Scribe Media's Resurrection: How Eric Jorgenson Revived a Publishing Giant

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_01]: This one was really personal to me because I feel like I was betrayed. So we've done podcasts before about self-publishing, in particular about what I thought was a genius business model started by Tucker Max and then the CEO was JT McCormick.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: JT had this incredible story. He was the son of a pimp. He rose up to be a great CEO. He was like CEO of the year. He was winning awards and he was the CEO of Scribe Media. Tucker brought him in and I did at least two podcasts with him. I really liked him, but you just never know about people sometimes.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And look, who knows what the final record of this will say, but basically Scribe Media went totally bankrupt. Tons of books are published there, like David Goggins books are published there. I've had many friends who've had books published there. I can't even list all the books that I know.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you look up Scribe Media, you'll know half the authors. They're all huge, big authors. And it was kind of like this cross between self-publishing and publishing. It was, again, a really great idea started by Tucker. And then after a few years, Tucker and look, I worked hard with Tucker on it. Like I would, we would do podcasts about it. And we were, you know, my book was essentially, Choose Yourself was the first book published, not under Scribe Media, but under that model of like professional

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: self-publishing. And then JT just sort of, I don't know, he disappeared. And, you know, I guess there's going to be court cases about it. And there's a lot of things where I should use the word alleged about it. And everybody thought Scribe was gone. But then Eric Jorgensen, who I had never met, but we knew each other roughly.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Eric Jorgensen took over the company. He bought the assets. You know, there was basically almost nothing to buy, but he bought the assets, rehired as many people as he could, saved as many clients from leaving as he could. And now guess what? He is running a successful self-publishing slash, you know, let's call it professional self-publishing company, Scribe Media. This is his company now.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's really fascinating to see a good brand and a good idea survive the worst. And Eric talks about how he did it, why he did it. But also, again, Eric and I talk about the importance of self-publishing.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I understand why people go to the Simon & Schuster's of the world. Heck, about half of my last book, Skip the Line, was done by HarperCollins. So there's reasons why you go to publishers.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: For one thing, they're probably not going to disappear overnight like at one point Scribe Media did. I don't think Scribe Media will do that again now that Eric is at the helm.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But it was a real lesson for me that no matter how much, I mean, in my 30, I guess I started being in business in 1995, so almost 30 years ago.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And in my 30 years of business, I have met a lot of criminals. I mean, heck, I was offered a job by Bernie Madoff.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I've met a lot of criminals. And I've met a lot of people who committed fraud. I'm not saying that's what was done here.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I'm using the word alleged. And there's no real common pattern. It is really – I remember with Bernie Madoff, I was going to meet him.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And all these hedge fund managers were calling me and saying, oh, do you think you could put in a good word for us with Bernie?

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_01]: We want to invest in Bernie Madoff, but he doesn't really let in new investors.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And then after Bernie Madoff was exposed as a total fraud and Ponzi scheme, all these same friends of mine, professional hedge fund managers, the best in the business, all of them said, no, I never called you about that.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_01]: We knew from the beginning that Bernie was a fraud.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, no, you called me while I was on the steps of his building about to walk in and see him. Don't you remember that?

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, no, no, no, that's impossible.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I even checked my phone records and sure enough, they all called me like that minute right before I was visiting Bernie.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: All this to say, I'm not saying JT is Bernie Madoff.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying you can't – it's hard to know.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean Tucker Max was fooled and Tucker is one of the smartest people on the planet that I know.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: All the clients were fooled.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, allegedly fooled, whatever the term is.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm really impressed that Eric went in there and did a good thing and he's going to make a lot of money because he took – and this is an example.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Like often the best opportunities are found in the ashes of destroyed once good ideas.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, I still highly recommend Scribe Media and the concept of professional self-publishing.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Because again, as I was about to say, I've done both.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: My best-selling book ever was Choose Yourself.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_01]: It sold well over a million copies and that was essentially self-published.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Although like I said, I professionally self-published it, which you'll hear me and Eric talk about what that means.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's just a better approach.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to write a book, first off, book publishers, unless you're like already have like millions of followers on social media,

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: you're not really going to get a big advance.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to have to wait a year and a half for your book to get published after the deal is signed.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Even if you are getting an advance, the deal is structured like over years and years and it doesn't really amount to that much.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Even a big advance doesn't amount to that much at any one given time.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you could just – you're not in control of the marketing.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You're not in control of the design.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You're not in control of anything.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So I prefer to be in control of my artistic product and – artistic sounds a little pretentious.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I prefer to be in control of my product and in particular in control of design, editing, marketing, when the book comes out.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean I remember one time I had a – this was back when I was writing finance books in 2008.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I had a book – it was a good book called The Forever Portfolio and it was scheduled to come out December 2008.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_01]: They had scheduled it a year and a half in advance.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I made the deal in August 2007.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: It came out in December of 2008.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It was Random House or Portfolio Penguin, one of those.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said to the publisher, hey, we're going through the worst period for stocks since 1929.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this is not the right month to publish the book.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, oh, we have to do it.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: It's in the schedule.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course that book sold only 300 copies.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean there's more reviews on that book than copies sold, which is hard to believe.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So like I don't even understand how that happens.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's better if you're going to work really hard on something.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And a book, if it's good, is something you really pour your life into.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I hope – I encourage everybody to write a book.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Tell your story.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Let your great, great, great grandkids who will never know you, let them know your story.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Or if you love writing, write a book.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Or if you are in line for consulting gigs or speaking gigs, it's good to have a book.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: A book is like your business card almost.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And I know not everyone agrees with that, but consider it.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, let's get down to the story.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: What happened?

