Marijn Wiersma wants to challenge how women think about their careers.
“Don’t confuse grit with well-being,” advised Wiersma, a corporate anthropologist based in the Netherlands and founder of Incredible Impact, a company focused on unlocking women’s potential as entrepreneurs and leaders, at the launch of SOS: A Navigation Guide for Women at Work, which she co-authored and published earlier this year. She pointed to an often-overlooked health disparity: women live longer than men, but often spend a greater proportion of their lives in ill health.
Wiersma and her multi-generational co-authors— banker Chantal Korteweg, veterinarian Lidewij Wiersma and management trainee Tessel van Willigen—had gathered for a stop on their book tour at Bibliothèque, a wine bar in SoHo in New York City.
The four authors, each at different stages of their careers, collectively published SOS through Publishizer, a platform to connect authors with publishers, working with Morgan James Publishing. They sold more than 600 copies through a preorder campaign.
While the Big Five publishing houses might not be willing to take a chance on a book by new authors who don’t have millions of followers on social media, Publishizer’s CEO Bethany Marshall has found there are many smaller independent, hybrid and à la carte service publishers that will.
Publishizer’s business model bypasses the traditional route to commercial publishing, in which authors must first win an agent, who then approaches large commercial publishers. The platform enables them to launch a 30-day campaign to attract preorders, signaling to publishers the sales potential of a book. Publishizer acts as an agent, taking a 30% commission on sales made during the campaign. Traditional agents typically take commissions in the 15% range, receiving their percentage for the duration of a book’s sales. If a publisher on the platform bites, the author then negotiates a publishing deal with them.
The publishing market is undergoing a significant disruption, thanks to new publishing models and channels, as well as trends like the use of AI and the entry of players like Microsoft into the publishing landscape. Independent publishers, led by Microcosm Publishing and Blue Star Press, now make up 35% of the publishing market, according to research by Words Rated, a market research group.
The rapidly changing publishing environment has opened opportunities for players like Publishizer, as well as crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where authors also run preorder campaigns. Publishizer has hosted 709 campaigns for books that got published and currently has 13 active ones.
Among the books with the most successful Publishizer campaigns are Rigging the Game, a guide to achieving “financial certainty” by Daniel Nicholson, founder of nthdegreeCPAs and published by Amplify Publishing Group ($52,385 in sales; 2,458 preorders); The Choreography of Customer Service, by Chris Lynam, co-owner of seven Arthur Murray Dance schools, published by Post Hill Press ($55,535 in sales; 2,453 preorders), and Boss Brain, a guide for aspiring entrepreneurs by Tra Williams published by Sunbury Press ($50,225 in sales; 2,009 copies sold).
Many of the publishers acquiring books on Publishizer are independent houses, such as BenBella Books, Berrett-Koehler, Hay House, Post Hill Press, and Sourcebooks. Others are hybrid publishers, like Amplify Publishing Group and Greenleaf Press, which provide authors with editorial services and distribution but are selective about which works they publish.
“I love to match an author with a publisher when it’s going to be a great experience with both parties,” Marshall says. “I love to ask: Who would be great to nurture the author through this process and guide them in a way that’s going to help them see the potential for this book, and also the overall possibilities?”
Publishers who want to bid on the books on Publishizer create profiles there. They can select the categories of books for which they want to receive queries and specify a minimum number of preordered copies sold, such as for books in the “mindfulness & happiness” category that have sold 500 copies. Preorder sales are published on the site. “Editors can also proactively look at active campaigns, express interest and start that conversation early,” Marshall says.
Publishizer
Marshall, who spent much of her career at Morgan James Publishing, got hooked on reading when she discovered Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Her interest deepened when her father, a guitar luthier, introduced her to a customer who collected rare books, and they visited his library. “I love reading and stepping into these other worlds,” she says.
Marshall started training in Muay Thai, a martial art, after high school and began a career as a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter while taking classes at her local community college. During that period, she accepted a part-time job at Morgan James Publishing in 2008, then a five-year-old startup, the same year she won her first professional MMA fight.
Her work schedule allowed her to juggle her training with starting her publishing career. “I would train once or twice a day, depending on what was going on, whether it was different grappling or Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, Muay Thai fights or MMA fights,” she says. “Because I was working from home, I was able to structure my day around the fitness side of my life and then the publishing side.”
The work she did at Morgan James shaped her approach to running Publishizer. One of her responsibilities was managing the relationship with book distributors and working closely with the sales and distribution team that sold books to bookstores. “I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of different book proposals, and the materials that a salesperson uses to go out and sell the books are very condensed highlights of what might be in that traditional book proposal,” she says.
Marshall joined Publishizer as CEO in 2022. Guy Vincent, an Australian entrepreneur, founded the company in Amsterdam in 2015 with the dream of creating the “world’s first crowdfunding literary agency,” as he later told Publishers Weekly. He partnered with the chief marketing officer and co-founder Leo Constantine. Publishizer raised pre-seed funding in 2015 and 2018, as well as a round of seed funding in 2018, according to Crunchbase.
When Marshall took the helm, she tapped what she learned at Morgan James to streamline authors’ submissions on Publishizer. The site requires a simplified book proposal that includes the most critical elements the publisher needs, such as a synopsis, sales arguments, comparative titles, and marketing plans. “It’s very much designed to pull the essence out of the book proposal, but leave out the fluff,” she says. “Bookstore space is very competitive. You’ve really got to position why or how your book stands out and fits in.”
She also drew on what she learned about the importance of preparation from her MMA training as she guided authors on campaigns. “There is a level of being really honest with yourself if you step into a cage to fight: Am I ready? Am I truly prepared? Did I do what I needed to do to show up as my best?” she says. “It becomes tough to lie to yourself.”
Authors need to be ready to devote their energy not just to writing a book but to practicalities like finding a publisher and publicizing the book launch, she has seen. “You’ve got to be all-in on that process,” she says. “Do you really believe in what you’re writing and trying to get published? And are you willing to be out there and be your own champion of your work?”
Authors who enter the writing process with clear goals, such as establishing their authority through a book and securing speaking engagements, often find that their personal mission drives them, she has seen. Her goal is to be their guide. “It can be very hard to navigate the publishing process,” she says.
For authors, writing books can become a platform to spread their ideas—as it was for SOS co-author Korteweg, who encouraged the women in the audience to express in the realms where they are active, whether at home, the workplace or their community: “Each and every one of us has influence,” she said.
