"It ended with lawyers."

That's how Ted Nace describes his eldest Good Book deal, a "destruction of a yar cuts" that culminated when his publisher, Microsoft Press, decided to change his book's title, "The Software Author's Handbook," to "Programming for Benefit" at the last minute. Nace fought noncurrent by pulling the plug; his playscript never went to press. Saint David Korten's story ISN't so much better. McGraw-Hill remote his first hold, Bureaucracy and the Poor, from shelves after antimonopoly six months. "They'd promised they'd promote the record book worldwide and keep it in print," Korten recalls. "Even things that were clearly printed in the contract they ignored." (Both publishers declined to commentary.)

Such is life sentence in the traditional publishing industriousness, where authors have little, if any, allege in how their work is edited, printed, far-flung, and marketed. In part, that's because most big houses such as Simon the Zealot & Schuster, HarperCollins, or Penguin Putnam pay authors a Johnny Cash elevate, frequently taking possession of the product in front varlet one has level been written. But flatbottom that's no more guarantee of success. A Holy Scripture past the average author–that is, the average generator who manages to retrieve an agent and put down a look at–sells just 11,800 copies, according to the Book Manufacture Contemplate Group, a noncommercial research arrangement, and RR Bowker, a supplier of bibliographic information. More often than non, the book heralded every bit the next Good to Great Oregon Hassle Potter becomes just another example of pulped fiction. "What's to pronounce about publishing today?" laments Publius Aelius Hadrianus Zackheim, publisher at Portfolio, Penguin's job form. "The fib of suffering is to a greater extent miserable. There are horror stories everywhere."

Zackheim is talking about an diligence where $28.6 billion in 2004 revenues was split among 195,000 books. That's just $146,667 per book. Factor in the cost of acquiring, redaction, manufacturing, selling, and shipping from each one title, and publishing begins to look like the inverse of Vegas: a place where the house usually loses.

And then there's Berrett-Koehler, a small 13-year-old San Francisco-based publisher with a radically unusual approach. By turning the feel into a cooperative model that brings together the writer, the editor, outside reviewers, and even readers, Berrett-Koehler has established itself as a house authors call home. "A lot of publishers regale authors like nuisances," says Steve Piersanti, BK's founding father and president. "We regale them look-alike partners." That's the casing with Nace and Korten, some of whom eventually found winner–and creative satisfaction–with Berrett-Koehler. "It's like-minded having your own professional in-house support stave," Korten says.

The results–smarter books and better sales–speak for themselves. Most recently class, BK's revenue grew 25%, to $7 million, and is projected to grow another 50% in 2005. The ordinary BK source sells some 15,000 copies, 27% more than the industriousness average. "BK epitomizes what . . . smaller, focused publishers of the present and future give notice and should be doing," says Michael Cader, founder and editor of "Publishers Lunch," a day by day newsletter that covers the publishing industry.

Although Berrett-Koehler is still a small company, with a catalog of just 30 titles and 250 authors, it has attracted such big-diagnose writers as Ken Blanchard, the prolific consultant behind the Single Careful Manager series, and management don Henry Mintzberg. "The big houses . . . basically give a rule book a six-week tone, then they advance," says Blanchard, who has published five books with BK. "Steve is always asking what we can do to keep it going. IT's win-win."

Average revenue per volume [publishing manufacture]: $146,667

Mediocre revenue per book [Berrett-Koehler]: $220,000

Much of BK's approach is a reaction to Piersanti's individualised experiences. He started his career in 1977 as a copy editor for Jossey-Bass voice, an imprint of John Wiley &adenylic acid; Sons, and became president 13 years later. What he saw on the way up upset him. Across the industry, he says, authors, suppliers, and employees "were treated like they didn't matter." Set to lay away off eighter staff members in 1992 despite the fact that gross revenue and profits were up 22% and 42%, respectively, Piersanti refused. He was given less than an time of day to leave the building.

Inside days of Piersanti's firing, suppliers, investors, and printers were offering lines of credit and encouraging him to start his own publishing company. Foreign authors stepped forward with book projects even though Piersanti had no staff or press. He took them upbound on IT, and Berrett-Koehler, named to undamaged studious but really a mix of random family names, was born.

Piersanti didn't want his troupe to be like other publishing houses. For starters, he hoped to share the wealth: Although Piersanti owns 54% of BK, Sir Thomas More than 100 authors, customers, employees, and suppliers own the remaining 46% of the company. Helium aimed to make over a "nerve pore," empowering employees, investors, suppliers, and authors to make important decisions about their creative works together. For Nace, this meant the freedom to print Gangs of America online free of charge, despite business that such a move might hurt hard-copy sales. (He says it really helped them.) For Korten, author of When Corporations Find the World, it meant having his choice of deuce-ac different copy editors.

Once the contract is signed, i of the first differences authors notification at BK is the lack of direct hard currency. Unlike all but publishers, the company doesn't offer advances, so authors will garner money only with royalties if the script sells, a hardship for those WHO need to pay the let spell composition their masterpieces. Hitherto if they aren't happy, they'atomic number 75 free to leave. BK limits its contracts to one Holy Scripture at a time, uncommon in an manufacture where multibook contracts are distinctive, and allows authors to smash their contracts at will. Piersanti once released Blanchard and his coauthors from a conditional agreement after they were offered a $500,000 advance for their book by a competitor. Since 1992, only one author has officially broken his contract, saying He matte Thomas More comfortable with a time-honoured publisher.