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did it happen?

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: How was it saved?

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: What's going on?

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Eric Jorgensen has really done a great job.

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_01]: He's taken over Scribe Media.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll let him tell the rest of the story.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the James Altucher Show.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01]: This group took over, and I wanted to hear what was going on.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So you came on.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And so what is going on?

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_01]: How did you get involved in Scribe?

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, probably like so many other people, I got pulled in by Tucker.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00]: We'd been sort of internet friends for a really long time.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd been reading his blog forever.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I loved what he did.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And one day, I had been working on a book for a few years, and I just tweeted, I think I've

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: got a manuscript done.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And Tucker reached out and was like, I know what to do with manuscripts, man.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, let's talk about it.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So he gave me the whole lay of the land of publishing and helped me understand all what

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_00]: my options were.

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And I ended up publishing my first book with Scribe in 2020.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And I had an incredible experience.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I loved the team, and I loved what they do.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think what they do is like the future of publishing.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So I've been a fan of the company ever since.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been evangelizing it.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I immediately started working on my second book and was publishing a second one with them

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: in 2023 when chaos struck.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_00]: What was the title of the first book?

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: The first book is called The Almanac of Naval Ravikant.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, of course.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, great book.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I have it right on my bookshelf somewhere here.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right there.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And Naval's been on this podcast.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_00]: He's a really good guy.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's incredible.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I've learned so much from him.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And that book was just an output of following him for 10 years and learning so much from him

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and wanting to share that with the world.

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And that book was a bestselling book.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So through Scribe, I think it's really important to know that, and look, I've talked about this

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_01]: a ton on the podcast.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But the publishing world has changed.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And someone like Tucker was really at the forefront and at the center of that change,

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: where he really knew how to kind of morph the best of two worlds, which is the mainstream world

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_01]: of publishing, which had its flaws, but still had some benefits.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And the kind of wild west of self-publishing, which also had its flaws, but had incredible benefits.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And Scribe, which Tucker created, really merged those elements.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And your book is a great example where it was like a massive bestseller.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like, I give Tucker a lot of credit for this because he recognized this like 10 years ago.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And he was so early to shaping this and helping to normalize, yeah, not just hybrid publishing,

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: but true professional high-end self-publishing, which is really what Scribe does.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And we're seeing more and more people do it, right?

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Most famously, Goggins, who published with Scribe and has done like 5 million copies plus.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But my book also, I mean, we're probably close to a million and a half copies sold.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And would just self-publish.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it is a changing world.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And you see more and more of that.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Alex Hormozy did the same thing, right?

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: There's all kinds of people kind of move in this direction.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so then one day you get the call where they just, I mean, it was such a surprise.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I could not believe it that you basically got the call and I didn't even have a book going with them.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were just out of business.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: What happened?

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I just started hearing rumors swirling online, right?

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the first thing I saw was like, I think somebody forwarded me an email newsletter that said,

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Scribe shut down.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, no way.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's impossible.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I was literally in the office like a month ago visiting them.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I have ongoing work with them.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been working with them for months.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's no way they're shut down.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I would know.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he's like, oh, you know, seeking investment, seeking new ownership, trying to figure out how to like keep it all going.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00]: We just, but they had laid off a bunch of people at once because they were short on money.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And he had like not told anybody that.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So they laid off a ton of people.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what really like, that was the domino that knocked everything else over.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: The bank showed up and said like, they just claimed the assets because there was a bank loan out to the company and they were the senior creditor.

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So essentially the bank came, claimed the company, took the whole thing through bankruptcy because the company had no cash.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And Javon hadn't told anybody that there was no cash until the very last minute.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And so all these employees were left without severance and authors were left having prepaid for work they didn't get.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Wasn't there a CFO or wasn't there any other controls other than Javon on the company?

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: There was no CFO, though apparently many people had told him that he needed to hire one.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: The biggest issue I think was like, he was, these are all like alleged things that are from his investors' lawsuit.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, he was fabricating financials and sending them to the investors.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's this, you could see the public, you see the allegations at least in public documents from the lawsuit.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Like who knows, like the court case is not done yet.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know what like the jury will find a full investigation.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, it is clear now, at least the consensus of information seems to be that like, he was hiding the financial state of the company and just doing absolutely anything he could to like prop up the appearance of himself and Scribe, even though the way that he was running it made it lose money.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Even though, you know, for the first eight years it had been a growing profitable company.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I mean like, clearly his bread was best buttered in just simply growing a business and selling it for hundreds of millions of dollars, which was the path Scribe was on.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it was clearly on that path.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even probably up to the last minute, like assuming the financials were correct, which they weren't, Scribe was on path to be sold anywhere between 50 and 100 million dollars.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's what it seemed like it was worth at the time.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So like, why, for instance, expand the office space when you don't have the money for it?

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Or why, I don't know, why run the company into the ground?

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know, and then also allegedly, again, I say allegedly, we don't know anything that happened, but did he take money from the company that was inappropriate?

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Or like, what was going on?

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, I'm saying this as someone who really liked him.

