Launching in 2022, Zestworld will offer creators greater control over their rights within a subscription model for comics. The company is founded by Chris Giliberti, a former Spotify and Gimlet Media employee, who thinks the entire comics industry needs an overhaul. He told The New York Times, “In setting out to build this, we started with the problem statement that this industry is broken for creators; and it’s broken in publishing and TV and film; it’s also broken in events and collectibles. We wanted to build something that’s useful across all areas of [creators’] business—anywhere they generate income.” One of the investors is Alexis Ohanian, a Reddit co-founder and early investor in Patreon.
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.
