Author Solutions was once the biggest self-publishing service corporation. It was bought by Penguin Random House for $116 million in 2012, then later sold to private equity firm Najafi. Now Najafi has sold Author Solutions to Center Street Ventures, described as “a private investment firm focused on publishing, media, and marketing services.”
At the time of this writing, I could not verify any other holdings of this company. The press release says the company is based in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, which is a curious place for such a company to be headquartered. CrunchBase reports that the sale was made to Center Street Lending, based in California, which provides loans for residential investors. That doesn’t make any sense, but nothing does, so far, about this deal.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