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I, I, it was really a disturbing thing.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And you kind of realize as you get older, that disturbing, that some people are disturbing.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And even like, you know, I think Tucker wrote an incredible post about this.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Like a very comprehensive thing that actually dives into the psychology and the experience that Javon had growing up, because it's a very unique experience.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And the position that he was left in at Scribe, which is a very unique position.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, you know, this does not absolve him of anything, but like, certainly the inner demon won this round.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was a very important round and it affected hundreds, thousands of people with a lot of money on the line.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and you know, I, I think the way Tucker frames it is like, he had an addiction to the, to the appearance of being a successful CEO.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it did not matter whether the company made or lost money to him.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_00]: What was the, actually the most important piece in his mind was like telling people that he built out a big office space or telling people that he was hiring people or winning awards.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was just fundamentally the wrong way to run a company for growth, the wrong way to run a company for longevity, the wrong way to run a company with a customer centric focus, which is all the things that I think Tucker and Zach did that made Scribe great in the first place.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I think it was just, you know, people really underestimated how different the decision making would be when, when Tucker and Zach stepped back, which they did at the end of 2021.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So there's really like an 18 month period where Javon was running the company, you know, roughly on his own and able left in a position where he could sort of create his own reality.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Take a quick break.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_01]: If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It means so much to me.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Email me at Alcatra gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think Tucker and Zach might've learned from this?

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Even like mundane stuff, like, okay, keep better track of the sea.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what you learned from something like this really.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Like what, what do you think they learned from this?

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I mean, I'm speculating at least on the lessons learned because you know, I don't want to put words in their mouth, but certainly like, you know, the things that jump out to me are definitely be careful who you sell your company to.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, like those guys were trusting Javon to run a company that still owed them a bunch of money, like during the rest of the transaction.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, that, that is a normal thing though.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, for many founders, you're a CEO and then eventually you hire a CEO who's better than you.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: There's professional CEOs out there and you can't be expected to like, you know, lord over day to day fares or micromanage or check the books.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's a, they didn't really sell the company to Javon.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they were share, they were the founders and largest shareholders in the company that they let Javon run.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_01]: That's like a normal process.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they did sell.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: They both were in the process of selling their shares and Javon had brought on his own investors, I believe.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So they were in the process, but they did not sell all of them.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I believe they did.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_00]: They were just, the payouts were still coming.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I could be wrong.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen any of the documents.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the paperwork.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the financial infrastructure definitely wasn't there, right?

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, like you said, there was no CFO, like there was, or it was being manipulated.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't me checking by a third party.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe that's something to consider.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_00]: The other, and then maybe the biggest overarching thing is just like, you know, the old sort of adage, you can't do a good deal with a bad person.

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think Tucker does an incredible job in that post of, you know, recognizing and admitting that there were red flags that he, you know, he just didn't take seriously enough.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, that, that when this all happened, he was, he would pretty, he was gutted, but he also was kind of like, man, like he told us who he was and we didn't believe him.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we, we still let him in the tent.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But I guess that, I guess that's the main thing is that if someone tells you who they are, you got to believe them.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I know lots of CEOs and I'm sure you do as well in a lot and hundreds and hundreds of businesses.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And some CEOs are so rock solid, which Javon seemed, but you kind of have to just have, they have to be rock solid in every possible way, unfortunately, or else you just can't know.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, no matter what, you can't know, but you have to make a best guess at some point and you got to use all the knowledge at your disposal, which, you know, everybody missed it here.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, by, by all accounts, like, you know, he was, he was good at so much of the job, right?

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Like Tucker and Zach, you know, said he was incredible about creating a service orientation in the company.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_00]: He was a great manager.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_00]: People loved him.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_00]: He was, you know, a good leader.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: He was so charismatic and told the story of Scribe incredibly well and did, you know, helped build that company up.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's, you know, going back to the, the classic Buffett thing of like, if you don't have the integrity, you know, the rest of it doesn't, you have an intelligent, hardworking crook.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like the, the test of character that comes around when it really matters and who passes it and who fails it.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, the, the leadership of the company and the character of that leader, especially when they're left in a place where you don't have all the normal checks and balances, you know, that, that a more mature company might have is, is everything.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was just like the drain plug that got pulled.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so, so you get the call and you realize not only is your business, not only is your book in trouble that you have under, you know, Scribe was helping you publish another book, but, and you'd already spent for that.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's, it's not cheap.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you're doing a full force, you know, book that you want to appear in bookstores and have marketing and look great and be edited great and have a team around it.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's, I don't know what the price is that you paid, but it's like $10,000 or more.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a, it's not insignificant.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And you get this call, but you also get a call that, that the company is gone.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It's disappeared.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And now you're running the company.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So what happened in between then and, and, and now?

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it was a, it was a wild summer.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I mean, pretty over the course of, you know, 60, 90 days, basically I went from, you know, I lost, as you say,

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I have like five figures personally in that bankruptcy just for services that I paid for that, you know, I wasn't going to get.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And that happened to hundreds of other authors.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a really like gut wrenching thing.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And where'd that money go?

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Like is it, did it, you know, did the money, did it, was there just like not enough business?

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Because clearly you were paying for service.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing, here's the strange thing.

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_01]: A service business is so easy to run for P and L because it's, it's not a, like a product business.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_01]: There's inventory and there's manufacturing.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And so there's upfront, there's a lot of upfront fixed costs that you have to handle.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But like I've run a service business.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_01]: When you don't have the customers, you, you let go of people and, and people understand that in a service business.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not, you know, their job only depends on if there's business in there.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So how do you go that quickly?

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, we don't have to go into how it went out of business, but like the money has to go somewhere in a service business.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause you're paying for services.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I think there's a few things.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like one, like you mentioned that huge office build out didn't need to happen.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, Frank, I don't think it, I think some might have been like quote unquote stolen, like, you know, unreasonably distributed.

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I think the vast majority, frankly, was just wasted.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there was a ton of people hired promises were made about nobody losing their jobs.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the office was expanding.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: They were just really investing every dollar that came in as quick as they could in, in growth or payroll or anything like that.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_00]: But you're making these long-term commitments to service authors books.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And so they didn't have the, you know, the float that they needed to make good on all these promises.

