Adam Witty’s Advantage

Imagine for a moment that you are a motivational speaker. You’ve had some success and have even begun to write a book to help people who can’t come to your talks; but you’re not famous enough for a major publisher to pick it up and all of the self-publishing options either have poor results or are just too complicated. Enter Advantage Media Group. Founded in 2005, Advantage has become more than a publishing house for motivational speakers. It has become a global media presence with expertise in book, magazine, and e-book publishing, as well as an unbeatable marketing force.

Adam Witty, founder of Advantage Media Group, sells his company as a hybrid between the big publishing houses and self-publishing outlets. It has the advantages and polish of big publishers with the customizability and client-centered service of a better self-publisher. That hybridization and Advantage’s emphasis on marketing and distribution gives the publisher an edge over traditional publishing houses whose market share is being gobbled up by e-books and other digital media.

In some ways, Advantage encapsulates the split that will be seen more and more in the publishing world, not only in their smaller print-runs but also in the fact that their clients are people who come to Advantage with their work — however finished or unfinished — and pay the company rather than being paid by the company. In the long run, both the author and Advantage Media Group come out ahead as Advantage works to meet the goals they have set with the author. Traditional publishing houses have the expense of paying the author before his or her book has sold a single copy and without knowing if the book will sell at all.

Advantage’s business model of being a marketing firm that happens to publish books rather than the other way around allows it to remain flexible in a constantly-changing publishing environment.