The Big Five publishes a vanishing slice of the serious nonfiction being written. Small literary presses publish a handful more. Everyone else is sent to self-publishing, or sent home. Crossroads exists for the writers in that gap — ambitious, serious, ready — who deserve a press that takes the work as seriously as they do.
A Crossroads book has a shape. Not because we paste a template on top of your manuscript, but because we work an editorial methodology across every project, and the resulting books are recognizably ours.
"Crossroads books share a typography, a cover system, an editorial register, and a posture toward the reader. The press has a sensibility. The list has a coherence."
From the Crossroads editorial brief
Framing, structural editing, design, layout, metadata. One of three cover families. A house typography. An editorial register specific to the imprint. The argument is simple: most presses today are interchangeable. Agents shape the book; publishers move it through production. We think publishing itself is a creative act.
An author signing with Crossroads is joining a list, not filling a slot. The press has a posture, a sensibility, and a recognizable form. When you see a Crossroads book on a shelf, we want you to know.
If you are working on serious nonfiction for adult readers and want a press that takes editorial methodology as seriously as production, we want to read it.
Crossroads Press publishes serious nonfiction for thinking adults — books that argue, sit with their subjects, and refuse the easy answer. We work in the tradition of writers like James Hollis and David Whyte, Ezra Klein and Adam Tooze, Rebecca Solnit and Patrick Radden Keefe, Parker Palmer and Anand Giridharadas. Memoir that doesn't redeem too quickly. Social analysis with prose craft. Cultural criticism that takes its subject seriously. Practical books that argue rather than instruct. The form of the book matches the seriousness of the work.
Crossroads is organized around four engagement tiers, from a 90-minute Legacy Audit to a six-month Compile to Publish engagement, plus an ongoing Studio Retainer for continuing relationships. Each tier has a defined scope and a transparent price. Most authors begin with a free 20-minute discovery call.
Optional partner add-ons for bestseller campaigns, publicity, audiobook, and author sites are available alongside any publishing engagement. See add-ons →
You are not trying to become a writer. You already are one — through years of essays, columns, sermons, talks, classroom hours, client work, or a manuscript that has been with you a long time. You are not at the start. You are somewhere in the middle, and you have figured out what you actually want to say.
What you're trying to do is the thing every serious writer with a body of work eventually wants: hold your work in your hand as a finished book, in a form that does the thinking justice.
The writers who arrive at Crossroads tend to share a pattern. They are not all the same demographically. They have all stopped asking whether they have a book in them and started asking what shape it should take and who can help build it.
What unites all three is the kind of book they're making: serious nonfiction that takes a position. Not a framework with chapters draped over it. A book.
Crossroads publishes nonfiction for thinking adults. The list runs in two clearly distinct registers. Both lanes share the same editorial methodology, the same imprint, the same standard of craft.
For the leader, executive, coach, military officer, therapist, or scholar with real experience worth a slow read. The book that takes a position and commits to an earned insight — not the framework book written backward from a keynote slide.
In the tradition of: Covey, Lencioni, Collins — but only the books where the framework was honestly earned.
For the essayist, contemplative writer, or public intellectual with one big subject and the patience to develop it. Essay collections, meditative books, long-form syntheses, cultural arguments in memoir form — the work that refuses the easy answer.
In the tradition of: Solnit, Whyte, Klein, Hollis, Tooze, Keefe, Palmer, Giridharadas.
Every book moves through the same four stages. The tier you choose determines where you stop, not which stages you experience.
We read your existing material and produce an Editorial Framing Brief: two to three concept directions, proposed structures, comparable titles, gap analysis. You choose a direction. We assemble the structural draft, your essays placed into the chosen architecture, with clearly-labeled placeholders for every gap.
This stage is yours. You fill in the placeholders. Stuck on a piece? Request a scaffolding prompt, questions and sub-prompts that help you think it through. We do not generate finished prose for your book.
A real editorial pass in Microsoft Word with tracked changes, light copyedit, suggestion edits with margin comments explaining each suggestion, and structural edits flagged with full rationale. You accept, reject, modify, or ignore.
Your final manuscript flowed into a Crossroads house interior template. A cover from the Crossroads families. ISBN through our Bowker block. Copyright registration. BISAC codes. Metadata for Amazon and Ingram. IngramSpark submission. A finished printed copy in your hands.
A book published with Crossroads is a Crossroads book. Listed in the catalog. Included in the seasonal announcement. Mentioned in our newsletter. Submitted to trade reviewers (Foreword Indie, Kirkus Indie where appropriate). Considered for awards your title is eligible for. Distributed globally through IngramSpark and Amazon under our ISBN. The same press treatment goes to every title under the Crossroads imprint.
