I've never actually tried one of these before. But I'll give it a shot. Any historian opinions on where/how to bridge the high level academic kind of writing with mainstream history writing? Surely this isn't the first thread on this, but in case it's been a long time or no one provides a good link to a previous discussion, how do we do it?

We have the kind of work we are taught to read, analyze, and write ourselves in academia for history. I don't have much of a problem with it, but apparently I'm weird that way since I find the general public often gets turned off by such writing. Then you have the other side, the mainstream trade history books. Standards vary greatly in the mainstream, though the goal of the books appear to be "people are interested in it, can read it, enjoy reading it, and (most importantly) pay money for it". But in shooting for those goals, this means many books also may neglect to set themselves up for presenting their information and sources in the way academics would dissect it. It's frustrating when there are no numbered notes on the pages to reference. Academia often tries to make arguments while the mainstream likes a narrative.

I've seen books that are academic have some success in the mainstream. Many academics hope they can be in the position to pull a James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom from the 1980s and see hundreds of thousands of dollars come in because people beyond academia are buying the book in large numbers. But, on plenty of occasions, academics end up writing for "only 3,000 other academics who will ever read it in their lifetimes, and maybe their students" and I've been told by professors that the number 3,000 is a generous number. Even the American Historical Association realizes we have an issue here. At their New Orleans meeting in January 2013, I remember these particular parts of the New York Times report on it:

...journalist Michael Pollan, at Thursday night's opening plenary panel, asked: "Why do people like me who use your work end up selling more books than you do?"

I'll tell you one reason why, the journalists know how to write in a way that entertain readers, and as a result sell more (also, their books are usually cheaper than academic ones - I can tell you that from a pirate history perspective that is true with $50-$80 academic pirate books in the past 2 years compared to $10-$30 ones from the trade books, and that's all new condition/new releases pricing).

For William Cronon, a historian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the outgoing president of the history association, the problem is insufficient attention to basic storytelling. Historians, he said, tend to default to a dry omniscient voice that hasn't changed since the 19th century, despite the fact that historians no longer believe in that kind of omniscience. "We are a deeply narrative discipline, but we give very little thought to who the narrator is," he said.

Some talk about being accessible via internet/electronic means - as if the sole problem is that people don't like printed books as much. I think the issue is closer to Cronon's issue. How are we telling the story? Is it enjoyable to read? Does it sounds like someone is telling a story or just droning on and on about points and counter points in a discussion? You can have an argument and tell a story people will follow at the same time. At the same time, this doesn't mean we have to give up siting sources or start making up fictional people to tell our stories either.

I'm not sure what answer or answers there are to this yet, but I want to be there and part of it when there is one so I can take part. Why? Because, honestly, I want to write something that my family would want to read and not see it as a task (but more of a thing they look forward to and enjoy).

EDIT: If you're wondering about the New York Times thing I'm quoting, you can read it here

EDIT 2: If you want to hear what William Cronon said, watch it here. I think the really good stuff comes around the 34-minute mark.
If you're interested in seeing part of the discussion on voice and ways of writing that Michael Pollan was talking about it (though I don't think it's the same occurrence as quoted above), here is a clip (that will jump to 1:12:10 should end at about 1:17:02 for the relevant part). If you're wondering what is so significant about Pollan's writing on food/agriculture, he's done it outside of academia and his books rank really high in terms of sellers. On Amazon, it books are within the top 2,000 books in terms of rankings, and in some more specific education and food book categories rank in the double or single digits. The rest of this panel I linked is interesting and you get occasional blips of discussion on the voice in writing up to the point I linked where it becomes front in center.

for an untrained novice, what is history in the academy?