In Dante’s Inferno, the lustful are not burned. They are swept, a great relentless wind moves them endlessly, helplessly, no footing, no direction, just the next gust carrying them where it will. This week’s episode is a weekend reflection; slower, more meditative, less about publishing and craft and more about the soul-work questions underneath. Lust in its oldest, broadest sense—unrestrained wanting. The fire the Greeks understood. The Cyclops’s single eye. Odysseus making himself Nobody to escape the cave. Emily Dickinson’s delight in being Nobody too. And the difference between failure (which you can face) and self-abandonment (which is harder).

This is from a nonfiction book I’m working on. If the reflection register resonates, stay close—these weekend episodes will keep coming.

The Difficulty is the podcast of Crossroads Publishing Group, a new IBPA-pledged hybrid press based in Chattanooga, TN. We publish serious nonfiction in three lanes—Argument, Reflection, Witness.00:00 What this episode is — the weekend reflection lane01:00 Dante’s lustful — swept endlessly by the wind02:30 The id, duende, and Heraclitus on fire03:30 The Cyclops — single eye, all surface, all appetite05:00 Odysseus calls himself “Nobody” — and it saves his life06:00 Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody. Who are you?”07:00 The American problem with being Somebody08:00 Personal — what got abandoned along the way09:00 Failure vs. self-abandonment10:00 Soul work, calling, and the descentCrossroads Publishing Group: crossroadspublishing.groupLearn more about two engagement opportunities happening right now: https://crossroadspublishing.group/start/

Topics covered:

A field report from week one of Crossroads Publishing Group—what’s coming in the door, what’s surprising, what’s confirming.

What a hybrid press actually is. A working definition: a publisher where the author shares the financial risk via a fee (broadly $5K to $45K, depending on the engagement), in exchange for real editorial work, professional production, distribution under the press’s imprint, and a higher royalty share than traditional contracts.

Why the vanity-press confusion exists, and why it’s no longer accurate to the category as it stands in 2026.

The IBPA Hybrid Publisher Pledge—the trade-association standard the legitimate hybrid presses meet (and the vanity operations don’t).

Three case studies of serious hybrid presses: She Writes Press (founded by Brooke Warner, 2012; 500+ titles; Industry Innovator Award from the Book Industry Study Group in 2017; Warner is chair of the IBPA) Greenleaf Book Group (Austin; operating since 2003; 1,500+ titles; multiple New York Times bestsellers) Lucid Books (Texas Christian hybrid; 5,000 authors in 20 years of operation)

Three structural reasons the hybrid category is growing while the Big Five contracts:

* The agent and Big Five pipeline is capped (≈1,000 active US agents, 3-5 new clients each per year)

* Platform requirements at traditional imprints have become unworkable for serious working writers

* The math of a hybrid contract is often better for the author: The traditional advance reality in 2026: $5K-$25K for non-celebrity nonfiction, declining year over year, with the author doing the marketing anyway, on a 10-15% royalty, with the publisher owning the ISBN.

Why this matters for The Difficulty‘s actual listeners — coaches, therapists, consultants, pastors, mission-driven leaders, retired executives in second and third acts, working professionals in midlife transition.

Five questions to ask any hybrid press before you give them a dollar:

One — Are they IBPA pledged? If not, why not? Two — What is the author royalty split, in a specific number, with accounting schedule? Three — What editorial work is actually included in the price — developmental, line, copy, proofreading; at what stage; how many rounds? Four — Where does your book actually go after publication? Real distribution (Ingram, Amazon, Bookshop.org, library channels like Baker & Taylor and OverDrive) or just a SKU on a website? Five — What is the editorial selection rate? A serious hybrid press turns books down.

About Crossroads Publishing Group:

Crossroads is a hybrid press for practitioner authors—coaches, therapists, consultants, mission-driven leaders, and working professionals with a serious book and a body of insight. Three main category lanes on the site. 80% net royalties to the author. IBPA-pledged criteria built into the model.

Inquiry door: crossroadspublishing.group

Call to action:

If you’re a practitioner author with a serious book and the hybrid path sounds like it could be yours, visit crossroadspublishing.group to start the conversation. Feedback on the show is welcome — what episodes are speaking to you, what you’d like to hear more or less of.

Brooke Warner, the founder of She Writes Press, gave a TED talk in 2017 called “Green-Lighting Yourself” that I have been thinking about for years. The argument: the traditional creative industries, publishing and film and music, have shifted toward green-lighting only artists who are already famous or who have celebrity connections. The writers and filmmakers and musicians who refused to wait for those industries to discover them, who chose to publish or produce their own work without permission, have a name. Warner calls them green-lighters.

The line from her talk that I cannot let go: “Legitimacy cannot be bestowed. You have to take it.”

This episode is about what that line means in 2026.

There is a question every writer who has been carrying a book for a long time eventually has to face. Are you going to keep waiting for someone to greenlight your work, or are you going to greenlight it yourself.

In this episode I share three of my own green-lighter moments. Co-founding C&R Press at thirty-two. Launching Crossroads at fifty-two. And the book I am writing right now, The Crisis of Being Nobody, which will publish through Crossroads because no traditional gatekeeper is going to greenlight it on my behalf.

I also talk about what green-lighting actually requires, beyond the romanticized version. Four specific things. The work has to be good. The practical labor of getting the book into the world has to be done. The waiting for institutional bestowal has to end. And the writer has to return to what made them want to do the work in the first place.

The episode closes with an invitation. What is the work you have been carrying that you have not yet greenlighted. Notice what happens in your body when you sit with that question. Whether something opens or something flinches. The answer the institution is not going to give you is one you have always been able to give yourself.

The Founding Voice cohort, for the first three writers signing a publishing engagement with Crossroads, is open through August 31, 2026.

* Submit a project: https://crossroadspublishing.group/inquire

* Book a discovery call: Calendly link here.