In a 1981 interview, the Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman described himself as “actively irresponsible.” In his view, declining positions on committees, avoiding minutiae and shirking shallow work was the only way he could find the “absolute solid lengths of time” and concentration required to do “real good physics work.”
And he ought to know. He worked on the Manhattan Project.
Writers and other creatives face the same conundrum, often sacrificing the uninterrupted focus required to produce their work for the tedium of planning and publicizing it.
This is especially true for authors seeking agents and publishers to edit, market and publicize their work. Authors typically send 80 separate inquiries to potential publishers when shopping a new title around. In turn, those agents and publishers, facing a torrent of similar emails, take about six weeks to respond.
Monica Landers has been there, in a way. She was plagued by similar challenges for more than a decade in various roles — as a producer at ABC News, a corporate communications director and a content specialist at various companies.
She knows neither authors nor publishers are pleased with the current situation. So in December 2014, she founded
to standardize the query process, which co-founder David O’Brien estimates takes an average of six months.
Since its official launch in the fall of 2015, Landers said even the company’s beta testers have found success.
“We have lots of writers, including some who have gotten book deals through it,” he said. “The book deals happen a lot faster than they do typically in the industry.”
In February, Authors.me was accepted into the latest class of Techstars Austin.
“There’s so much activity, and it goes so fast,” Landers said of the program. “I get support from the fellow companies in the program as well as the mentors and staff. I knew it would be good when I joined, but I’ve been so impressed with the organization and the support. It’s hard to explain what it’s like when you come into an environment where, on our first three weeks, we came in and met with 80 different mentors. For example, this morning we had a mock board meeting. 5 of the mentors were there — five busy people running their own companies come in for an hour every week to help us.”
Earlier this week, the company raised $247,000 in equity to expand its marketing and development teams and pay team members who Landers said have been working for sweat equity over the last year or so.
If the company’s recent traction is real and repeatable, it’s safe to expect they’ll continue growing — and not just in book publishing.
“This doesn’t just apply to authors,” Landers said. “Everyone I talk to in the music industry has been asking how soon we can do this for them.”
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