If I had come across emBooks, Melanie Phillips's new publishing company, before hearing her launch it on the Today programme, I would have assumed it was a spoof. How could a journalist so intent on being taken seriously think it was a good idea to sell branded merchandise, including mugs, umbrellas and made-to-order T-shirts with "snips" from her articles?

On closer examination, however, emBooks is simply an extreme version of self-publishing. Her business partner, Elliot Balaban, tells me they are "putting the m into ebooks". Ebooks have been chosen, he explains, because of the ease and speed with which they can get the message across, although print versions are in the pipeline. Their list will "focus on the issues that are of passionate concern to Melanie and those who follow her".

As well as Phillips's own memoir, Guardian Angel (heaven for armchair psychologists), current emBooks include a handbook on how to raise teenage girls by headteacher Helen Wright, a book about Prince William by Angela Levin, and an "ironic polemic" by Frederic Raphael about J Robert Oppenheimer and antisemitism. Phillips has written introductions to each.

She says she is "giving voice to those on the decent, commonsense middle ground who find themselves marginalised by the gatekeepers of public discourse" and it is clear from her memoir that she believes her opinions, despite being aired regularly in the Daily Mail and on Radio 4, are being increasingly silenced by "the left".

At the end of Guardian Angel, Phillips paints herself as a culture warrior fighting to save western civilisation from barbarism. emBooks, with its New York office, American staff and talk of "homemakers" on its website, is obviously trying to reach out beyond your average Mail reader. One imagines those mugs might go down well at a Tea Party party.