Owner and Managing Director – Control Mouse Media, LLC
January 2014 – Present (currently held position) Boston, MA
I run a media production & training business helping small business owners of all types – including writers and other creatives – build their audience using a carefully-constructed content strategy.
- I am a longtime publishing veteran who has helped hundreds of authors realize their ideas.
- I am an entrepreneur who has helped build early-stage startups from the ground up.
- I am a writer and musician, so I understand the creative’s perspective as well as the business side.
- I am an educator, teaching content strategy to my audience, my clients, and my students.
In addition to working one-on-one with clients, I produce and host a long-running podcast called “Marketing Without the Marketing” to teach the basics of content marketing to anyone who wants to learn a more soft-touch, respectful and ethical approach.
Control Mouse Media, LLC is also a music publisher (ASCAP) and record label, which I use to release and administer my own compositions and potentially others in the future.
For more details, please see: https://controlmousemedia.com.
Partner and Managing Director, Lived Places Publishing, LLC
September 2022 – Present (currently held position) Boston, MA
In 2022, I joined a brand new publishing venture called Lived Places Publishing. I’ve been working with Founder David Parker since its inception in 2021, but recently decided to join as a partner in the business. The goals and mission of this venture align well with the work I’m doing in other aspects of my life (particularly my activist work with not-for-profit Boston For All and my grant-funded Songwriter Showcase Series).
Lived Places Publishing is producing short (100- to 150-page) curriculum-ready course readings. They are organized into interdisciplinary collections, each led by a Collection Editor. Our books range from the autobiographical to the ethnographic, but they always center on the experience of social identity/identities and place/location. Each book is written with the advanced undergraduate student in mind, though many of our books are fit for a wider audience.
We have launched 11 collections to date, including Black Studies, Disability Studies, Forced Migration Studies, Queer and LGBT+ Studies, Carceral Studies, and more. We have 50 books signed, with new titles launching monthly – and I expect us to sign 60 more over the next 12 months. Our authors and editors cover the globe, from UKI, New Zealand, India, Canada, Nigeria, Germany, United States, and beyond. Most of our authors are academics, though we are seeking the voices of activists, organizers, journalists, and other practitioners as well.
Our books cover a wide range of topics, with the aim of delivering myriad human perspectives to bolster the contemporary curriculum. Never has this need been more pressing as authoritarian voices and narratives of power are working hard to crowd out the variety of perspectives that build a tolerant and vibrant society.
My primary role is twofold: 1) Grow the list and 2) design/execute a marketing strategy.
For more details and to chart our progress: https://livedplacespublishing.com
Instructor – Emerson College
January 2016 – Present (currently held position) Boston, MA
I teach a grad-level course at Emerson College called “Fundamentals of Content Strategy,” all about developing content as a business asset and using it to achieve specific business goals. Because I believe that students learn by doing, teaching, collaborating, and experimenting, I designed and created this course as a dynamic live project where students work alone and in groups to get experience in the planning and execution of an effective content strategy to build an audience.
Board Member and Volunteer – Boston For All
January 2019 – Present (currently held position) Boston, MA
I serve as a board member and volunteer at a small organization called Boston For All. We are an activist group that runs a series of community events that function as fundraisers. Since 2017, we have raised over $100,000 in support of immigration justice, food insecurity, and abortion access. 100% of all money raised goes straight to the nonprofit organizations we support: The Brigid Alliance, La Colaborativa, Community Servings, The Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN), Redes en Acción Venezuela, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), and other organizations doing the important on-the-ground work in our local community.
For more about the organization and upcoming community events: https://bostonforall.org
Vice President, Strategy – Libboo (now Prolific Works)
July 2013 – December 2013 (<1 year) Cambridge, MA
Libboo (now called Prolific Works) is an early-stage startup that’s seeking to help talented authors of all types have the careers they choose in the digital age. Libboo is an advocacy marketing platform that empowers authors by providing intelligence about their most engaged fans and readers. Authors get a first-of-its-kind data dashboard with real-time analytics and insight into their book and its advocates, including how, where, and why it is shared online—kind of a “Google Analytics for Authors.” For the first time, authors have useable insight into their audience based on real behavioral data and can “tune” their campaigns accordingly.
I was an early advisor to the company, but joined full time at a pivotal point in its development. My focus:
- Brand management. Drive Libboo’s strategic direction. Unify, clarify, and reduce the message about the mission.
- Content strategy. Establish Libboo as thought leaders. Create a movement. Inspire underserved authors to build their own brand.
- Community growth. Employ inbound marketing and growth hacking techniques to attract author partners and their reader advocates.
- Business Development. Transform the product into a scalable business. Direct the go-to-market strategy for both B2C and B2B.
