Madeline Macintosh on Authors Equity Success in 2025

Written By Linda Secondari
Madeline Macintosh speaking before a crowd wearing a suit. She is at the NYBF event.

Photo by Hunter Bliss

Last night I attended a publishing industry event presented by the New York Book Forum and hosted by Macmillan Publishers. The featured speaker was Madeline McIntosh, CEO and Publisher of Authors Equity, who spoke candidly about the success of the young publishing house and the fundamental ways it departs from traditional publishing models.

McIntosh contrasted Authors Equity’s approach with conventional trade publishing, which typically relies on author advances, royalties capped in the 10–20% range, large in-house staffs, siloed departments, and limited author participation in key decisions. Authors Equity rejects that structure. Instead, it operates on a profit-sharing model, giving authors the bulk of a book’s revenue and full visibility into its finances. Profit and loss statements are shared openly with authors and collaborators, and decisions are made through collective evaluation of costs, value, and impact.

According to McIntosh, Authors Equity has already produced three New York Times bestsellers in 2025, including Joseph Nguyen’s Don’t Believe Everything You Think, and Seth Godin’s This is Strategy.

{Fun note: Studiolo Secondari designed the interior for Nguyen’s companion book “Overthinkers Guide to Making Decisions” which is also doing very well in the market!}

McIntosh emphasized that Authors Equity is intentionally lean. The core staff is kept small, while the company works with a broad network of contractors and freelancers across design, editorial, and production. This model, she argued, allows access to a virtually unlimited pool of specialized talent and enables the house to publish across genres by leveraging external expertise.

Publishing is, by nature, a traditional business, reticent to change, which makes it especially energizing to see a fundamentally different approach succeed. McIntosh acknowledged that growth will present challenges, particularly because some of Authors Equity’s current advantages stem from its lack of legacy agreements and institutional drag. Still, the model’s early success suggests a meaningful rethinking of how value, transparency, and collaboration can operate in contemporary publishing.

I left the event genuinely excited to see what the future holds for Authors Equity.

The New York Book Forum has a great line up of events scheduled for this year. I highly recommend checking them out if you are interested in the business of publishing. https://newyorkbookforum.org/event-calendar/


Linda Secondari

I’ve spent more years than I care to mention honing my skills at preeminent academic publishers. As the Creative Director for both Oxford University Press and Columbia University Press, and Art Director for Russek Advertising (where clients included Shakespeare in the Park and John Leguizamo), I felt the call to take what I’d learned and what I’d done and start my own design studio (or studiolo).

Using intelligent design strategy and inspiring design solutions, I believe we can improve the world through better communication. I’ve been fortunate to do that for independent authors, major publishers, NGOs, educational institutions, nonprofits and think tanks. And while the industries might be varied, the one unifier is a desire to reach their audience and get their big ideas noticed.

Whether I’m cooking up a batch of puttanesca or helping an organization rethink their look, message and go-to-market strategy, I always strive to create an end result that wows.

My clients often remark how I interpret what they need from what they say and that I’m the calm voice of reason in their often frenetic industry. (must be all that meditating.)

If you have a project that could use some transformation, let’s turn the page together.

 

http://linda-secondari.squarespace.com/
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