Since I’ve self-published five books at the time of this writing, I was interested in the large sign I saw for BookBaby. I was in Nashville, TN at our NSA (National Speaker’s) Conference and asked if BookBaby was somehow related to CDBaby, which has been one of the top sites for independent artists to release albums. I’ve released a number of them through that organization. Sure enough, CDBaby was related to BookBaby as well as a company called DiscMakers, all a part of the DIY Media group. To make all this less confusing, the DIY Media group is the umbrella over all these organizations. I thought it would be very interesting to create an interview with the head of BookBaby and was fortunate to interview the CEO and president, Tony Van Veen.
Tony has spent the past three decades of his life helping independent authors, musicians and filmmakers publish, distribute and promote their own books, music and films. My first guess as to his background would not be that he used to be a punk-rocker. He looks anything but that, currently. Tony started at the ground up in the company, and stayed with the same organization, rising through the ranks to become the current CEO. He even went through two rounds of private equity ownership and took the company private again. He still loves what he does after thirty-five years, somewhat of as an outlier as he has not jumped to work for another organization. I wanted to find out why he stayed and a little about his journey! Here, we cover four principles that contribute to his staying power. Full article here: https://goalsforyourlife.com/blog/writing-a-book
