The Challenges Of Small Press Publishing With Jon Barton

What are the most important aspects of becoming a successful publisher? Jon Barton talks about his lessons learned and how to avoid the pitfalls.

In the intro, Amazon AWS Bedrock for generative AI; Impromptu: Amplifying our Humanity Through AI by Reid Hoffman and co-written with GPT4; reflections on the fantastic 20BooksSpain Seville conference; Ideas and execution by Hugh Howey; The Creator Economy course; AI Cover Design for Authors;

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Jon Barton is the founder and managing director of the award-winning independent publisher Vertebrate Publishing, as well as the author of several bestselling mountain biking guides.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

* Challenges in publishing other people's works

* The ecosystem of Vertebrate Publishing

* Pivoting business models

* Sticking to a niche and why it works

* Tips for pitching to a publisher

* RRP royalty rate vs. net royalty rate

* Understanding contracts and seeking outside advice

You can find Jon and Vertebrate Publishing at AdventureBooks.com

Transcript of Interview with Jon Barton

Joanna: Jon Barton is the founder and managing director of the award-winning independent publisher Vertebrate Publishing, as well as the author of several bestselling mountain biking guides. So welcome to the show, Jon.

Jon: Hi, Jo. How goes it?

Joanna: Good. I'm excited to talk to you today.

First up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Jon: Well, the one thing that's worth knowing about me is I've never had a CV and never been to a job interview, I'm older than I sound as well. I discovered rock climbing when I was probably 13 or 14, and that's pretty much all I did until I was about 30.

In fact, when I met my wife and I was about 31, 32, and she just presumed I'd been working for a decade and had savings and houses and all the rest of i...