In the bad old days, a decade or more ago, would-be authors only had one real choice about where to publish.  In the US, that meant going to one of the traditional half-dozen big publishing companies (think Simon and Schuster).  Because the traditional book system has gatekeepers at every step of the way in order to weed out the unwanted, trying to get a book published the traditional way is fraught with delay, frustration, and even humiliation.  I heard recently that, on average, a traditional publishing company receives 40,000 unsolicited manuscripts each year.  When you know that those traditional publishing companies – again on average – publish one of those unsolicited manuscripts every five years, you begin to get a sense of the odds.  Not good.

I could list all the ways in which traditional publishing is dysfunctional, but that’s not the point of this post, so dig into the archives for my rants on that subject.  Suffice it to say that it’s not set up to welcome new authors, treat them with respect and consideration, and find a way to bring them before the public.

If you want that latter experience, then, where do you turn?  Happily for authors today, hybrid publishers have recently gained in stature and have become a highly viable alternative to traditional publishing.  One of the standout hybrid publishers is Page Two, and recently I had the pleasure of chatting with one of the two founders of Page Two, Jesse Finkelstein.  Enjoy – and please read if you’re considering publishing a book.

Nick: Welcome, Jesse!  Tell us about Page Two’s approach to book publishing.

Jesse: Page Two is an innovative publishing firm that helps authors, business leaders, subject-matter experts, and organizations publish game-changing books. We build a customized publishing strategy for each client to help them achieve their goals. We have a full-service offering which includes book production, global retail distribution, and sales and marketing support for books in any format. Page Two’s model is entrepreneurial, with stronger back-end and direct-sales revenue potential for our authors than in traditional publishing. And our approach is highly personal, as all of the members of our experienced team work closely with our authors over the course of each project.

Nick:  OK, let’s get down to it. Why should a thought leader and professional speaker think about publishing with a firm like yours?

Jesse:  There are several reasons that are directly related to the core principles on which we built our company:

First, our authors retain their rights and they hold creative control. At Page Two, we believe that speakers, thought leaders, and other professionals should be empowered to develop their book content in a way that’s fully aligned with the rest of their work. So they should have the right to make the final call on all of the details related to their book, such as branding and editorial parameters. On the rights front, we know that authors who have licensed their publication rights to traditional publishers often struggle to get them back when they want to, and they bump up against non-compete clauses that prevent them from using their own writing in other work they’re producing. When my business partner Trena White and I worked for other publishers, we felt these points of friction acutely and empathized with authors who felt them too. When we built Page Two, we were determined to set things up a different way. It’s so satisfying to produce books for people in a way that meets their individual needs and goals, and on terms that give them total freedom to do what they want with their work.

Second, our authors earn more on the back end than in traditional publishing models. Page Two charges on a fee-for-service basis for producing, marketing, and selling our books, but our authors earn substantially higher revenue on retail and bulk/direct sales, and on digital products such as ebook and audiobooks, they earn the highest maximum earnings offered by any of the online retail platforms such as Amazon.

And third, we are solutions-focused and innovative in our approach. And we love to help our authors innovate as well. Because our authors tend to be entrepreneurial, they are always asking about different approaches to publishing and that keeps us on our toes. There are some long-standing industry conventions that have gone unchallenged or unchanged, despite the disruption we’ve seen in the marketplace and media landscape. But our authors are innovative, boundary-pushing, unconventional people, and our team is keenly motivated to support those qualities in the work we do.

Nick:  How do you think about marketing a book today in a very tough marketplace?

Jesse: I won’t downplay how hard it is. There are no shortcuts and no easy answers. But book marketing has always been challenging. I think the key is to stay in relentless pursuit of marketing and sales opportunities outside of traditional retail channels. Fortunately, many of our authors have direct access to audiences and networks of people who are invested in them, and that’s the best possible place to start. A book that gains traction with an immediate, natural audience is likely to take hold in secondary markets as well, and that’s where we see great success. Speakers and professionals who are getting in front of audiences — whether it be through large keynotes, workshops, training, or consulting — are in a great position to take advantage of this. And if they’re up for playing the long game, they’ll see that most book publishing success builds gradually over time, one audience group at a time.

Nick:  What does the future of publishing look like?

Jesse:  I think we’ll see a continued trend towards the empowerment of the author. It’s not that authors need to go it alone; on the contrary, we find that entrepreneurs, professional speakers, and business leaders want to hire the strongest teams to help them publish professionally. But they also want to maintain control in their publishing efforts and there are increasing opportunities for them to do so successfully. I also think we’ll see continued uptake in the rapidly growing audiobook market and more options for readers to purchase books in multiple formats for multiple uses. I love what this represents for the kinds of authors we work with. For instance, speakers are already naturally inclined towards the audio format and tend to do well with it through online sales, while simultaneously finding great opportunities to sell their print edition at their keynotes and other live events.

Nick:  Finally, tell us a bit about Jesse — what’s your background?

Jesse:  I’ve always loved books and I’ve wanted to work in book publishing ever since I can remember. I grew up bilingual in Montreal, reading books in both English and French, and developed a deep curiosity about the different forms of writing that can emerge in each language and culture. That prompted me to do an undergraduate degree in literature and a master’s degree in publishing. As part of my master’s requirement, I did an internship at Vancouver-based Raincoast Books, which is the Canadian publisher of Harry Potter. The popularity of that series was skyrocketing when I joined the company, and it was an intense and amazing time to work in publishing. I was instantly hooked. Raincoast eventually made me associate publisher. I then moved to D&M Publishers in 2008 to develop the company’s digital program, and I ultimately became COO. At that time, the ebook market was nascent and it felt like the wild west. We were forming first-time vendor agreements with the likes of Amazon, Apple, and Google; we were building apps; and we were experimenting with enhanced ebooks. At D&M I met Trena White, my current partner at Page Two, and we quickly developed a great working relationship. When D&M folded in 2013, Trena and I founded Page Two and gradually built a team of the brightest people in the business. More than six years in, our company is thriving, and yet we feel like we’re just getting going. There are so many opportunities for program and market development, and the future looks bright.

Nick: Jesse, thanks so much for using ‘nascent’ in a sentence, and thanks for speaking with me.  And good luck in that bright future in 2020!

This is my last blog post of 2019.  I’ll be back in 2020; meanwhile have a lovely holiday season.