The Charlatans of Hybrid Publishing

A few years ago, I befriended a successful senior executive at my gym. (Sweating together on a treadmill or Ultra Fit class makes for rapid bonding.) I'll call the guy Dave here, but it's a pseudonym.

Dave told me that he had considered writing a book at different points in his career, but he didn't know where to start. What's more, several ostensibly reputable publishers had recently contacted him about getting started. (In fact, they were hybrid outfits that would charge him upwards of six figures to write his book.) An aggressive rep at Publisher X told him that his rough title for a business book "would be a bestseller."

In between sprints, Dave conveyed the crux of that conversation to me. After catching my breath, I told him to immediately run—and not just on his current treadmill.

The Promise

The rep's suggestion was downright irresponsible.

It wasn't the price tag that made me caution my new friend. In fact, hiring an experienced ghostwriter to pen a quality manuscript alone is an expensive endeavor. When you factor in different types of editing, interior and cover design, figure creation, indexing, and ebook conversion, $100,000 isn't entirely unreasonable. Now include decent budgets for marketing, advertising, and public relations, and you may blow past that number. Plenty of successful authors have.