GOTD, Year 1: What We've Accomplished and Our Plans for Year 2
The last 12 months were the most difficult of my life, but this publishing company has moved forward in critical ways as it prepares to begin production on the first wave of titles.
Just over a year ago, on July 4 of 2022, I announced the launch of the new publishing company, God of the Desert Books, and the creation of this Substack to promote and develop it.
What have we accomplished since then? Which goals will we pursue in Year 2? Let’s do a quick update on the state of the company.
For those of you just joining us recently, at GOTD our primary commercial objective is to publish books and develop various products based on their intellectual property. Our primary moral objective is to bring together people across religious, cultural, ideological, and international borders to collaborate on this work together. We take a primary influence from the Abraham Accords: through recognizing our faith traditions’ shared roots in the prophet Abraham, we can both enrich each others’ cultural experiences and enrich each others’ bank accounts. When people make peace over their religious and ideological disagreements, they can trust each other and begin to do business together. We aspire to do that in the cultural realm, with a foundation in books, both fiction and nonfiction, with a dash of poetry too. We welcome people of other religious traditions or no religion to participate also, and work with creatives around the world. Here at home, we seek to act as a bridge between liberals and conservatives, encouraging friendly dialogue and constructive debate.
Finally, we are a Zionist publisher. This means that a further common link of all contributors is a shared belief in the defense of both the Jewish state and the Jewish people. We recognize that antisemites are not just a threat to the Jews, they’re the enemies of all free societies, and all people of moral clarity should vigorously work to counter them.
So, toward these ends, over the last year, we’ve accomplished these goals:
Most importantly, last month GOTD signed with a crucial partner for any publisher who wants to be taken seriously. We now have a distributor, who will assist us in all sorts of ways, getting our books out in many different venues and implementing unique marketing strategies. I’m very excited that, after many months of talks and contract reviews, we were finally able to sign.
Together, the GOTD leadership team of
, , and I have developed a business plan and internal company structure which we feel confident in, and are now ready to move forward in launching.Based on this business plan, our distributor’s capabilities, and our lawyer’s guidance, we have now crafted a brand-new author contract which is far superior to the one used in the previous publishing company where many of us used to work.
Over the last year we’ve had to figure out which writers we’re going to publish in our first wave of titles and then seek to publish long-term. We’re now at over a dozen authors, some with multiple books, who we’re planning to sign up this month, and have an initial publishing schedule for our first two years drafted.
This Substack has grown at an inspiring pace, and it’s been a lot of fun! We continue to experiment with, assess, and develop the content strategies best suited to us and our readers, especially as our list of contributors grows.
Over many essays, blog posts, and podcasts, I’ve come to develop the Judeo-Christian-Islamic-Eastern countercultural mystical principles underlying what we’re trying to do here both commercially and morally.
We’ve relocated the company - and ourselves - to a much better setting in Yucca Valley, California, surrounded by a forest of beautiful Joshua trees.
We’ve also developed an initial marketing plan for our books and authors. Substack will be a central component of this. Just as we launched
’s Goddess of the Desert Books to draw in more women readers/authors and offer a softer tone, we’ll be launching more Substacks later this year, each with a narrower area of focus. We have learned that we’re probably throwing too wide a variety of content at people here at GOTD. In this multi-Substack strategy, we will offer distinct categories of content moving forward: you'll be able to subscribe specifically to what you do want to read, and ignore the rest.
I haven’t wanted to rush the complete launch of this publishing company. I’ve seen multiple examples of the perils of just diving into book publishing without doing the proper planning first. And I appreciate our team of authors for recognizing that. Rushing out a book is not a path to success with it - in fact, it all but guarantees commercial and artistic failure.
So what is the plan for success? Here is what we’re going to try and do in Year 2:
Start putting our titles through the editorial process, into production (cover creation, formatting, and proofreading), and then submit them promptly to our distributor.
Begin more intensive promotions of our authors and their books, implementing the marketing plans we’ve developed.
Launch our official publishing company website.
Expand our podcasts to include interviews and more video.
Start to explore other media platforms, particularly YouTube, but also collaborations with other publications and publishers who hold similar values.
Determine further potential partnerships for the development and/or production of the ancillary products created from our titles.
See our first titles begin to be published - we’re going to aim for one new book each month as we start.
Announce that we are able to consider new submissions. We hope to be ready for this phase by fall, having gotten our editorial and production processes moving properly for our existing titles.
On this last point, I’ll go into a bit more detail, as I hope that some of our subscribers will consider becoming authors, editors, or some other collaborators with us here at GOTD.
At this time, we are primarily interested in publishing three categories of books: novels, nonfiction titles, and poetry collections. Here’s a brief summary of what we’re looking for in each medium:
Novels
We are interested in both genre titles and literary works, though we will likely publish more of the former than the latter. Historical fiction will be a genre of special emphasis - we will consider books set from any period ancient times through the end of the 1990s. Genres we most want to explore are science fiction, thriller, fantasy, horror, satire, mystery/detective, military, and romance. In these various genres we tend to prefer a more modernist and “traditional” approach (however you want to interpret that) rather than postmodern and overly experimental.
We prefer novels of 65,000-80,000 words, with exceptions for sci-fi/fantasy which we will consider up to 120,000 words. We are not considering short story collections or novellas at this time, though we may in the future. For now, the novel will be our fiction focus.
Nonfiction
Here we are most interested in memoirs, especially those on religious, political, or cultural themes.
will also develop a collection of memoirs exploring more feminine themes.We will also consider books of religious, political, or cultural subjects more broadly. We’re looking for provocative books which seek to challenge conventional thinking. Books with mystical or countercultural themes are of special interest. Books analyzing political ideologies will also be an area in which we seek to grow.
GOTD will also publish collections of writings from notable Zionist thinkers, commentators, activists, and journalists. If you fall into one of these categories and have been looking for a venue to put out a “Greatest Hits” collection of your best pieces, then please get in touch.
Poetry
is our poetry editor, and will be the first poet whose collection we publish. He will lay out in greater depth what we’re especially looking for and examples of poets who especially inspire us. But for now, I think it’s fair to say that, just as we’re more traditional in the types of novels which we prefer, we are more traditional in the poetry we want to publish. We prefer more established poetic forms and traditions, especially in the modernist style, but could also be open-minded to more experimental approaches.Special Bonus for Subscribers!
While we are not going to officially begin considering new submissions in the three above categories until a few months from now, I will open the door now to any subscribers of this Substack, and/or your friends/family, who may have books they’re looking to have published. Please respond to this email or any future GOTD email with a description of your book, and we’ll tell you if it sounds like something which could be a good fit for us and that we’d like to consider.
We can't wrap up a summary of our progress and goals without a tremendous and heartfelt “Thank you!” to our readers. We so appreciate all of your support the last year, as we developed our publishing company and I overcame very serious health problems. I’m really looking forward to publishing more exciting writing this year and in the coming years. I look forward to making more new friends and publishing many gifted authors.
Are you one of those new friends or gifted authors? Would you like to be? Drop us a line and let us know how we can showcase your talents!
All sounds so promising and exciting. Cannot wait for all to come!!