Before Hybrid Was a Buzzword: John Clark's Boutique Publishing Approach

Before the “hybrid” publishing model became uber-popular in the book world, John Clark of Old Stone Press was already running one. 

Clark, who came to publishing through his printing company, started the press in 2012 with a then-unique author-subsidized model. 

“I  just called it a partnership, a relationship,” Clark said in a phone interview. “But  I think it’s a more reasonable professional model, and I think it’s getting more popular. It gets very close to being a vanity press, but not if you really are careful about who you take on. We don’t just publish anything. We are making sure that we’ve got a legitimate author and a legitimate story.”

Clark pointed to Old Stone’s Always Moving Forward, a memoir by David A. Jones, the founder of health insurance company Humana, as a significant past work it had published; some others include Stay Thirsty, a memoir by a serial entrepreneur, and Sycamore Drive, a novel about the Catholic Church. He said the press was coming up on publishing around 40 or 50 books in its 14 years in the business.

Most of his clients come through direct submissions, as Clark intentionally doesn’t put effort into marketing the press and doesn’t seek out authors. He likes the intimacy of working with individual authors. Old Stone Press’s website says its hybrid model is “innovative and flexible to allow our authors the best value in their approach to their individual market place.” 

“ I get about 15 inquiries a year, and I only take about five of them,” he said. “Maybe there’ll be some national interest in these books, but most of them are for their own community.  If Old Stone Press was more visible and marketed, it would help sell the books in my library if people were curious, but personally, I don’t know if it needs to be.”

Writers who submit to—and are selected by—Old Stone sign a contact typically between $5,000 and $10,000 for a fiction book or short novel launch package, which includes everything from the editorial process through book design, marketing, printing and distribution plans. A more complicated book project or a coffee table book would start from $25,000 to over $100,000.

Because it’s a hybrid press, Clark also doesn’t plan by year, but lets authors set their own timelines. While authors generally take a year or two to undergo the publishing process, one upcoming work on Clark’s plate is on a month-based timeline. 

“ It’s a memoir from a man that has been traveling all over the world, has made a lot of money, and retired into a human-resource-motivational-speaker kind of guy,” Clark described. “While he was writing this memoir, which started years ago, he contracted a disease that means he has months to live, not years. He is on a fast track to get it into an audiobook and into print as soon as possible.”

At the time of the interview, that manuscript was undergoing its last copyedit, and an audiobook contact had just been signed; Clark said the print version would be available in two or three weeks, and the audiobook would be done before Christmas.