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, the truth of the situation was hidden until the very last minute.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Like there was just a lot of like, oh, we just need to bring in like, just got to cover payroll, just got to cover payroll, just got to cover payroll for, for a little while, months maybe.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And then all of a sudden, like you just hit a brick wall and it's game over and nobody saw it coming.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's left empty handed.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, okay, so, so, so I keep interrupting your story.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to know how you then stepped up and, and took things over.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this really just started as I'm an author.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a huge fan of the company.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I believe Scribe's model is the future of publishing.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't want to let this thing go.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I, I think that Scribe has created a lot of good.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It's how I publish my books.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't want to have to go start over with a new publisher.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to have to give up, you know, 30, 50 or 90% of my royalties to, to another publishing company.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to keep publishing with Scribe.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00]: The model that Scribe does, I want to pay experts and I want to own 100% of my creative control and my royalties.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's how it came into this author world.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_00]: That's how I want to go out.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a zealot about that.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I tried to save the company and I have, I, you know, come over the years to have friends who buy companies.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So I started making phone calls and I just started talking to people about like, what would it take to save this company?

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, can you, can you buy it as is?

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Is there a way, like what will happen?

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Like who are you talking to?

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Like who, who was there left to talk to?

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, at the company, like the bank's lawyers came in like right away.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So I, I, I was not doing so much like on the Scribe side of thing.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Once I understood that like the company was in trouble, it was going down.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I just started calling people on the basically like permanent equity, private equity, uh, holding companies, like people who do that for a living, who buy companies for a living, whether they're distressed or not.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And just try to understand what the options were, you know?

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so after, you know, a whole handful of conversations, um, I had a great conversation with these guys, Siva and Xavier from Enduring Ventures.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_00]: They have a long-term holding company.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_00]: They have a background in publishing.

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_00]: They have a background in distressed, uh, in buying distressed businesses.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_00]: What else have they bought in the past?

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, they bought probably the most famous thing they bought is, uh, up council.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00]: If you remember that startup, that like legal VC back legal startup, um, legally.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_00]: They've got, uh, a whole bunch of like kind of like quote unquote boring cashflow businesses.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, telecom, they own a big pool building business in Phoenix, like some hilarious things like a motorcycle rental business in Hawaii.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it is a long-term hold co hodgepodge.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I, you know, I like their ethos, which is like we buy companies to be a high quality companies and run them for the longterm and just keep investing in compounding.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I like that attitude.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I'd met them a few times.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been following them for years.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, how'd you meet them?

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, how did you come to know them in your circle of business?

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I met them, uh, either for the first time, either at the Berkshire Hathaway meeting or at a capital camp.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a great, like, uh, investor event in Missouri.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Like what, what were you doing at this time?

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Like where you basically, uh, considered yourself a writer at this moment and, and, you know, million and a half copies is good.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So you were making money there.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, well, is that what you were doing?

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I had a beautiful empty calendar.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I had like one standing meeting a week.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_00]: That was it.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I was just writing and I was doing some, uh, like deep tech venture capital investing.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_00]: So I still have a small VC fund as well, but it was, it was a great, um, it was a good life.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and I just kind of felt like called to dive into this.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I truly, I had no idea where this was going to end up.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought I would spend, you know, 90 days trying to help this company, get them back on their feet, find the right team to, to bring them through this.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'd get to go back to writing books and very much to my surprise after they'd, you know, bought the, the logo and the brand of the website out of the, from the bank, out of the bankruptcy.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And they hired over some of the team.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: They called me and said like, we need a CEO to run this thing.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_00]: We think it should be you.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so, so, okay.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So they, so they then contacted or you introduced them to the bank, the main people that were owed money, I guess.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And what were the assets of the company?

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So you mentioned a website and a logo and a brand.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Did they have a client contracts that needed, you know, obviously there were client contracts that need to be fulfilled.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_01]: But what is the benefit of taking over all these contracts where you're not getting any more money and you just have to fill the services?

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Because the, obviously there's good benefit, but what was the benefit to investors?

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there ended up being like, I, I don't want to overstate my like intelligence on this one.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Cause I was not close to the deal.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't involved in the deal really at all.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I, I was a bookend on one side of being like, Hey guys, go take a look at this.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And then like, they went to Austin, they met with the bank, they met with the team.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_00]: They did all of that stuff.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And then like two months later, after that was all sort of done, called me and said like, okay, now we need somebody to come in and be CEO.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not a deal guy.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand how all of the like, uh, assets got sorted in different directions.

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I do know that like the old scribe media LLC was like completely and irreparably bankrupt.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so what happened is like a new company was formed, literally just bought, I think the brand and the website.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and then moved over, hired over some of the team, hired me and carried forward.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_00]: There was just like no possibility of carrying on that, that previous company as far as I understand.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And during those two months, I mean, there are other companies out there, um, trying to get it like this, you know, I think it's selfpublishing.com, Chandler, Bolt.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, there's a lot of decent companies in, in that, you know, scribe is sort of the grandfather of that industry.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I say grandfather's, it's a 10 year old industry tops, but, uh, uh, but there were other companies that were quickly trying to, um, I don't want to say poach because there were no client.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there was no scribe left to poach from, but they were scooping up scribes clients pretty quickly.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Two months is a long time. Like, okay, so what you had the brand and the website, what, what, what, and you had some of the people, what good did that bring anybody?

