Re: Synastry with the dead
Sorry, guys-- which "elitist snobs in academia" did you mean? I am a retired academic!
As you know, a lot of great books are written by journalists or simply independent scholars, usually for a less elite snobbish audience. I doubt that most of the journalists have doctorates. Academic presses are also in business, so while a distinguished author can be more assured of acceptance, a super topic by someone else would be of interest to them. But they do have particular things that they do and do not publish.
The idea is to choose your market, read the best work in that field, and then understand how publishing works. It is possible to self-publish, but books get a whole lot better via an editor. Anymore, e-books and websites are becoming more popular than paper books.
But writing a history or biography does take some knowledge of those fields, which hopefully you've got. If you can combine that knowledge with some chart interpretation, you should get some great insights.