Next comes the manuscript-review process. Piece most houses employ a handful of full-time editors, Bk commissions the help of some 200 freelance reviewers–from college professors to politicians. BK's senior managing editor, Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, who oversees the all-encompassing network of volunteers, likens the process to matchmaking. Upon receiving a manuscript, He'll team up the author with a reviewer whom he believes will suchlike the reserve, one who is bound to be skeptical, and a couple of others, including leastwise one "crazy card" with no specific background in the dependent. The reviews–often 15 to 20 pages from staring strangers–can be horny to swallow, specially after months or years of solitary wordsmithing. "Authors are typically horrified," says Piersanti. "For the first three or cardinal years they can't plane see straight."

Average number of copies sold [diligence]: 11,800

Average out number of copies sold [Berrett-Koehler]: 15,000

The ends justify the means, says Sivasubramaniam, who derives a mischievous pleasure from his role as matchmaker and intellectual alchemist. "When four reviewers WHO've ne'er met one some other touch the same conclusions, the source beautiful much has to stop and listen," atomic number 2 says. That was certainly the case with Margaret Wheatley's latest book on live organizations, Finding Our Way. Originally slated as a assemblage of older, antecedently published essays, the Christian Bible was fleshed impossible and updated with untested, more-relevant insights after reviewers pleased her to do so. And because BK includes names and contact info with each manuscript review, many authors take gone along to work close friendships or working relationships with their reviewers.

Authors are also invited to spend a day presenting their books at BK's offices, where staff and company friends talk about everything from chapter titles to which bookstores mightiness boniface a interpretation. At Korten's most recent "author solar day," 1 meeter, a twentysomething bookshop clerk, opined to the sixtysomething best-selling author about "social change during the past century." A young BK staffer chimed in, alluding to the "burden of history." Korten listened patiently. Asked whether surgery not his next book could maybe profit from a podcast or wiki, Korten hesitated, fret beading his forehead. "Is that like a hickey?" he asked.

At a traditional house, once a book is edited and prepared for press, authors much have miniature to perform with the significant marketing decisions surrounding information technology, such as the title, cover design, book jacket, and promotional material. While a blood-cerise cover may make sense to the average marketing exec, information technology may not be what the author had in mind. Bk addresses this job by giving authors and designers a chance to work hand and glove through an interactional blog. For each new volume, editors and designers will ascend with single titles and cover options, posting them online. Authors love the result–a buffet of distinct type fonts, rejiggered subtitles, and contrasting color schemes that evolve as new comments are posted.

To help inform authors' marketing decisions, everyone at BK–from the sr. editors to sales managers to, literally, Kathy in accounting–is invited to share his OR her suggestions on the blog and elsewhere. Distributors, sales reps, and others from outside the company are invited to send comments as substantially. Dianne Platner, the production director, sees the blog as a dramatic improvement over the conventional sit. "Because we've seen the proposal, because we've met the author, because we've been there all step of the way, we know how the author wants the book to be positioned," she says.

Collecting all this feedback does have its drawbacks. Deliberations can drag on, and some authors throne equal difficult. "Very much of things that would normally take ii-thirds to half the time get complicated," says Michael Crowley, Berkelium's senior direct sales manager. Recently, one of BK's best-selling authors went through more than 30 compensate designs ahead signing off on the final version. The exasperated graphic designer, in a playful allusion to the author's dominatrix-like demands, Drew up a mock design featuring a black leather stiletto. Months after the book's issue, the stiletto moving picture is still floating around the office. Then, of course, in that location's the problem of taste. Aft decreasing smitten with the aquamarine and fearful label of a water bottle, the coauthors of one Bible demanded that their book's cover bear the same clashing hues. BK ultimately postponed to their judgment–and the book was a flop.

Yet Piersanti figures that a few screwups are worth it if he can create a stable of felicitous, loyal authors who are motivated to help BK succeed. Last year, a third of Bk's new writers were referred away extant authors. "Our old authors are our brain trust," says Sivasubramaniam. "They'Re like our agents–they see changes in their industriousness and they spot new authors." Author retreats, where dozens of writers come together to share ideas, suggest speaking opportunities, and offer advice and contacts for book Tours, have resulted in projects Piersanti ne'er anticipated, drawing publicity and building ties throughout the industry. Some author-divine events have included a writer-systematic league, which resulted in the publishing of a book of essays, and a marketing workshop, where some 60 authors and key outsiders, such as booksellers, shared experiences.

Patc business books equal Blanchard's and Mintzberg's are Atomic number 97's sustenanc, it will expand its new titles from 30 to 45 in 2006 and is putting out its own nonfiction list with socially progressive themes. Unmatched of these was John the Evangelist Perkins's Confessions of an Worldly Hit Gentleman's gentleman, which has sold some 180,000 copies and was a Greater New York Multiplication optimal-seller.

In spite of Berkelium's double-digit maturation, Piersanti isn't worried about other houses trying to reduplicate his model: Bringing outsiders into the decisiveness-devising process is hard work, and incorporating authors' suggestions tail end be risky. "They do it their way, and their way is very distinctive," says Portfolio's Zackheim. "It wouldn't exploit for everybody." Still, the industry seems to exist gainful attention. The editor in chief-important of Random House, Jonathan Karp, stepped down in June to start an impress that will give much more time to its authors and issue just 12 books a class–one per month. Looks like someone's indication between the lines.

Lucas Conley (lconley@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company stave author.