When bestselling author Tim Sanders released Today We Are Rich in 2011, he faced a hard truth: a low advance, scant marketing resources and spotty distribution. With advice from movie veteran Andrew Garroni, Tim was able to assemble a team by offering equity in his book. Having worked with Alan Baker and Beth Kuchar on other successful web application and marketing projects, Tim found the first of his new team.

The book was launched with a grassroots marketing effort, using a new social sharing app created by Alan and Beth to virally spread the chapters. By most metrics, the book launch was a success, but for the team, they felt it fell short of the mark.

First, Tim, Alan, and Beth had trust through an existing working relationship, but they lacked the tools to identify other qualified professionals. Further, there was nothing in place to help with distributing equity or completing agreements.

Next, because of an outdated publishing process, the creation and promotion of the book was disjointed, eliminating the possibility of collaborative improvements to the book to better serve, identify and target the reader.

Finally, data that could provide key insights into their marketing and distribution efforts was either unknown, or closely protected by publishers and retailers, making creating a strategy based on sheer experience and gut instinct.

After the book launched, they discovered many aspiring and established authors also shared their frustrations. They knew publishing needed to change and set out to reinvent the inefficient and wasteful nature of acquisitions, production, and distribution.

Net Minds was founded as a technology service to empower authors to publish smarter by building invested, quality teams around their books.