Group Editorial Director at Skyhorse Publishing Mark Gompertz
Mark Gompertz with writers Bart Davis and Julian Lennon.
Mark Gotmpertz has been a book publisher for more than four decades, working on numerous award-winning, critically-acclaimed and bestselling books. He started his career at The Overlook Press, was a senior editor at Crown Publishers, Publisher of Avon Trade Paperbacks, Executive Vice-President and Publisher at Simon & Schuster and Creative Director, Content Extensions at Hearst Magazines. For the past five years, he has been Group Editorial Director of Skyhorse Publishing. He is also the author of Peleton Hacks: Getting the Most Out of Your Bike.
How did you get your start in book publishing? What was the transition like from magazine to book publishing? Has coming out of the world of magazine publishing helped to inform the way you publish books?
If Peter Mayer was my first mentor, then my second mentor was Carolyn Reidy, who hired me at Avon to create and run a line of trade paperbacks. That worked out so well, that when she left to go to Simon & Schuster, she hired me to run Touchstone and Fireside. I had general management responsibilities for a $130 million business and a staff of over forty employees publishing over 200 books per year. We published many #1 New York Times bestsellers and I still kept editing, including Ursula Hegi's Stones From the River, which became Oprah's fifth pick for her popular book club. In 2007, I added Howard Publishers to my portfolio, which published bestselling books on Christianity. Three years later, I was Executive Vice President of Digital Publishing for Simon & Schuster. In this newly-created position, I reported to the CEO and was responsible for the strategies, processes and implementation of adult and children's eBooks, Enhanced eBooks and e-chapters. I brought an editorial perspective to its imprints, authors, agents, sales and marketing departments and produced new revenue streams for the company.
In 2013, I was hired by Hearst Magazines to be their Creative Director, Content Extensions, developing and executing compelling and substantive content for the company's print and digital brands, which included twenty-one consumer magazines and twenty-eight websites. After three years,I reached the conclusion that, although I was bringing in a good amount of revenue with the book deals, it would never surpass the money earned by the magazines in advertising sales. And while I found the magazine people really talented and interesting, they were not book people. I missed my book peeps.
I was fortunate to have met Tony Lyons, the founder and president of Skyhorse Publishing, one of the fastest-growing independent book publishers in the business.
In November, 2016, I went to work at Skyhorse as the Group Editorial Director. I was able to draw from my experience working at various book publishers throughout my career, but now I was able to bring what I had learned about consumer behavior from Hearst. At the magazine company I was privy to a lot of the data analytics from the research department. Having gone to countless number of "Issue Preview" meetings, I had absorbed what consumers reacted to in terms of covers. Because the range of magazines cut across different subjects, age, and audience demographics (Seventeen Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Elle, O Magazine, Food Network Magazine and HGTV Magazine, etc.) I learned a lot about what worked and what didn't.
“What was truly remarkable at the start of the pandemic is that books just stopped selling. …I had never seen anything like it.”
What has it been like to see publishing go through so many transitions in recent years? What was it like for larger independent publishers, such as Skyhorse, in having to cope with the aftermath of the recent COVID-19 pandemic?
Publishing has gone through major shifts and transformations. I like to say I've witnessed more change in the last five years than in the previous thirty-five. Of course, a lot of this has had to do with digital, both in eBooks and in e-tailing. But the one thing that hasn't changed is that people love long-form books, even with all the digital disruption. That is something that seems to never change, even with the technological advances and the competition for other entertainment or information.
COVID-19 was no different for an independent publisher, like Skyhorse, than it was for the big five publishers. What was truly remarkable at the start of the pandemic is that books just stopped selling. There was very little revenue coming in. I had never seen anything like it. During other tragedies, like wars, 9/11, economic downturns, people still bought books. They needed them. What we couldn't understand, at first, is: why books were not being bought, like other bad times. Of course, we quickly learned, it is because bookstores had shut down and even online retailers couldn't ship books, because books were not considered essential items. And I also think that people were glued to their televisions, either to learn about COVID, or because they were binge-watching entertainment. The first sign that things were improving was when we saw sales of educational and children's books, which made a certain amount of sense, if you thought about parents wanting to get their kids away from screens and devices. Eventually, the business came back and we saw sales increase.
