit in darkness for a while to allow you the distance to see its strengths and limitations more clearly. After a time—could be weeks or even months—read your manuscript straight through, preferably aloud. As with any book in progress, look for word tics (words or phrases you rely upon too frequently). Pay attention for awkward phrasing. Make sure your sentences are varied in length.
Recognize that your essays were written over time.

No one expects a book of essays to sound exactly the same from section to section, but are there places where differences in voice are jarring? Again, your essays as they originally appeared are raw material and they are yours to edit as you see fit.

Final Thoughts

I believe nothing we write is ever wasted, and I have a file of the essays I omitted from Rock On. Who knows? They may find a home in some future book.
And meanwhile, completing a book of this type requires acknowledging those who published our essays previously. Thanking them in the Acknowledgements is key, and they should also appear on the Copyright page at the front of the book, like this: Versions of some material in this book appeared previously in these publications:

And then list them out. In finalizing crafting my book of essays, I found the feedback from Beta readers especially valuable. Connections within themed sections that are obvious to you may not be clear to this first crop of savvy readers. As always, address the comments in ways that make sense to you.

The process of crafting a book of essays takes time and focus, but the results are rewarding. As validating as it is to hear back from readers when you publish a single essay, it is even more rewarding for you and your readers to see the full scope of your thinking over many years.

I can’t wait to read what you come up with.