It started with books

Recently at the NYPL Jefferson Market Branch in conversation with David Hetherington on the topic of reissuing “Coins in the Fountain”

It started with books. At the end of the day, when I look at my life, it’s all about books.

I was lucky enough to grow up in an apartment on the Upper East Side filled with them. Picture a long gallery running from one end of the apartment to the other, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. My own bedroom, pink with a canopy bed and a big bookcase crammed full.

My parents read constantly.

I learned at an early age that books were currency in our house.

So naturally, if you’d asked me at 8, at 12, at 18 what I was going to be when I grew up, I would have said I was going to be a writer. My father had been an author and journalist. My parents were documentary filmmakers. Words and books—that was the family business.

For college, I went off to study literature. Two years in, I dropped out. For whatever reason, that path was no longer what inspired me. I needed to find a different way, my own path.

And I landed somewhere completely unexpected: graphic design. Eventually I got into Parsons, studied communication design, took a job in advertising, which sucked the life out of me, and then found a job as a book designer.

That was the moment two directions of my life fused into one path. For the next few decades, I worked in-house as a Creative Director, crafting authors’ words into book form.

Then in 2017, I started Studiolo Secondari. What began as a branding and book packaging business focused on working with traditional publishers grew into something else. Indie authors started showing up, wanting to publish but not understanding the business of publishing at all. I developed a methodology to teach them the business of publishing: comparable title research, audience definition, pricing, sales, and genre expectations. I developed that methodology into the “4 Questions” framework and eventually The Strategic Author, my coaching program for authors who want to approach their book the way a publishing pro would, whether they want to be traditionally published or self-publish.

And this year, the story closed a loop when I reissued my father's 1952 novel, Coins in the Fountain — out of print for my entire life. Bringing my dad’s book back into the world let me use everything I've learned about publishing so far. And as a cherry on that sundae, I had the thrilling experience this week of hosting a book event at the New York Public Library about my experience of reissuing my father’s book. It really felt like I had come full circle.

It started with books, and so it continues — now I get to help other authors find their way through the business of publishing, the way I eventually found mine.