TL;DRToday we open the doors. Crossroads Publishing Group—a hybrid publisher of serious nonfiction in Chattanooga—announces the Crossroads Commons, our founding membership. Three tiers; fifty lifetime Founder spots, ever.• Join the Commons → crossroadspublishing.group/commons• Publish with us → crossroadspublishing.group/engagements• The catalog → crossroadspublishing.group/catalog• Questions → [email protected]

Most small presses spend their first year trying to look like a big press. We’re not doing that. A hybrid publisher of serious nonfiction, based in Chattanooga, founded this year, built around the idea that books are occasions for community—and that the press’s job is to take that seriously.The Long StoryA few weeks ago I made a decision about how Crossroads Publishing Group would set itself apart: a real commitment to relationship. Then, on a mountain bike trail a few days ago, the bigger version of the idea arrived. It’s not just relationship—one-on-one, editor and author. It’s community. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it: leadership books end at community. Recovery books end at community. Theology, parenting, loneliness, climate—trace the actual argument and the topic turns out to be the doorway in. Community is the thing itself.

So I’m building the press to take that seriously, not as a marketing line, but as operating structure. Today’s episode lays out the whole thing.

Five structural commitments:

* Every Crossroads author gets a direct-purchase URL for their community—their people buy from the press, their royalty is higher, and the relationship stays out of the algorithm.

* Every book launches with an event in the author’s community, wherever they live.

* Every Crossroads author appears on The Difficulty.

* Authors meet each other—the catalog becomes a community of minds, not a list of titles.

* Readers get a structured way to belong to the press: the Crossroads Commons, open today.

The Commons, three tiers:

* Reader — $200/year. Every new title shipped to your door on publication day. A quarterly Circle Letter. 20% off direct orders. Your name in the colophon of every title shipped during your membership year.

* Patron — $500/year. Everything above, plus a signed limited-edition hardcover each year (printed exclusively for Patrons), an invitation to the annual Crossroads gathering, private author Q&As at every launch, and 30% off.

* Founder — $1,000, one time, lifetime. Limited to the first 50, ever. All Patron benefits in perpetuity, your name permanently in the colophon of every title we publish during your lifetime, and one annual meal or coffee with me. When the 50 are filled, that door closes forever.

The Commons isn’t a subscription to this podcast, The Difficulty stays free, always. It’s membership in the press itself. And you shouldn’t join from obligation or scarcity pressure. Join because the editorial direction and the community we’re forming matter to you, and you want to be part of the early conversation.

→ Join the Crossroads Commons

The four doors, if you’re wondering which is yours:

* Authors — from a $750 Legacy Audit to the full Compile to Publish engagement (print + ebook + audiobook, six to eight months): crossroadspublishing.group/engagements

* Readers — the Circle: crossroadspublishing.group/circle

* Writers developing a manuscript in community — the First Draft Cohort, applications open July 13, inaugural class begins September 14.

* Just want a book? — crossroadspublishing.group/catalog — William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience is in print now; Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is next (and I’m narrating the audiobook myself)

This is your moment to step in.

—Chad

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com