approach

People buy our books to gain insight and because of the way that our titles make them feel. When you read a title published by Superchamp Books, you can trust it. This is because you engage with the talent, wisdom, and creativity of our authors, and you feel smarter, you feel seen, you feel better. We publish better.

Better isn’t about competing. We don’t compete with other publishers. We don’t compete for readers. We know where we stand and what we believe in. We trust that there are readers out there (plenty of them) who see the value in what we do. Better also means that we never settle; we challenge ourselves to improve, to imagine new literary possibilities, to find new ways to include a diverse range of writers, and to publish new books that help shape culture.

BRAND

Our brand is our promise to our readers. A publisher’s brand is shorthand for readers expectations. For Superchamp Books then, our brand is niche titles that deliver insight, authenticity, and connection. Our readers expect our books to teach them something new, to give them a real perspective on the cultures that they care about, and to provide them with stories and themes that they relate to. This is the promise that we make to our readers.

focus

We publish interesting shit. Shit that somebody interesting and talented has written. Shit that somebody somewhere in the world really likes. Shit that legacy publishers wouldn’t touch or lack the versatility or diversity to do so.

We show you our worldview; we don’t hide who we are. We see the world as being full of diverse communities, a world that is inclusive and more enriching when knowledge and insight is shared. This is our worldview, we don’t hide it. We know that most of the best writers today share our worldview, and we strongly believe that it’s easier for readers to support a publisher who’s aligned with their view of the world.

WRITERS

While we work with all types of different writers, we are primarily focused on working with freelance writers. We boost the signal of freelance writers. We open doors for them and enable them to increase their status.

One of our goals is to fast track freelance writers to book authors. When it comes to becoming a published book author, the path via legacy publishers is narrow (real narrow), slow (real slow), and elitist (ridiculously so). Becoming a published author, under the legacy publishing model, depends on a bag full of privilege metrics that block most of the world’s best writers form entry. Our publishing model flips this on its head; we recruit writers — especially crafty, talented, and hardworking freelance writers — to write books. And we look first at the world’s pool of exceptionally talented freelance writers.

Dependable home for freelance writers…

Freelance writers pitch, submit, write, wait, and repeat. The problem with this 5-step process is that there’s no certainty. This is because the “wait” step is actually a double tax on the time, energy, and morale of freelance writers. Freelance writers wait to see if their work will be picked up, and if their work is ultimately picked up, they often have to wait (and wait) (and wait) to get paid.

We remove the “wait” step and compress the freelance writers process to 4 steps. Freelance writers are brave; we believe they deserve to be rewarded for their bravery. At the core of our Best Damn Writing series is our philosophy that the “best damn writing” should win, not a connection to someone in publishing; not privilege; not watered down journalism or sensationalism; not group think; not one specific kind of writing eduction…or any other factor that works to block out a diverse range of voices.

SYSTEM

We crash everything!

Crash publishing is the process of producing a book from manuscript to final product on an abbreviated schedule, often in a matter of weeks. Traditionally, books, which take a lot of time to write, have come to market two, three years after a publishing agreement is signed. This is because the traditional way of doing things was to write a query and just enough of a manuscript to get interest from a literary agent; in turn, the literary agent shops the manuscript to a publisher. Once the manuscript is bought by a publisher and the deal is made, the author goes off to write the book.

While this model still has its place, the world moves much faster than that today; and many writers aren’t waiting for a book deal to write a book — they’re writing the whole book on spec. (Besides, most writers don’t have connections to a literary agent, and most never will.) We focus on writers who write quality work on spec and who have work ready to go in the chamber. And in the cases where the book is not finished before a writer approaches us, we commit to their book only if we sure that it can be completely written and published within in one year. (This does not count the years of research and writing that a writer may have done before submitting their manuscript to us.)

One reason for our crash publishing policy (philosophy), and not coincidentally our marketing strategy, is that we believe that real hype — the kind that tracts and endures — is organic and earned. So we ship product when it’s done, and we grow it organically based on our relationships with writers, our observations of reader engagement, and our marketing ideas.

Technique

The tip is in the price of the book…

Superchamp Books is not in a race to the bottom. We don’t do cheap. More importantly, we don’t believe in free work. Uncompensated time, work, and effort is not our jam; and we know damn well it’s not the jam of the writers that we work with. So we price the print edition of our books 20% higher than what others in the market might set (in some cases 20% lower). This extra 20%, call it a book tip, goes to commissioning freelance writers. We charge a little more on the hard copy retail price because doing so enables us to recruit and publish more freelance writers, which allows for more diverse voices to be heard, which increases the output of interesting work in the market. This in turn presents the public with more knowledge to be gained. So when it comes down to it, we believe this 20% tip is a bargain.

We do insight marketing, not book publicity. If you’re looking to have a book publicist, we’re not the right publisher for you. We don’t do book publicity, we do knowledge marketing. Book publicity is a money game where ads, author events, and reviews reign supreme. Of course, none of these things are real engagement. Insight marketing is our approach to book promotion. We seek out and engage with our tribes, the people who are keen on the insight that our titles provide, and we promote the discourse surrounding the whole exchange. We believe that this is an organic and equitable approach to marketing.

That being said, we place ads where we know they’ll tract; we create innovative (mostly digital) author events; and we secure reviews only from the publications and people that cover the area of a given title. We limit the cost of engagement by being sincere participants in the discussions that align with the core topics that we publish.

We recognize that the math of a hit is about much more than selling a lot of copies of book. For us, here’s what a hit is. A hit is a book that contributes to the discussion we’re interested in. A hit is a book or other publication that boosts the radar of the authors that we work with. A book is a hit that helps the writers that we publish pay some of their bills — And if they become thought leaders along the way? Cool, cool.

Let’s work: said@superchampbooks.com —Said, Co-Founder/President/Executive Editor, Superchamp Books