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And it was a chaotic time. There's also like people from the scribe team that are leaving and setting up their own shop.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And there was a bunch of like, it's hard to know what was what. Um, there were a lot of like opportunists, I think that like showed up and posted, uh, half truths.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Or non truths to their own benefit. Um, but ultimately, like you said, you know, scribe is the, the godfather of this space. It's one of the pioneers of it.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And for all of the chaos of last summer that affected, you know, hundreds of people, there are thousands of people who had an incredible experience with scribe over that whole decade and tens of thousands more who are aware of scribe and the brand and what it does.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's, there's a ton of good, I mean, you know, somebody else might've come into this and just said like, nope, too messy, not dealing with it.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, we're just going to start a new company, start a new brand. Um, but I don't think that's the right approach.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think, I don't think it's like the honest approach. I don't think it's the right thing for the brand. I don't think it's the right thing for the customers.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and by doing this, we were able to, you know, we can't fix every problem, but we've been really working hard to bridge that gap with customers who did get caught and really took a loss in that, that last bankruptcy.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_00]: We've hired a number of the team members back who had been let go during that bankruptcy.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so, so, so this, so these guys, the investors, enduring ventures, they're the firm, they put, they bought from the bank, um, kind of these basic assets like the brand and so on.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And then they infuse some capital in so you can rehire some of the old people.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And what did you start when you day one to see, uh, what did you start doing?

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I started talking to, started talking to customers, um, met everybody on the team and I started talking to customers and I started understanding, you know,

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_00]: what worked and why and who went through this, uh, this tough position and how can we, you know, restart the presses basically, um, build this business back to, you know, like there's a whole host of things that it did really, really well in 2019 and 2020.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And the whole order of business is just like, get back to doing what scribe does best, be flawless on the fundamentals, be service providers, um, do away with all the chaos of the last, you know, 18 months, which just takes a lot of untangling and takes a lot of, we're essentially rebuilding a company from scratch.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of systems work to do.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of, um, communications to, to do for sure.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, reaching out to the community and trying to show them, tell them the story of, you know, here's what happened.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Like what are some case studies of people you called and then, and what happened with them?

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a whole gamut, right?

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's a lot of people who are instantly understanding.

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_00]: They're like, shit happens.

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I understand you didn't control it.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I understand you didn't cause it.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, let's put the past behind us.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_00]: What can you do?

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_00]: How can we move forward?

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, there's some people who really just paint you with the same brush until you work through things.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and there's some people that frankly will never be able to forgive the wound that they,

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, received at the, you know, from, from like that logo, from the scribe logo.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, you know, try as we might, we can't, you know, necessarily reach everybody, but I try to sit down,

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_00]: have half hour, hour conversations one-on-one with everybody from this community that will,

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_00]: that will take the time to do it and explain as best I can and show them kind of where we're headed.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's say there was an author who was like one third of the way done with their book and they had spent all the money

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and, uh, uh, you wanted to get them back.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, would they pay up or would you do finish the book?

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Or even though you weren't the same company anymore, you were just the same logo.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_01]: What, what would you do?

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_01]: What were some strategies that you did to kind of get customers and then keep customers?

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So in that case, one third of the way through, um, what we decided is the,

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_00]: the policy here is like, we cannot possibly work for free.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's, there's too, there's too many authors who lost too much money for us as a brand new company

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_00]: starting over to be able to make good on all of those promises.

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_00]: But what we can do is essentially work at cost for all of those authors who got stuck in that bankruptcy.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so we, we have been with this author, we figure out exactly where they left off.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_00]: We figure out exactly what hard costs are left, what exactly the overhead is necessary to like,

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_00]: get the rest of their book done.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And we give them a very clear price.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So people do end up having to pay a little more than the money that they had spent with the old company

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_00]: that was lost for us to finish their book.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But they get a top notch team, um, in some cases, the same people and being able to finish what they

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_00]: started for the best price they can possibly get for the quality.

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_01]: How many of the old staff were you able to hire back?

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Because obviously if the same team is calling me as an author, I'm much more likely to say,

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah, let's, let's just finish what we started.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we are, I mean, the company is about 27 right now.

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And 20 of those, I would say came from, from the scribe, from the original scribe before that.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and some of these are the most veteran team scribe team members.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, our executive editor was the, literally the first employee that, uh, worked with Tucker and,

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, Zach getting the company started.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Mark Chait.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and, uh, I mean, our head of production is doing like, he's been with us since before Tucker

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_00]: even started booking a box, like more than 10 years ago.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_00]: He worked with Tucker as an independent author.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and just quite a few of the most tenured, most tenured team.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then how many of the old clients were you able to keep?

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Or let's say how many of the people who were mid book were you able to keep?

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_01]: What percentage?

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Probably 150 have come over now, which is like, yeah.

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so, and then like, again, what, what sort of decisions did you do to, to kind of get

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_01]: things upright?

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's a big, it's a big, it's like a big statue that fallen and it's very heavy and

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_01]: you have to like drag it upright.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Like how did you, did you get an office space?

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Did this, everybody working from home?

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Like just managerially, what, what did you do?

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a pretty remote company at this point.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_00]: So we've got a small like coworking space, but, um, like it's 90% remote.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, I think simplicity and speed and just, uh, I repeat it here because I repeated

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_00]: it at the, you know, at the company, like being flawless on the fundamentals.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Like we're rebuilding a reputation.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_00]: We have to, we have, we have to get close to a zero tolerance, like mistakes or even zero

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_00]: tolerance, like feeling of not being closely held and well guided through this process.

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we scribe has always given away all of our knowledge for free.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_00]: It's all on the blog.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It's all in the scribe method.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Like if you want to go self publish yourself, do it yourself.

