Why We Got into the Publishing Industry
Our Storytelling Platform Just Added Books to the Table!
By Antoinette Marie Johnson
When we pivoted Cohere from a traditional branding agency to a storytelling platform, we set our eyes on picking the best stories in our network that deserved to be told in the old-school way - a good analog book!
Most people give me a one-eyed sideways look when I say that Cohere helped publish a book.
That’s OK, some days I also don’t know what the hell I’m talking about! But, when you finally launch a project that brings the vision home – such as our first co-published book – then you can point to something and say “we did it!”
During a time of short-term crisis, this long view plan story is even more helpful.
Cohere partner and advisor, Erik Oberholtzer, has a very impressive story of building a $200M company with 30+ locations and exiting with a best-in-class partner. That kind of story doesn’t come along often, and it’s hugely inspiring and useful for our clients. For us too! We knew that this was the type of story that we could help create our flywheel for – activating multiple storytelling channels. So for the past two years, we have been practicing with workshops, speaking engagements, virtual events, and more – around one subject matter – Ten Year Plan. And now it’s live to the world as a paperback, hardcover, and e-book!
Two years of gathering research with Ten Year Plan (TYP) workshops, speaking engagements and input.
Cohere is uniquely positioned to help authors
When the story is useful to Cohere’s unique audience of restaurateurs, real estate developers, and creative entrepreneurs – it’s one we will consider utilizing our skillset for. We are a talented group of people who use social media, photography, video, and other branding skills for telling great stories. Specifically complicated ones that are layered and require micro-storytelling to help make it stick. Also, the publishing model is being disrupted, and it’s groups like us that will help an author activate the channels necessary to replace traditional methods. Gone are the days of book tours. Cohere is uniquely positioned to help people launch the flywheel approach – PR, social media, advertising, Amazon hacks, and workshops to engage their core audience.
This is just the beginning…
I’ve always seen Cohere as a family of brands and offerings. So now our co-publishing arm is able to launch books both on Amazon and in the flesh. Similar to something like 99u which launches books and conferences, and serves the creative community with software like Adobe products. We are seeking ways to best serve our clients, projects, partners, and creative community with good stories. We expect to do some crazy dope coffee table books, zine-style design books, and potentially books where we profile our client’s stories too. If you have an idea, don’t be afraid to pitch us! We love collaborating and now have the playbook for good book launches. Email me at amjohnson@cohere.city if you have an idea for a good book.
Want to start your own Ten Year Plan? Purchase a copy of the book here!
