Crossroads Press
A real book under a real imprint.
You've written a body of work — essays, columns, posts, drafts, reflections. You want it to become a real book. Not a self-published PDF that reads "self-published" to anyone who knows what to look for. A book under a real imprint, in real distribution, designed by people who have made forty-plus of them, with your writing kept entirely yours. That's what Crossroads Press delivers.
Book a 20-minute discovery call →
Or scroll for tiers and pricing.
Who this is for
You are not trying to become a writer. You already are one. You are trying to do the thing every writer with a body of work eventually wants: hold your work in your hand as a finished book.
Crossroads Press exists for:
- Substackers and bloggers with two-plus years of consistent writing who sense a book in the archive but can't see how to extract it.
- Professionals and experts — coaches, therapists, teachers, consultants, pastors, executives — who've been writing online for years and want the legitimacy of a book to anchor their work.
- Midlife writers with a deep recurring theme accumulated over years of essays.
- Post-career writers consolidating a lifetime of thinking into something durable.
- Anyone with a manuscript drawer of drafts, fragments, and half-finished projects who needs help making them into a book without a co-author or a ghostwriter.
If "AI writing" is something you're allergic to, we are too. Your prose stays yours. Every edit is visible. Every change is yours to accept or reject.
Transparent tiers, transparent pricing
Below are our tiers and prices. No hidden fees. No gated discovery calls. The discovery call is free; the pricing on this page is the pricing.
Discovery Engagement — $1,000
For authors whose work isn't yet organized enough for production — drafts and fragments scattered across platforms and notebooks. Two coaching sessions plus an archaeology pass that produces a Corpus Inventory you can act on. Required for some authors before they begin Editorial Architecture or Compile-to-Print.
Editorial Architecture — $1,500
The framing brief, the structural draft built from your existing material with bridging gaps marked, and a full editorial pass with tracked changes. You leave with a finished, edited manuscript. No layout, no distribution. Stops there if that's all you want.
Purchase Editorial Architecture →
Compile-to-Print — $2,500
Everything in Editorial Architecture, plus interior layout in a Crossroads house template, a Crossroads cover, ISBN through our Bowker block, copyright registration, IngramSpark and Amazon distribution, one revision pass, and a finished printed book in your hands.
Architected — $5,500
Everything in Compile-to-Print, plus six 55-minute coaching sessions across the project arc, custom (rather than templated) editorial work, two revision passes, attention to back-cover copy and discovery metadata, and a pre-launch playbook. For authors who want a publishing partner, not just a publishing pipeline.
Each engagement covers a defined window of active project weeks. Author-side delays pause the clock. Beyond fourteen consecutive paused days, projects either pay a $250 reactivation fee or roll into a $500/month maintenance retainer until completion.
How a Crossroads book gets made
Every book moves through the same four stages. The tier you choose determines where you stop, not which stages you experience.
Stage 1 — The Structural Draft
We read your existing material and produce an Editorial Framing Brief: two to three concept directions for what your material could become, with proposed structures, comparable titles, and gap analysis. You choose a direction. We assemble the structural draft — your essays placed into the chosen architecture, with clearly-labeled placeholders for every gap. You see the entire shape of the book in one document.
Stage 2 — Author Bridges
This stage is yours. You fill in the placeholders. Stuck on a piece? Request a scaffolding prompt — questions and sub-prompts that help you think it through. We do not generate finished prose for your book.
Stage 3 — Editorial Polish
A real editorial pass in Microsoft Word with tracked changes — light copyedit, suggestion edits with margin comments explaining each suggestion, and structural edits flagged with full rationale. You accept, reject, modify, or ignore. The book that emerges is editorially better, and it is still entirely yours.
Stage 4 — Layout and Production
Your final manuscript flowed into a Crossroads house interior template. A cover designed from the Crossroads cover families. ISBN through our Bowker block. Copyright registration. BISAC codes. Metadata for Amazon and Ingram. IngramSpark submission. A finished printed copy in your hands.
What we absorb (so you don't have to)
We're transparent about what you'd otherwise be doing yourself, so you understand what you're paying for. The DIY path means: picking a layout tool (Atticus, Vellum, Affinity, InDesign, Reedsy — each with a learning curve); choosing trim size and understanding how it affects page count and cost per unit; setting up the file with bleed, gutter, baseline grid, widow control; doing the cost-per-unit math (KDP and IngramSpark have different breakpoints — hundreds of dollars in margin difference per print run); managing cover specs (different formats per printer, spine width that changes with page count); deciding ISBN strategy (Bowker $125–$575 to be your own publisher, or KDP free and KDP is the publisher); filing a $65 copyright registration; choosing BISAC codes from thousands of options where the wrong choice buries the book; building metadata for discoverability; setting up IngramSpark and choosing a returns policy; running print proofs; setting pricing for margin; producing all back-of-book elements.
None of this is impossible. All of it is real time, real risk, real money, and real opportunity for a small mistake to ship to print and stay there. This is what Crossroads Press absorbs.
What we don't do
- We don't write your book. Your prose stays yours.
- We don't run your marketing. We can hand you a launch playbook (in Architected) and refer marketing partners. We don't manage your campaign.
- We don't produce one-of-one custom covers. Crossroads books carry a recognizable Crossroads design language. If you want a fully custom cover from a top-tier designer, we'll refer you outside this product.
- We don't promise sales. We promise a real book in real distribution, designed and edited to publisher standards. Reception is its own story.
About Chad
I'm Chad Prevost. I've spent twenty years in the indie publishing world — I founded C&R Press in the mid-2000s, published forty-plus titles, sold the press in 2015, and have continued to make books since (most recently the IF/THEN Books interactive fiction line). I'm an ICF-certified coach, an Enneagram-certified practitioner, and an editor before I'm anything else. Crossroads Press is what happens when you take twenty years of book-making and turn it into a system that can serve writers who already have a body of work.
Crossroads Press is part of Crossroads Publishing Group, which also publishes IF/THEN Books and (soon) Ouroboros Editions.
Ready to talk?
Book a 20-minute discovery call to confirm fit and walk through the Editorial Readiness rubric. Or, if you've read this page and you're ready, purchase a tier directly above. Either way, the next step is yours.
Questions? Email hello@crossroadspublishing.group.