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But if you want to hire experts to do it, if you want to be guided through the process,

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_00]: then come to us.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's really, it's very much a service organization.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, we wanted to get all of our ducks in a row so that we're not missing deadlines.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not shipping mistakes.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_00]: We are nailing the basics.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And so stripped away a lot of the complexity that had emerged over like a company growing

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and just simplified the services, um, dialed in the pricing a little bit.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_00]: There'd been some kind of wonky decisions made over the past year about pricing.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So we just standardized that.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think in the heyday of scribe, the willing, well, they were doing a ton of books and they

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_00]: were growing really fast.

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_00]: The, the, basically the simplest offering is you bring us a manuscript and we publish

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_00]: it for you.

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's what I, that's what I hired scribe to do as an author.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and those are a lot of work and they are a lowest price point.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a 26,000 to do that for all the formats.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I think people were just like, this is too chaotic.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_00]: There's too many customers buying this from us.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to raise the price, but like is an arbitrary price race, you know, that

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_00]: is like, it made it inaccessible for a lot of people that just wanted to get their manuscript

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_00]: out there.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_00]: So we, we lowered that price.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_00]: That was one of the first things that we did.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, the guided author service where if you want to write your manuscript yourself, but

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_00]: you don't want to be lost in the woods, you know, facing the blank page on your own,

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_00]: we'll basically pair you with a private coach and editor who will guide you through

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_00]: the whole process, check in with you, help you structure and plan your writing as

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_00]: you go.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_00]: That had been really shaped around a workshop, an in-person workshop in Austin that kicked

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_00]: off quarterly.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And as a remote company kind of coming out of COVID, that didn't make a ton of sense.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So we made that, um, much more of a one-to-one synchronous service that anybody could start

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_00]: at any time.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and then that, you know, sort of leads into publishing.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, no changes to the, the professional, which is kind of our like flagship thing.

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, we've bought the audience.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_00]: What is that?

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's got professional.

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So this is for basically like this whole class of people who know they have expertise.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_00]: They know that a book would benefit them.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_00]: They either aren't necessarily a writer, don't want to write, or don't have time to sit down

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and spend a thousand hours.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Like a CEO of a big company.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_00]: CEO, executive, consultant, lawyers, uh, doctors, all kinds of people to choose this

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_00]: option.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And this option is basically as high leverage as you can get.

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So we will pair you with a scribe who is not just a great writer, but also a great interviewer

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and they will help you position and structure the book.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_00]: They'll help, they'll interview you and then they'll turn your words, your stories, your

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_00]: ideas into a manuscript that reads as though you wrote it and you've got a lot of control

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_00]: over how that goes.

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I always thought this was a powerful and I'll even call it innovation of, of Tucker's,

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_01]: which is to kind of almost formula eyes the process of ghost writing.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't have to be so ghost, like it's not a mystery.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just, you need a good interviewer who has the basic skills of writing and you could

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_01]: take someone's story into a book.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's, you know, he's got a really powerful talk about unlocking the world's wisdom.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, books are incredible format and people find it so intimidating to approach

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that, you know, you just, you need a good team and you need a good creative partner and

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_00]: they can, we can pull these stories and these ideas out of you and structure them in a book

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_00]: for you.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: With really a relatively small amount of time.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think AI is going to replace any aspect of this?

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I, and just to, to kind of put in front of that, I think AI won't replace the best

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_01]: writers out there.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_01]: There's, there's a lot of things about the human condition that, you know, needs, needs

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_01]: to be woven by a writer and maybe I'm just being biased, but you know, the human brain

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_01]: has more connections and synapses than the most complicated supercomputer.

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's where the writing comes from.

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_01]: But I do think basic good writing can be done by AI.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So like what, at what point do you get worried about AI or do you never get worried about AI?

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_01]: AI?

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I'm not worried about it.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited about it.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think I am a like futurist acceleration is like techno utopian nut job, um, which is

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_00]: like part of my job as a, as a, like an investor to be, but it's also just, I'm excited about the

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_00]: future.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So I believe deeply, like use the best tool for the job.

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, like you, I agree that very, the highest end of writers are probably always going to

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_00]: have finishing touches at minimum, maybe more by a real human writer who deeply understands

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_00]: the craft.

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's going to give, I think AI will give a lot of leverage to the very best

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_00]: writers.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's true of almost every domain.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think it'll raise the bar for, for the mediocre.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it'll make the mediocre good and the good great and the great prolific.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I'm excited to see kind of how the process can change and we're, you know, we're

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_00]: running experiments, um, internally on, on some projects and I'm using it, uh, you know,

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_00]: as an author and finding, have some fun experimenting with it.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and the other thing is, do you think people are, I mean, I think this is kind of an age

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_01]: old question, but are people reading?

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I feel like, like I'm the most avid reader I know.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet I feel like I've even declined in my reading because of so much, you know, demand

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_01]: on my attention from, from everything else.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think, uh, you know, books are competing for, for dopamine with, with some pretty super

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_00]: powered things in, in the algorithms.

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think, you know, like serious people read and I think serious people will always

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_00]: read.

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I think books are, are an important Lindy format.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And from a medium is the message perspective, you know, there's nothing, there's no format more,

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_00]: more sacred, more, um, prestigious, more high signal than a great well-crafted book.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is why I always tell people also it's, it's for better or for worse, because there's

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of criticism in this.

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a credential.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're, if two people are going up for a job and one has the book written on the domain

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and the other one doesn't, then that the person who wrote the book's getting the job.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Or, or the customer or the partnership or the acquisition.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, I think, uh, I think this was originally a Tucker ism, but he's like, you

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_00]: know, a college degree used to be a credential because 25% of the population had it now 75%

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_00]: of the population has it.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, writing a great book is, is scary and hard and it takes years of work and it takes an investment

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_00]: and you have to put yourself out there to be judged.