You aren't buying a one-time production package. You're joining a list. Crossroads is small by design and intends to stay small, but the list builds over time, and the imprint your book carries becomes more recognizable with each title we add. Your book carries the press's growth with it.
Most writers learn this the hard way, the actual work isn't the writing; it's everything around the writing. Three paths exist, each with its own version of the difficulty.
You need an agent before anyone will read you. Six to eighteen months of querying, mostly silence. Land a deal and wait one to three years. The advance is small, the royalty smaller, the publisher controls cover and title. They can drop you before launch and still expect you to do the marketing.
The technical bottleneck is now in your lap. Evenings learning Vellum, Atticus, KDP, Reedsy, IngramSpark, each its own platform, each with its own bleeds, gutters, PDF specs. You decide ISBN strategy alone. The book that ships often reads, to anyone who looks, "self-published."
Five to twenty-five thousand dollars up front for "production support." Quality wildly variable, some are real publishers in indie clothing; others are vanity presses with better branding. Royalty splits often unfavorable. Rights tied up in contracts that take a lawyer to read.
The reason an unknown writer's book rarely breaks through isn't talent. It's that nothing carries the work forward after the launch ends. The launch itself is one weekend. Word of mouth is the rest of the book's life.
"The best way to sell a book has not changed in hundreds of years. Word of mouth."
Jon Yaged, CEO of Macmillan
Big Five publishing knows this. Yaged calls word of mouth the only mechanism that has ever worked: a trusted source recommending to their audience. Publicity is a multiplier on word of mouth, not a substitute for it. Paid amplification fails authors who haven't yet built the conditions for word of mouth to start.
Crossroads is built around that mechanism. Every tier ships you out the door with the assets word of mouth actually requires:
You won't find a single "platform building" lesson on this site. You'll find editorial work, structural decisions, real production, and a book ready for the long arc.
From writers Chad has worked with across twenty years in indie publishing, including the C&R Press era. Real names. Real books. On the record.
"As an author whose work has been published all along the spectrum, from grant-funded one-offs to Hachette/Penguin, I can delightedly testify that my experience with Chad stands out. Every author wants to find a publisher who puts the work first, who believes in nurturing the artist rather than just looking for sales. Chad is that publisher."
Caleb Ludwick author of The First Time She Fell (C&R Press)
"I've known Chad Prevost for over ten years, both as a colleague and as the publisher of my second novel, American Neolithic. If anyone ever deserved to be called a gentleman and a scholar, it's Chad. He's an acute and discerning editor as well as an enthusiastic supporter of those he works with. Most importantly, he's a man whose word is his bond."
Terence Hawkins author of The Rage of Achilles, American Neolithic, and Turing's Graveyard; Director of the Yale Writers' Workshop
"What stands out about Chad is his ability to identify and curate authors of high caliber, picking the few gems from a vast pool of similar offerings, and then put them together in a community that feels important and lasting. He sees the trees and the forest he's forging a path through. If Chad decides to build something, it keeps paying rewards for a long time."
Anis Shivani author of The Fifth Lash, A History of the Cat, and numerous other books of fiction, poetry, and criticism
"My experience with Chad Prevost was as delightful, professional, and inspirational as they come. I felt supported in my work as an artist, totally heard and guided through every step of the publishing process. Through Chad's careful editorial attention and knowledgeable insights, the end result was something of integrity and vision we could all be proud of. I'd work with him again in a heartbeat."
Michelle Bitting author of four poetry collections; Broken Kingdom won the 2018 Catamaran Prize and was named to Kirkus Reviews' Best of 2018
"Working with Chad at C&R Press was a refreshing & reaffirming experience. Never once did I feel like another name in a catalog or a figure in a ledger. Chad worked with me steadily, patiently, & empathically during each phase of what became my second book of poems."
Alexander Long author of Still Life, On Distance, and Light Here, Light There; Associate Professor at John Jay College / CUNY
Note on dates. The testimonials above come from the C&R Press era (2006 to 2015), the indie literary press Chad co-founded and led for nearly nine years. The first dedicated Crossroads Press case study will publish once the first cohort of Crossroads titles ships.
The Editorial Framing Brief is the Tier II deliverable and the editorial spine of every Compile to Publish engagement. Eight pages. Eight sections, each doing distinct diagnostic work. What's in it — section by section.
What this book is. What this book wants to be. Comp titles. What is missing. What is in the way. Three possible architectures. Recommended next move. Editor's note.
Every Compile to Publish engagement is built on this brief. It is not a sales document. It is the diagnostic the author and the editor work from for the rest of the project.
Read what's in the brief →Real client briefs will be published with author permission once the first cohort of Crossroads-published titles reaches that stage.