Vice President, Content and Community – Flat World Knowledge
April 2009 – March 2013 (4 years) Boston, MA
When I joined, Flat World Knowledge was a brand new entrant in the higher education textbook industry. In my four years there, we made a huge impact. With a disruptive business model and platform, we produced a competitive catalog of high quality, peer-reviewed textbooks and offered them at significantly lower costs to students (including a free, “open” version), while transferring control of our content to instructors to provide a more personalized learning experience. My team built the catalog—I was responsible for all aspects of content, from acquiring, developing, and licensing textbook content to inbound marketing and content marketing.
Editorial Director, March 2009 – October 2011
I was a part of the core group that built the company from the ground up. I was hired as Editorial Director at the Series A round, charged with building a brand new catalog of college textbooks from scratch. I made an immediate impact by:
- Acquiring content rapidly. I signed 82 titles in under three years, all core textbooks for the largest-enrolling college courses. That included 22 of the top 25 enrolling markets. Using industry metrics, that’s $163M in projected revenue ($40M in FWK dollars).
- Developing quality content. I designed and implemented a book development process from scratch; hired a small but powerful team of 4-5 people who published books in about half the time and at nearly a tenth of the cost of the legacy publishers.
- Producing and delivering content. FWK published 57 first editions in under 3 years. Of those books, 23 titles were ones that I signed, 11 of which served AAA markets. The catalog contains over 100 titles now.
- Contributing to real change in the industry. By fall semester 2012, our books were actively in use in over 4,000 classrooms, and had served 725,000+ students. We led the industry in access, affordability, and control of content. The market rewarded us with a doubling growth rate, which led to our first profitable month as a company in January 2013.
VP, Content and Community, October 2011 – March 2013
After building the foundation of a strong product catalog, I expanded my role to shape the company’s future by:
- Building out my concept of Community Around Content, cultivating invested curators who improve current content and create new content.
- Transforming the company’s marketing philosophy of customer acquisition from purely outbound strategies to more inbound marketing and content marketing.
- Opening more channels for direct user feedback, and rebuilding the review process so that it is ongoing rather than episodic.
- Redesigning the platform to transfer more control of our content to our users, and atomizing our content to enable more remixing and reuse.
- Licensing our content to innovative third party distributors and course providers, and establishing a consistent “born digital” content architecture that makes such deals easy and efficient.
- Executing a shift in business model in fall 2012 from “Free to Fair,” including designing and writing a new user license.
Executive Editor – Pearson Education
November 2004 – March 2009 (4 years 5 months) New York, NY
- Managed all aspects of Pearson’s list for U.S. History, one of the largest enrolling college courses in the country. Under my direction, this list grew 11% to $24.5M in FY07.
- Signed top author talent to write and develop new and innovative materials. I acquired 33 titles, totaling $22.2M in total projected revenue. I published 13 first editions in that time.
- Planned revised editions of existing titles to increase market share. I arranged and signed a total of $37.2M in projected first year revenue.
- Established and coordinated publication cycles that optimized market opportunity and fostered steady growth.
- Led all facets of each project from start to finish—from the development of the initial concept to publication of the finished product.
- Introduced new products such as video podcasts, interactive maps, and MP3 study guides.
- Supervised and mentored one project manager, one editorial assistant, and one acquisitions editor.
Acquisitions Editor – John Wiley & Sons
July 2002 – October 2004 (2 years 4 months) Hoboken, NJ
- Managed all aspects of an $8M list in Calculus and Finite Mathematics/Applied Calculus.
- Analyzed market dynamics, identified potential for new products, and targeted top educators to write, review, or contribute to texts and ancillaries. I signed 6 titles, totaling $3.28M in projected first year revenue.
- Assessed profitability of existing titles, and developed and proposed business plans for potential revisions. I strategized with marketing to devise and implement alternate product versions to reduce attrition.
- Worked with my product team, authors, and contributors to prepare and deliver manuscript, media, and supplements to the market.
Marketing Manager – Addison-Wesley
September 1997 – June 2002 (4 years 10 months) Boston, MA
- Responsible for the marketing and promotion of Addison-Wesley’s Calculus and Statistics list ($21M in annual revenue). I drove sales activities through direct contact with customers, and by educating and empowering sales representatives.
- Led the marketing and promotion of the largest conference dedicated to technology in collegiate mathematics, the International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics (ICTCM). I served as a member of the Executive Steering Committee, and extended the brand to include Professional Development Short Courses dedicated to using the Web in mathematics.
- Initiated, promoted, and executed the Addison-Wesley Experience Mathematics and Statistics Workshop Series. I developed a template to efficiently execute future workshops. I was responsible for a 50% increase in attendance in 2000, setting a new standard for enrollment at the time.
Education
- Colgate University BA, Psychology, 1986 – 1990
- East Greenwich High School HS, Gen Ed, 1982 – 1986