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But if you do that and you do something impressive, that is a credential that is taking accountability.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_00]: That's creating something that precedes you and establishes your reputation, establishes

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_00]: your authority, establishes your expertise.

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I think that's a tremendous single signal.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And everybody to some extent is trying to build that trust and establish and signal that credibility

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_00]: at scale.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, how you can't possibly spend 10 hours of conversation one-on-one with every

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_00]: potential customer or partner vendor that you have, but you can write a book that they

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_00]: read in their quiet moments and come to know you, come to understand your philosophy, your

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_00]: talent, your expertise, and your commitment to your craft.

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, at the same time, and look, I, I have a podcast, so I get pitched books.

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Probably I'm not, I'm going to, I'm going to try to not exaggerate because it's very easy

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_01]: to exaggerate, but realistically, I probably get pitched 10 to 15 new books a day, not from

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: just, you know, PR agencies and self-published authors, but from like every, and Jay can attest

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: to this too, from every single publishing company, we get about 10 to 15 pitches a day.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that might be an exaggeration, but up to 10 a day, at least some days more, some

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: days less.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And some of them are really good and we'll say, Hey, I can't wait to have this person

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: on the podcast.

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, but a lot of them, everybody just publishes the same business self-help, just

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_01]: junk.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I hate it.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, Oh, 10 ways to be a leader.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I built up a business to $1.3 million in revenue.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm going to talk about it on a book.

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So have me on your podcast.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, and it's all the same BS advice, which actually doesn't even work to begin with.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So, and I'm, I'm, I'm, it's not your fault.

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not complaining to you.

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I hope Scribe does more than just business self-help books.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_01]: But that is the majority of books, unfortunately.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the thing that we always push authors to do is be really, really clear about who

[00:44:36] [SPEAKER_00]: their reader is and what value they are delivering to them.

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, we don't care if your audience is five people or 5 million people, as long as you

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_00]: are like bringing your whole self, sharing everything that you know, and trying to do something unique

[00:44:51] [SPEAKER_00]: through the context of your expertise and your unique, like the nicheness of some of these

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_00]: books would blow you away.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But in their industry or in their particular, like tiny little segment of the economy,

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_00]: they become a rock star and they become the person that wrote the book in one specific

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_00]: room.

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's all they need to unlock another level of their career.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's fine.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_01]: The nicheness is fine.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_01]: It's what everybody's like, you know, the ABCs of leading and, you know, go from zero

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_01]: to 1 million in 20 lessons or whatever.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_00]: That's like a memetic duck race, right?

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That's just somebody trying to be Tony Robbins because they've always looked up to Tony Robbins.

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And look, Tony Robbins, his books are great.

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, he kind of set the standard.

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And him and other guys have wrote about leadership way back, like John Maxwell or Zig Ziglar.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_01]: All those people.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think people underestimate, I don't know if they do this anymore, but I think they did

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_01]: initially.

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_01]: They underestimate how great a writer Tucker Max is.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, he, you know, and this reminds me also of like how people think about Hunter S.

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Thompson.

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So Hunter S.

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Thompson is like a classic example where people think, oh, I'm going to take a lot of drugs,

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_01]: put myself in a wild situation like Las Vegas and write about it.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not what Hunter S.

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Thompson does at all.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, he spent 20 years crafting his skills before he did that.

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And same thing with Tucker too.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you can't just like go to a party, have a wild thing happen and then write about it

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_01]: and be like Tucker Max.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_01]: No, he is a writer first and then he had these experiences.

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, people don't realize in his books how self-deprecating and how humiliating

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_01]: his stories are to himself.

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_01]: He's not bragging in those books.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_01]: People think he's bragging.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_01]: He's not.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_01]: He's trashing himself in those stories and letting it bleed.

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think people don't realize that about like to be a good writer, you're fooling everyone

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that you're one thing, but you're really something else, which is a good writer.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Tucker is incredible.

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, he is a savant, not just at writing.

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_00]: He is a great writer, but at truth telling.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think this is what makes his stories great originally.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what makes his memoir great.

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what makes even blog posts like this one that we're talking about great.

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_00]: He is unflinchingly truthful and deeply truthful.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And he seeks that truth and he tells it like it is.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And so few people are willing to do that as openly and as clearly as he is, that that's

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_00]: what really makes him unique and his writing great.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So like at this point, do you feel you've righted the ship?

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, how are things going?

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's going well.

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, the weird thing about being a CEO is that, you know, you get your test results,

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, two years after you take the test.

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not taking any victory laps yet.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, given where we started, you know, a year ago and where we are now, certainly

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_00]: culturally inside the team, I think we've done a really good job of just reestablishing

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_00]: this as a new day and a safe place and a place to just, you know, calmly do good work

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_00]: after such a traumatic event that the team went through.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I think publicly, you know, we're getting better at telling the story, bringing people

[00:48:13] [SPEAKER_00]: along, bringing the community back together.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_00]: That'll be a long road to fully rebuild this trust and get scribed back to, you know, where

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_00]: it was in its greatest years of, you know, 2019, 2020, 2021.

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_00]: But I deeply believe in this model.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we're seeing authors respond.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And the people that are joining now and the books that are, that we're about to be publishing

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_00]: in, you know, Q4 and Q1, I'm extremely proud of.

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Like what?

[00:48:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to share books publicly that the author hasn't shared that they're working

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_00]: with us.

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_00]: That's like a pretty, that's a pretty like big no-no for us.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So I will, I'll have to like send you those separately or something.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:48:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But you'll, you'll see some big names come out of us.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Let me know.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I've had a lot of scribe authors on, look, I've known Tucker and scribe since before.

