I asked a business expert how publishing needs to change—and what he said made me rethink the whole industry

"Y'know what would be interesting? If art could be updated the way products are."

Hello, friends!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me here on the Substack, including a juicy Substack Live with

Jenny Rosenstrach

from the lovely

Dinner: A Love Story

, an extremely detailed guide to throwing your own influencer event over on

Leigh Stein

’s insightful

Attention Economy

, and a craft-heavy chat with the brilliant

CeCe Lyra

, a fab literary agent on

The Shit About Writing Team

.

Lots of new followers, too (Get It Write hit #2 on the Rising in Literature list!), so allow me to reintroduce myself: I’m Andrea Bartz, a consultant and former magazine editor and the New York Times bestselling author of five thrillers, including Reese’s Book Club pick We Were Never Here and new, queer, tropical mystery The Last Ferry Out, which hit shelves May 20.

Speaking of! Last week I shared that, despite solid reviews (thank you, editorial team!) and tons of buzz (I tip my hat, marketing & PR!), The Last Ferry Out is not exactly doing numbers:

Let's talk about my Week 1 sales

Now, my publisher helped me put out the best book possible; they helped me plan events and partner with influencers; they got me media hits aplenty; they even sent influencers very cool map-wrapped book mailings. I threw myself into marketing efforts of my own, including a postcard campaign (which I’ll tell you more about soon) and tons of personal outreach. But when the sales numbers poured in…well.

This photo makes ME want to empty my wallet, but not everyone feels the same, alas. (Photo by Ksenia Chernaya)

I keep hearing from people inside the industry that the old model’s not working like it used to. (And of course, this field is squeezing its employees just like every other business, leaving them with less guidance and heavier workloads than ever—editor

Sean deLone

wrote an excellent post on this.) I love my team and have been super happy at my publisher, so let me be clear: This is solidarity, not a knock on anyone.

Last week I asked y’all what you’d try if you were running a publishing company. The idea was to think big and look at our beloved industry with optimism and creativity instead of defeat and despair. And oh, did you deliver! It was a brainstorm for the ages. (Publishers, you’ve got my number—free ideas galore!).

But one eye-opening take that didn’t hit the comment section came from an email exchange with my friend Jason Feifer, a business consultant and the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. He writes an invaluable newsletter for entrepreneurs (which we all are!) and is kicking off a new course on building a personal brand on LinkedIn. Jason helps CEOs push products and services with proven, pragmatic strategies, which is why it’s fun to discuss the book industry so plainly with him. With his permission, I’m sharing our convo below.

“You put a product out, and you cross your fingers that it has product-market fit, and if it doesn't, then you say ‘oh well’ and give up on the product and make another one. That's actually pretty f*cking crazy, when you think of it like that.”

Some important context: Jason and I are not inside the industry. We work with it and know it fairly intimately, but we’re looking in from the outside and talking big-picture. Book publicist

Kathleen Schmidt

(of the excellent

Publishing Confidential

) informed me that many of my ideas in the last post have already been tried over the years. I’ll say it again—we’re stepping back and dreaming about what could be, not chastising anyone for the way things are. Okay, ready for some super-candid takes?