Zibby Owens and Leigh Newman have formed Zibby Books, a publishing company that is joining Moms Don't Have Time To as a division of Zibby Owens Media. Owens has interviewed more than 1,000 authors for her podcast Moms Don't Have Time To, and is an author and Harvard Business School graduate. Newman is an author and publishing veteran, and is president and editorial director of Zibby Books.
Zibby Books will publish 12 books a year--one a month--and focus on fiction and memoir from both debut and established authors with a commitment to diverse literary voices. The goal is to produce "exceptional, accessible ('book club') stories that move and connect readers." The first Zibby Books title will be released in January 2023; Zibby Books will be distributed by Ingram's Two Rivers.
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| Zibby Owens and Leigh Newman | |
Zibby Books has several unusual aspects to its business model. Instead of relying on celebrities to promote books, Owens is calling on other bestselling and established authors to give back and lift up individual titles from inception to publication. Dubbed "book champions," those bestselling authors will get an equity stake in their Zibby Book and will mentor the author along the way. "Authors have banded together informally on social media and in other ways to address the seemingly insurmountable odds of an individual book breaking through," Owens said. "Authors also know great writing when they see it. Why shouldn't they be the arbiters of talent? Our author-influencer network will show that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
In addition, Zibby Books has a profit-sharing bonus program under which 75% of all net profits in each calendar year of Zibby Books will be split equally between every employee and the publishing program's authors who, in addition to receiving advances and author royalties, will receive the profit bonus for both their year of publication and their first year of backlist, as well as any years during which their book has "outsized sales results."
Newman commented: "We want all authors under the Zibby Books umbrella to feel--and be--invested in each other's success. All employees from the copy editor to the v-p of marketing play an equally important role. Producing books is a team effort."
The Zibby Books executive team consists of authors. Newman wrote the memoir Still Points North and the upcoming Nobody Gets Out Alive. V-p of strategy & book club Jaunique Sealey's Black Girls Must Die Exhausted appears September 28. Maya Shanbhag Lang, author of What We Carry: A Memoir and the novel The Sixteenth of June, will be v-p of editorial & strategy.
Additionally, consulting publisher Anne Messitte has edited and published many of the world's leading writers in her two decades at Penguin Random House as publisher of Vintage Anchor. And Owens has edited two anthologies, Moms Don't Have Time To and Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids (appearing November 2), as well as written the forthcoming children's book, Princess Charming (April 2022), and her memoir, The Book Messenger (July 2022).
Zibby Books has an indie bookseller advisory council and will, the company said, "aggressively support booksellers with book club outreach, unique events, and immersive experiences centered on the stories between the covers. Zibby Books will bring readers to books and help booksellers bring books to readers, wherever they are."