Is 'Self-publish' No Longer a Dirty Word? Author Solutions Inc. CEO Kevin Weiss explains why some major publishers now are embracing this model.
Book Business Extra: What are the mechanics behind Author Solutions' partnerships with publishers like Thomas Nelson and Harlequin?
Kevin Weiss: … We've believed for quite a while that the self-publishing services model that we have, as a company, is not something that necessarily needs to be ours alone. ... And so, last year, we started to talk about the growth in our business and what we were seeing as an explosion in the marketplace. … Where could we help others drive the marketplace? We looked at what was going on in traditional publishing and how it was ... changing. ... We said, "Traditional publishers really are in a position to be able to offer a variety of things in the marketplace. But they don't know how to do what we do." We had a hunch that there was this model whereby traditional publishers would create their own self-publishing imprint, and they'd have the opportunity to watch [authors] who are inside that imprint and determine which ones they were ready to pull out and offer a contract to traditionally publish. We put this model together, and we started to call on publishers … . That's how it came about. … It's just more of a "How can we participate in the ever-changing landscape that's currently called publishing?"