Said up front so the engagement starts honestly. Where we draw the lines, and why.
The shortest, most direct version of the conversations we have on every discovery call. If your question isn't here, ask.
We work a four-stage methodology: framing (reading the manuscript and producing an Editorial Framing Brief), architecture (structural editing and reshaping where needed), compile-to-print (polish, layout, cover, metadata), and distribution (IngramSpark to 190 countries, press release, awards and reviewer submissions). Each stage produces a specific deliverable you can hold.
Self-publishing platforms hand you tools and let you do the editorial work yourself. Most publishing services offer copy-editing and formatting. Crossroads is structured as a boutique press. We shape the book editorially: a framing brief that names what your book is and wants to be; a structural pass that moves material into the right architecture; covers from one of three house families; layout in our editorial template; and metadata, ISBN, and distribution if you want them.
The output is a Crossroads book, recognizable as such.
Yes, and that is the point. Crossroads books share a typography, a cover system (three families: Quiet Authority, Bold Voice, Cult Object), an editorial register, and a posture toward the reader. Your book stays your book; the imprint frames it.
This is how most respected independent presses have always worked. It is also what makes a Crossroads book identifiable on a shelf or a feed.
No. We read every inquiry and respond to all of them, but we take projects we believe in and projects that fit the imprint's sensibility. If a project is not right for us, we say so honestly and often point toward a better home.
A small team led by Chad Prevost, founder of Crossroads and formerly co-founder of C&R Press (2006 to 2015). The team includes editorial, design, and production support, with named contributors for specific projects. We will tell you who is working on your book.
Active window: up to 24 weeks for Compile to Publish (with a cap of 32 if needed). The editorial diagnostic tiers run shorter: 2 weeks for a Legacy Audit; the Editorial Framing Brief is delivered as a single document after a focused diagnostic phase.
"Active weeks" means weeks when work is in progress on our side. Weeks where we're waiting for you to write bridging material or review a draft pause the clock.
Whatever format it's in. Substack export, Medium archive, Google Docs, Word, plain text, PDFs. We handle the format conversion before any production starts.
You'll receive a private Google Drive folder for your project after signing the LoA, that's where you drop everything you want considered. No need to organize it; that's part of what we do.
Your book is listed in the Crossroads catalog, included in our seasonal newsletter, distributed globally through IngramSpark and Amazon, and listed in Bookshop.org's publisher catalog. We write and send a press release at publication. We submit to trade reviewers (Foreword Indie, Kirkus Indie when appropriate) and to awards your title is eligible for.
The press is small by design and intends to stay small. The list builds over time, and the imprint your book carries becomes more recognizable with each title we add.
You do. The copyright in your prose remains entirely yours. Nothing in our agreement transfers any ownership of your writing to Crossroads Press.
If your book is published under the Crossroads imprint with an ISBN from our Bowker block, Crossroads is the publisher of record. The ISBN belongs to us. Crossroads collects net royalties through the imprint's accounts across every channel and pays you 80% of net royalties, accounted quarterly.
You can, with seven days' written notice. Before the Framing Brief, 50% is refundable. After the Brief but before the Structural Draft, 25% is refundable. After the Structural Draft, the fee is non-refundable but everything completed is delivered to you.
20 minutes, free, by video. The first eight minutes are you describing the work and what you want from a book; the next seven are us walking you through the Editorial Readiness rubric; the last five are tier discussion if it's a fit.
Most calls end with "I'll think about it" rather than yes-or-no in the moment, which is expected. This isn't high-pressure sales.
A boutique press based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Editorial, design, and production capacity that historically existed only at independent presses with very long histories.
Founded by Chad Prevost · formerly C&R Press · 40+ titles published
Crossroads Press is an independent hybrid publisher of serious nonfiction for adult readers. We exist because most of what passes for publishing today is operational — agents shape books, publishers move them through production. We do the editorial shaping the Big Five outsourced and self-publishing skipped. Founded by Chad Prevost, formerly co-founder of C&R Press (2006–2015), which published authors including Anis Shivani, Terence Hawkins, Michelle Bitting, Alexander Long, and Caleb Ludwick.
The press was founded by Chad Prevost, formerly co-founder of C&R Press (2006 to 2015), the literary press that brought into print Anis Shivani, Terence Hawkins, Michelle Bitting, Alexander Long, Caleb Ludwick, and many others. The C&R Press list remains a reference point for what Crossroads aims to make possible, now with full editorial control across design, layout, and architecture.
The team brings together editorial, design, and production craft. The same methodology that produced the founding list, and the Editorial Framing Brief that begins every author engagement, is the methodology any author signing with us encounters. Read more about the press →
