If that’s how it is, I’ll just start my own d*mn publishing company
"We aren't interested in publishing your book, mainly because you're based in Atlanta..."
Hello friends,
I thought I’d share the story of how I created Ripples Media, the book publishing company I founded in 2019 (which is run by my partner, Andrew Vogel.)
Ripples has grown a great deal since Andrew took over a year ago, now with over 20 authors!! We also have a clear Purpose to fill the world with authentic and powerful stories to inspire positive change.
That’s such a great Purpose statement. Let me say it a little louder:
Our Purpose is to fill the world with authentic and powerful stories to inspire positive change.
So good.
This is why we’ve evolved beyond only telling business, leadership, or marketing stories (though we do have a lot of those, and we’re darn good at them.) For example, we have upcoming books helping people cope with grief and significant loss, giving insight into how healthcare workers survived through the 2020-21 years of Covid, and helping bi-racial children to embrace their unique identity.
And while I love to read (and occasionally write) books, I never once thought about starting a publishing company. Not until the industry thumbed its collective nose at me, and I thought, “Well, I’ll show them!”
But before I start, are you or anyone you know interested in possibly writing a book?
If so, please reach out. Andrew and I would love to talk about it! Reply to this newsletter (or reach out to me on LinkedIn), and we can talk.
And now on to our story…
Somewhere around 2013, I started to fall in love with reading again (truth be told, I regrettably was never a big-time reader in the past.) Since then I’ve been averaging about three books read a month, and one year I even averaged over one a week.
In fact, I love reading so much that Adam Walker and I started a monthly podcast called “Who has time to read?!” where we talk about books we’re reading. Check it out at whohastimetoread.us.
In 2018, I decided I wanted to write a book to help my non-entrepreneur friends embrace the mindset of an entrepreneur. I created the outline and overall plan, and then when we took our family to live in Edinburgh for a month that July. I committed to writing every morning until I finished the first draft. Thirty days later, on the last day of our trip, I was done.
At that point, I started looking for a publisher. After trying hard to get the attention of any publisher — none would respond to my outreach — I finally realized that you need an agent to get in front of a publisher.
So…I spent another six months looking for an agent, eventually finding a small agent that liked my book concept and thought it had potential. I signed with her and she helped me put together a proper proposal. She then went out to all the publishers, big and small, to see what they thought. We’re talking Simon & Schuster, McGraw Hill…you name it, they received my proposal.
And they actually did take a look at my proposal, which taught me that the agent-thing was indeed the right way to start this process. After waiting for their editorial teams to review recent proposals, I began to hear back from them.
And one by one, they turned me down.
There were many reasons given as to why they did not want to publish my book.
“We aren’t interested in leadership books at this time.” Fair enough.
“The fable-style business books don’t sell.” Ok, but Patrick Lencioni would probably have something to say about that.
“We’ll publish your book if you agree to buy 10,000 copies from us at $12.50/book.” I literally heard that.
But the most common response I received as to why my book wasn’t a fit was:
“Atlanta is just too small of a market.”
Um, say what now?
First of all, my book wasn’t about Atlanta. They were basically saying that because I am from Atlanta, I couldn’t sell books because the city is too small. (I just laughed out loud writing that.)
Needless to say, the entire process turned me off. Beyond the “you’re not cool enough for our crowd” vibe I received from the publishers, I also spoke to many people who had used a traditional publisher and heard how tough they are to work with, how slow they move, how little they actually help promote their authors’ books, and how much control they take in the process (often times having title and cover control as well as editorial.)
Fine then, I’ll just do this 💩 myself.
So, being the good entrepreneur that I am, I decided I would start my own publishing company and produce my own damn books. And I did, first publishing The 5-Day Turnaround, and then, in the early days of Covid, I wrote The Crisis Turnaround.
Now, at this point, I knew the publishing industry was in need of disruption; I just didn’t think I’d be part of that fight. I’d publish my own books and keep writing.
But little by little, friends who wanted to write a book started asking me if my publishing company was taking on new authors. Not only was that interesting to me, but these particular friends had incredible stories to tell, and I loved the idea of helping them do that.
So I started helping my friends. And they started telling their friends. And then a few years later, in May of 2023, I brought on Andrew as my partner. And since then we’ve hit a HOT STREAK.
Turns out there’s a real need for a new way to support authors on their journey
We now have over 20 authors, and it feels like we’re only just getting started.
Case in point: We recently had an author get together, and this is only half of our gang:
While I believe we do many things incredibly well at Ripples, the way we build and nurture our community of authors will ultimately keep separating us from the rest of the industry. Writing is a lonely endeavor. Having a team of people who have been through or are going through the writing process rooting each other on has proven to be invaluable.
In my very biased (and somewhat spurned) opinion, the publishing industry is an exclusive, old-school, antiquated industry that has largely forgotten that its purpose is to help people tell their stories and achieve their dreams.
And I’m happy to be a part of trying to disrupt it.
The Point
I love this company. It has the recipe for everything you could want in a business:
A very real Purpose and reason for being
The ability to help people achieve their dreams
A team of exceptional humans working toward a common goal
Financial success that matches our customers’ success (we all win when books are sold)
The chance to break apart an old, exclusive industry (that looks down on us country folk in Atlanta, of all things)
As always, I’ll end by saying I hope you’re happy. I really do.
Recent podcasts
I produce a podcast called Begin the Begin. I hope you'll consider subscribing. Here are some of the latest episodes: