Crossroads Publishing Group
§ The First Draft Cohort · Starts September 14, 2026
From message to manuscript in six months.
Your voice. Your story. Your book. Built from what's real.
Every other "write a book in six months" program is now quietly outsourcing voice and message to AI. This is the cohort built on the editorial standard that made nonfiction publishing serious in the first place: you write the book, with a publisher's eye on every page.
Six writers. One publisher. Six months of biweekly 1:1 editorial work, monthly group sessions, and a community of serious thinkers who want to know what's actually theirs about what they're putting into the world.
Who this cohort is for.
Writers who have been carrying a book idea for years, started and stopped multiple times, and are ready to spend six months getting it out of their head and onto the page — with structure, accountability, and a publisher's read on every chapter.
You don't need a draft to begin. You need a working sense of the book you've been wanting to write, the willingness to show up every other week, and the discipline to bring something each month.
This isn't a workshop. You won't be obligated to read or critique anyone else's manuscript. The 1:1 with Chad is where the editorial work happens. The group is the container.
How the six months unfold.
Each month has a focus, a piece of prep work, and a 90-minute group session. The 1:1s carry the editorial work on your actual book. The community channel runs underneath, asynchronous and available when you want it.
Find Your Message
Positioning, reader, the question your book answers, lane fit. The exercises that locate the book inside the wider conversation it wants to enter.
Architect the Book
Chapter map, working thesis, the opening. Structural patterns that work for serious nonfiction and how to choose the one that fits your project.
Draft with Discipline
Writing routine engineering, sentence-level work, the practice of showing up. By end of this month, the first 5,000 words are on the page.
Voice and Weight
The editorial standards module: the distinction between texture (what AI does well) and weight (what only you can do). Midpoint editorial letter from Chad. Publishing-readiness conversations begin in your 1:1s.
Complete the Arc
Finishing without losing momentum. The hardest chapter. The ending. Target: a full draft of 50,000–80,000 words.
Decide and Hand Off
Revision pass + your written decision on what's next. Path conversations: publish with Crossroads, query a traditional press, self-publish, or hold. Candidacy memo from Chad on Crossroads fit.
A running thread, not a single module
To AI or not to AI, and wherever the twain shall meet.
AI is in the room whether we name it or not. You'll be using it, or refusing to use it, or doing some of both — and the choices you make about that are going to shape your book.
Across all six months, we'll treat AI as a creative-process inquiry, not a moral position. The questions we'll keep returning to in 1:1s and group sessions:
- How is your use of AI aiding your creative process? How is it getting in the way?
- Would you be better served using it less during the early weeks of generating your ideas?
- Is it better to do your own writing first and submit later for feedback, or to brainstorm with AI from the start?
- Where do you find yourself getting lost in ideas or going down rabbit holes?
- Where is AI genuinely useful — research, fact-checking, sparring against your own arguments?
The test we keep applying: can you defend every paragraph as something you mean, said in language that sounds like you, bearing weight you placed there on purpose? If yes, the AI was a tool. If no, you're producing texture without weight — and that's the problem the Crossroads editorial standard exists to catch.
The publishing inflection point.
Around month 4 or 5, the conversations in your 1:1s start to turn explicit: are you going to want Crossroads to publish this when the draft is done, or do you need to sit with the book longer before deciding?
By the end of month 6, you have made the call. If you're publishing with Crossroads, the editorial work credits forward into the publishing engagement and we begin the path to launch. If you need more time, the founding-cohort publishing rate locks for up to 120 days after the cohort ends — you can decide to publish with Crossroads any time in that window and the founding pricing still applies. After 120 days, standard publishing rates apply.
This is the structural promise: you graduate the cohort with a complete first draft, a positioning package, and a real decision in hand — not just a manuscript and a question.
What you get across the six months.
Biweekly 1:1 with Chad
Twelve 45-minute editorial calls. This is where the work on your actual book happens.
Monthly group session
Six 90-minute sessions. Curriculum, discussion, peer conversation — no obligation to read others' manuscripts.
Written editorial feedback
Up to 5,000 words per month read carefully and returned with notes. Six months of substantive feedback.
Private community channel
Slack or Discord for the cohort. Use it when you want, ignore it when you don't. Real people, real questions.
Optional peer pairing
If you want a writing partner inside the cohort for accountability or feedback, we'll match you. Strictly opt-in.
Candidacy memo from Chad
At month six, a written assessment of your manuscript, your positioning, and the right next move for your book.
Founding-cohort rate through July 31, 2026. Standard pricing $4,500 thereafter.
$1,750 on signing + $1,750 at day 30. Or pay $3,150 in full upfront and save 10% ($350).
Founding-author publication path
Add $4,500 to take your manuscript all the way to a published book. $8,000 total, idea-to-book.
Cover design, interior layout, ISBN, IngramSpark distribution, press release, awards submission, Crossroads catalog placement, 80% net royalties. Triggered at month 4 or 5 of the cohort when you're ready to commit. Founding-author pricing through summer 2026 — then standard rates apply. Full list of what's included below.
Six seats only. Applications open publicly July 13. Warm-list applicants welcome any time before then.
What founding-author publication includes.
$3,500 cohort + $4,500 publication = $8,000 idea-to-book, with the same press treatment as any other Crossroads title.
Editorial
- Outside copy edit (professional, not in-house)
- Outside proofread
- Final structural and stylistic review
Design & production
- Cover design (Crossroads house style)
- Interior layout, print and ebook
- ISBN owned by Crossroads
Distribution & visibility
- IngramSpark distribution to all major channels
- Bookshop.org, Amazon, B&N, library availability
- Press release at publication
- Trade reviewer pitches and awards submissions
- Crossroads catalog placement, ongoing
Author terms
- 80% net royalty, paid quarterly
- You retain copyright
- IBPA Hybrid Publisher pledge-compliant
- No rights grab. You can move the book.
What this costs elsewhere.
| Bookbaby | $2,500–5,000 | No editorial work. Glossy covers only, one layout template, no publisher brand on your book. |
| Scribe Media | $25,000–50,000 | Process-driven, no editor relationship |
| Greenleaf | $40,000+ | Premium, large-team production |
| Trade publishing | Free upfront | 10–15% royalty, 1–3 years to print, rigid gatekeepers. Manuscript still needs strong positioning, editing, and curation before they'll look. |
| Crossroads founding author | $8,000 | All the above + a publisher who reads every page |
In an emerging era of navigating increasing complexity — not the least of which is the loaded question of AI ethics — relationship is becoming more important than ever. Reach out to see if the founder and editor of Crossroads is the right fit for you. Chad is looking for thinkers with a message. Could this be your opportunity?
Chad Prevost · Founder & Editor, Crossroads Publishing Group
chad@crossroadspublishing.group
crossroadspublishing.group
Book a 20-minute discovery call: calendly.com/chad-crossroadspublishing/discovery-call-clone
One question to take to the discovery call.
What is the book you have been carrying that you don't want to spend another year not writing? Bring that question. We'll spend 20 minutes finding out if this is the right container for it.