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I was invested in a precursor to all of this.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then that didn't work out.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Tucker in his graciousness offered me the opportunity to roll the money over into scribe or get my money

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_01]: back.

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_01]: No invest, no, no investment has ever made me that offer before.

[00:49:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I, I always had a rule if I could get the money back in a bad situation, I would get it.

[00:49:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I did that, but Tucker and I remained very close friends, obviously.

[00:49:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, uh, and I always consider him a good friend and, uh, you know, and I would say

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_01]: the model of, or one of the ID books and processes that he uses as a model for scribe was when,

[00:49:42] [SPEAKER_01]: when he helped me, I wanted to professionally self-publish my book, choose yourself.

[00:49:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And the process that Tucker went through, uh, was almost became the process of what became scribe.

[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, uh, cause I, cause I really was serious about making it look as professional as possible.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, I think that's a very important thing.

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And some authors underweight it.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I want to ask for, for me and for all the authors that I work with at scribe and for all the

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_00]: authors listening.

[00:50:09] [SPEAKER_00]: So you get 10 pitches a day for new books to come on the podcast.

[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_00]: How does somebody stand out?

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_00]: How does somebody craft a great pitch to you that makes you excited to talk to them or to

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_00]: share the book?

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_00]: A good story.

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's no longer, I've gotten all the advice in the world.

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I've done 1500 podcasts.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I have gotten 70 different diets.

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I've gotten 70 different ways to, to build a business from scratch.

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I've talked to a hundred different billionaires about the keys to their success.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course it's all survivorship bias because there might be people who did the exact same

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_01]: thing they did who failed, but we never, those people don't end up on podcasts.

[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So I've gotten all the advice in the world.

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_01]: What I kill for is just great stories.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And like, this is a good story.

[00:50:59] [SPEAKER_01]: This is, you know, scribe was so central to kind of this new thing that was happening in,

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_01]: in publishing.

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and look, I think it's an unbelievable service that, that you guys offer.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then to have this guy, you know, just go down in flames and bring scribe with him.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you bring it back from the dead, like this rise of the Phoenix.

[00:51:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great story.

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and I wanted to hear it personally.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so, you know, it's, it's an important story, not just for publishing, but just to

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_01]: see how to, how to, how to, how to, how to buy something that's dead, build it back up,

[00:51:35] [SPEAKER_01]: create it again.

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, you know, you're on, you're obviously in like inning two, say of this journey, but

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_01]: it's going to be exciting when, like, I mean, how do you feel you, you, you were, like you

[00:51:47] [SPEAKER_01]: said, you had an empty calendar every week.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_01]: One thing was on your calendar.

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Now you're like, like, is your family upset that you're not around as much or what's,

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_01]: what's going on?

[00:51:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's a, it is a change of pace for sure.

[00:52:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But I, you know, I felt called to the story.

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I felt called to do what I could to, to resurrect this company and carry it forward.

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it is important for the publishing.

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's important to show that a business with this model can work.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I don't want Scribe to get taken down by, by one person and have traditional

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_00]: publishers then point at its failure for, you know, claiming that this business couldn't

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_00]: work.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Like we can't have that.

[00:52:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not good for 10 people in New York to decide what books get published.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, and, and, oh yeah, I, by the way, I totally a hundred percent agree with that.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Very, very important.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to save this business, like for my experience as an author for the future of

[00:52:44] [SPEAKER_00]: publishing.

[00:52:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and now that I've gotten to know the team, like for the team, like these are incredible

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_00]: people that are doing, believing what they do care deeply for authors and just want a

[00:52:55] [SPEAKER_00]: chance to, you know, a context that they can thrive in.

[00:52:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and now seeing authors, you know, move from traditional publishing over to Scribe

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_00]: now that they see us like on solid footing again and excited to have the chance to own

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_00]: all their rights, own all their royalties and have their creative freedom back.

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's inspiring to me.

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I can't wait to see, you know, where we get in a few years and, uh, you know, hopefully

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_00]: this is, we can, we can complete the Cinderella tale and build this into quite a big company.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't see any reason why this can't be one of the bigger publishing companies in the

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_00]: world.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, there's no natural limit where we can go.

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So I agree.

[00:53:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And I, I've always felt that way about the business model.

[00:53:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I a hundred percent agree with you and look, let me know how I can ever help you guys out

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_01]: in any way at all.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd be happy to just give advice every now and then if it's ever wanted for, for whatever

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_01]: reason.

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, and again, I love, I love the model and congrats on, on doing what you're doing

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and, and I hope it, I hope everything succeeds.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much, James.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I appreciate the, that notion.

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you having me on your, you're helping just by, you know, being interested

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_00]: in the story, um, and, uh, being willing to engage here.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, if you got another book in you, of course, we'd love to, we'd love to

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_00]: figure out how to get it out there.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I have, I have many books in me.

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I had a feeling that would be the answer.

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't, you know, I did a, I did a book a year from 2003 to 2021.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I've been sidetracked lately.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't, it's again, a book a year.

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not, there was never, it's not even like on average.

[00:54:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I did 25 books in those years and at least one every single calendar year.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And, but I haven't done one since 2021.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, uh, you know, I'm probably, I need to do that.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I need to get back into that.

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So we'll see.

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_00]: We'd love to help.

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm happy to brainstorm and, uh, see what you got cooking.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_00]: See if we can't, uh, pull one out of you.

[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks once again, Eric, for, for telling the story.

[00:54:51] [SPEAKER_00]: You got it.

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, James.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate the support.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_00]: If I can't, uh, I love to hear what you got here.

[00:54:55] Bye-bye.

[00:54:55] Bye-bye.

[00:54:56] Thank you.