Skyhorse Publishing is known as one of the fastest-growing independent publishers. What do you see as the major benefits of going with an independent publisher such as SP, over a big five publishing house?
We have published more than fifty New York Times bestsellers. The biggest advantage to coming to Skyhorse for an author is that we are fast and nimble. We have crash published quite a few books so that we can take advantage of changing trends. This has stood us in good stead. While we can't compete with big publishers in terms of advances—quite often authors have done better with us—because we continue to look for sales opportunities, long after the book has published.
In acquiring such a variety of books for Skyhorse, what do you see as working well withing each of the categories of fiction, nonfiction, children’s books and graphic novels?
Skyhorse publishes in many categories and takes chances on authors who larger publishers might turn down. We publish fiction and non-fiction, children’s and adult titles in categories that range from cooking and lifestyle; to nature and sports; to history and politics; to literary and commercial novels. With politics, we look at all sides of an argument, so while we published Malcom Nance's The Plot to Hack America, we also published The Plot to Scapegoat Russia, we also published Alan Dershowitz The Case Against Impeaching Trump, as well as Elizabeth Holtzman's The Case for Impeaching Trump. An example of a topical book was Michael Cohen's #1 New York Times bestseller, Disloyalty, which we acquired in July of last year and had in bookstores two months later.
In Children's books, we have published a large range of titles from series of very successful unofficial Minecraft books—to Julian Lennon and Bart Davis' New York Times bestselling White Feather Flyer series, beginning with Touch the Earth. Our cookbooks and lifestyle books sell for many years because we are always looking to sell books in trade bookstores, but also specialty stores that might not carry many other books.
I have heard that Skyhorse Publishing has rather non-traditional editorial board meetings in discussing new projects and ongoing business, known as “blue sky meetings,” since the sky is the limit in terms of what can be discussed at these meetings. What are such meetings like at SP and do you find it refreshing to have rather open-ended editorial board meetings?
We are constantly brainstorming for new ideas. Our editorial meetings are more like idea and trend meetings where no idea is laughed at. Our editors are encouraged to riff and explore and be open to suggestions from their colleagues. In fact, it is a very collegial place to work.
Skyhorse recently had Simon & Schuster overtake their distribution services. Have you found this to be helpful in gaining better distribution for SP? What do you think the potential S&S-Penguin Random House merger might portend for SP and their distribution—will it then be through PRH Publisher Services? It would then seem that SP would have even better distribution!
For the past three years, Simon & Schuster has been our distributor. We benefit from their terrific sales people, state-of-the-art computer systems and warehouse. Our list has been a good fit with them and we have seen our sales increase. We don't anticipate any changes when Penguin Random House completes their purchase of Simon & Schuster, because it is a very successful arrangement—not only for us but for also for them.
Page panels from Julian Lennon’s forthcoming graphic novel The Morning Tribe.
You recently acquired New York Times bestselling authors Julian Lennon and Bart Davis's The Morning Tribe, illustrated by Alejandra Green & Fanny Rodriguez, a middle grade graphic novel showcasing young people protecting our critical environment and teaches that we are all part of the struggle to save the Earth’s future and sustain the human race. What was it like working with Julian Lennon on such an important book?
Very often, our authors want to be published by us again. This has certainly been the case with Julian Lennon and Bart Davis. After the early reader books, they have brought us an exciting graphic novels for children called The Morning Tribe that showcases young people saving the environment. It is a way to have the audience grow up with the authors’ books. Bart and Julian are terrific to work with. They are truly collaborative partners and they know we will work with them to get their best work published, promoted and distributed. They are not only creative and smart, they are fun to work with and we laugh a lot.
Where do you see the future of publishing headed for both larger independent publishers, such as Skyhorse Publishing and major trade book publishing, as a whole?
We see independent publishing growing, especially as the big guys continue to consolidate, because we publish books that others can't—because it doesn't work for their profit & loss statements.
Do you have any advice you could share for hopeful writers eager to become published authors?
My advice to writers is think of ways you can partner with us, build your platform, and bring readers to your books.
Can you finish this sentence? I love reading because...
I love reading because books transport me to different places and different times and I'm constantly learning from them.
