800-CEO-READ is now Porchlight!
A lit porchlight is an invitation to gather, a signal that you are welcome. The people of Porchlight Book Company offer a similar message.
So, what is changing?
- Our name. Porchlight Book Company will be our full legal name, but we will also be simply called Porchlight
- Our website. An updated, responsive website will help you find and utilize the services we offer even more easily, so you and your authors sell more books than ever. Visit us at porchlighbooks.com and email us at firstname@porchlightbooks.com. (Our old email addresses will also be forwarded!)
- We will begin compiling and featuring a general nonfiction bestseller list every month, alongside our business bestsellers
- Expanded editorial coverage to encompass all book genres
And what is staying the same?
- Our team and the considerable experience and expertise we offer*
- The services we provide
- Our phone number: You can still reach us at 800-CEO-READ (800-236-7323) and all of our team members by the same phone number or extension you use now
- Our tax ID number
- Our resale license
- Our bestseller reporting practices and our monthly business bestseller list
- Our annual business book awards
- Weekly coverage of the latest business books
*As of this year, five of our employees have been with the company for over 20 years, with another five having been here over a decade. In addition to that, we have added three new employees in three different departments over the past year to further support our staff and the publishers and authors we serve.
And why?
The foundation of Porchlight Book Company was set by Jack Covert and David Schwartz in 1984 on the business book section of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop on Fifth and Wisconsin in downtown Milwaukee. That business book foundation has given us an expertise in the category and helped us build great relationships with its authors and imprints. The services we’ve built to serve them, however, can be applied to any book in any genre. In fact, we’ve sold books across the spectrum of publishing—from biographies and self-help to cookbooks and even fiction—for many years now, and we’ve decided we need to update our name to reflect that reality.
A lit porchlight is an invitation to gather, a signal that you are welcome. The people of Porchlight Book Company offer a similar message—that your book needs, however challenging, are welcome. The services we’ve tailored to meet those needs are not governed by an algorithm, but by the collective experience and wisdom we’ve attained over our 35 years as a bulk book service company.
It is experience informed by our history, and based in a philosophy espoused by David Schwartz, who said:
Bookselling is a cultural and political expression, an expression of progressive change, of challenge to oppressive authority, of a search for a community of values which can act as an underpinning of a better world. The true profit in bookselling is the social profit; the bottom line, the measure of the impact of the books on the community.
We are united by books.
The idea that everything—from government and healthcare to education and even our personal lives—should be run like a business, driven by the bottom line, has come to dominate our culture over the past 40 years. As a company that has focused on business books and thinking as that has taken place, we’ve come to realize that business is, and should be, informed by a wider lens—of current events, culture, personal development, environmental concerns, and the public good. Rather than push the values of business into every corner of our lives, public and private, we wish to join a chorus of voices bringing the richness of the rest of our lives into business, and to inform our organizations and work with more holistic, human values. Therefore, we will continue to focus on the business book genre in our editorial work, as we do in our book sales. And we will expand our scope to speak more about the other books and categories of nonfiction we sell on a regular basis—and books we love as individual readers.
There is one thing that will never change about our organization: We are united by books and dedicated to providing high-touch, human support to authors, organizations looking for books in bulk, and the publishing industry.
How can we help?
Blyth Meier, our Marketing Director, is happy to answer your questions.