Three top publishing executives, among them former Penguin Random House (PRH) CEO Madeline McIntosh and former Macmillan CEO Don Weisberg have joined forces to launch a new publishing house called Authors Equity. The third member is Nina von Moltke, former president of strategic development at PRH.
Authors Equity describes itself as “a new publishing company committed to reshaping the relationship between author and publisher”. It adds: “We’ve taken the best elements of traditional publishing and combined them with a fresh approach to help authors succeed in today’s market.”
It has four “core principles” Firstly, a profit-share model that “rewards authors who want to bet on themselves. Profit participation is also an option for key members of the book team, so we’re in a position to win together.”
Secondly, “bespoke teams”. It says: “We’ve assembled a wide network of creative talent – from within and outside publishing – that we can tap for projects based on an author’s unique goals, needs, and ambitions.”
Thirdly, “flexibility and transparency”, under which it explains: “Every author brings something different to a project, so we approach every project differently. By shaping the process and strategy alongside each author, and making decisions together, we’re able to act in the best interest of that book.”
And fourthly what it calls “long-term collaboration”, explained thus: “Too often, even the very best publishing talent has too little time to invest in helping an author develop their ideas and their audience. This bandwidth pressure can translate into saying “no” a lot. We’re deeply committed to trying for “yes”: to giving books room to breathe and supporting individuals and teams with the space they need to think big and think differently. We’re in it from day one, and for the long haul.”
Author Equity’s titles will be distributed by Simon & Schuster.
Brand name authors already involved include James Clear, author of Atomic Habits (PRH), self-improvement author Tim Ferris (PRH); and Louise Penny, author of Macmillan’s Inspector Gamach novels.