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A new book every two weeks had become the rhythm of Joseph Alexander’s publishing business. Fundamental Changes, Alexander’s publishing company focused on music lessons and instruction books, was aiming for twenty-six titles a year, with some musicians delivering manuscripts and others depending on the publisher to interview them and write their books. Then Alexander started leaving more space in the calendar.
Today, the schedule is closer to twenty books a year. Turnover slipped slightly over time, he says, but he’s accepted the tradeoff. A successful indie publishing business, by his account, isn’t only determined by the company’s sales; it also needs to be sustainable for its founder and team.
“The quality of life at this stage is much, much more important,” he says.
From Guitar Lesson to Publishing Model
Before he and his staff began juggling production schedules for multiple books a month, Alexander’s business began with a much smaller problem. After graduating music college, Alexander taught guitar and started writing down the lessons he gave his students. Those notes became a book. He recorded audio examples to accompany the music, giving learners a way to hear what the written instruction was asking them to play.
“I looked for traditional publishing, and the feedback I got was [that] the book was great, but … because I was recording audio samples to accompany every single piece of music in the book, it was not going to be financially viable for a publishing company to publish a book with three DVDs,” he says. “So I kind of took a look at that, and I figured, ‘Well, Amazon's doing this self-publishing thing now. I can make a very quick WordPress site and make this audio available to download.’ And so I did that, and that was my first book.”
That first book didn’t gain much traction, but Alexander continued teaching, writing, and publishing. Somewhere around his fourth or sixth title, he remembers, his income from his books began to exceed his income from lessons. He gradually reduced his teaching as publishing took more of his time.
“I didn’t particularly set out to make this my life in the first place. It just sort of came into my life, and I was very lucky, and I worked hard to advantage that.”
—Joseph Alexander
His experience at music college also shaped the material. Alexander described that period as challenging but says it made him want to explain music simply, making it accessible for others. “I was very lucky that … my path gave me a really challenging time at music college. That made me want to write something that was so simple and take all of that knowledge out of the ivory towers and just give it to people, so they could learn music without the bad side of that,” he says.
By his eighteenth book, Alexander thought he might have started to run out of subjects. He hadn’t, he cofirms—he would go on to write thirty more. But the thought prompted him to consider publishing other musicians, beginning with friends. They brought expertise to his backlist that his own playing could not supply.
“The whole value proposition of it was that, first of all, for me, they were doing something that I couldn't do. I couldn’t write a book on death metal guitar, for example,” he says. What he could supply was the publishing experience he had accumulated. He knew how to edit, create covers, build a recognizable brand, and sell through Amazon.
Alexander said he paid authors five or six times the standard royalty rate they would receive from a traditional music instruction publisher. He wanted musicians to see a publisher that could bring their teaching to readers and make the relationship financially worthwhile.
They did. And over time, as the notoriety of Fundamental Changes’s authors grew, so did the publishing company and its backlist.
Growing Mindfully
Alexander traced part of the company’s growth to its work with jazz guitarist Martin Taylor—“I’d say one of the greatest living jazz guitarists,” he says. Signing Taylor helped attract other musicians, giving the publisher a recognizable example of the people it could serve.
The relationship supplied credibility that extended beyond a single title. As more musicians worked with Fundamental Changes, they could share their experiences with friends and bring new clients. Alexander says the business receives a couple of strong inquiries a month. “We try to wisely pick the projects that we work with a lot of the time now,” he says. “Back in the day, when it was sort of expansion, expansion, it was saying yes to everything.”
“The quality of life at this stage is much, much more important.”
—Joseph Alexander
By the time of his interview with IAM earlier this summer, Alexander put Fundamental Changes’s catalog at nearly 350 books and cumulative sales at a couple of million copies. Many of those books are translated into German and some into Spanish. Alexander says the company’s scale has likely fed its growth as well, with existing titles circulating among teachers and accomplished players alike. A useful book could find a customer and introduce a prospective author to the company at the same time.
He was careful about how far to take that reputation. Alexander acknowledges other traditional publishers have targeted the same market he does but hopes his company’s work speaks for itself for those who do consider them. “I wouldn't venture that I was the first person [musicians think of],” he says. “I would love to be. I would love that what's being created just represents itself, and people see the kind of goodness and the love that goes into it and the support that we hope to give people.”
Nor has word of mouth eliminated marketing. When Alexander spoke about his journey as an author in a 2021 article for IAM, he shared he spent around £6,000 on Amazon ads. Today, he says that figure is still likely correct, though he now outsources his advertising to an outside company, with regular meetings to discuss the work. “We definitely spent time on Facebook ads, but that's still very hard,” he says. “Direct-to-customer marketing, like email, is still very much the strongest thing.”
The Work Behind a Release Schedule
Fundamental Changes’s original target of twenty-six books a year can be made to look like a manageable production target when each book occupies a single line on a calendar. Alexander’s description of the production process made clear how much those lines could conceal. A musician on a world tour might have knowledge worth publishing and little opportunity to turn it into a manuscript. Fundamental Changes could interview that musician and do the writing, creating a book that might otherwise never be completed—but that service changes the publisher’s workload.
When Fundamental Changes was finding its footing, Alexander says, the company’s earlier expansion phase involved saying yes to almost everything. He believes the company did good work on those books, but his approach today looks different. Some opportunities now receive a no. Others could be considered for a later year instead of being squeezed into an already demanding schedule.
Alexander’s concern extended beyond his own hours. He recalled missing the signs of burnout in himself until the strain became severe, but that prompted him to worry about his staff’s well-being, too.
“There's this kind of love in it where I'm just like, ‘Actually, I don't want to be putting that amount of pressure on people that I love and that I care about and I work with every day.’ We don't need to,” he says. “And it was just very much stepping away from the ‘Publish at all costs, write at all costs, make money at all costs’—not that it was really that. But it was, ‘How can we have a sustainable business model while not killing ourselves?’”
“We try to wisely pick the projects that we work with a lot of the time now. Back in the day, when it was sort of expansion, expansion, it was saying yes to everything.”
—Joseph Alexander
Alexander acknowledges that other authors may not feel they have room to make a similar decision, depending on their publishing goals. Authors who are still reaching for a certain number of books published or a specific financial milestone may choose different priorities at this stage of their business. For him, however, the tradeoff felt worth it. Publishing fewer books meant making somewhat less money, but his and his employees’ quality of life had become a criterion he was willing to fund through that choice.
A Long Relationship
A catalog of more than 350 titles also changes the meaning of accepting one more manuscript. Publication begins a continuing relationship, Alexander says, and he wants each author’s book to succeed—which could mean paying royalties for the life of the company or for the rest of his or the author’s life.
“There have been times where I've said no to what could potentially be a great book because I felt uncomfortable about the person and who am I forming a relationship with,” he says.
He continues that he didn’t necessarily think the authors were bad, but he could sense that he and his company may not have been the right fit for the author or vice versa. On the other hand, Alexander spoke enthusiastically about collaborating with musicians he had grown up listening to. “Being recommended by my childhood heroes is insane for me,” he says.
His own team showed what he valued in those long-lasting arrangements, too. He describes his publishing director, Tim, as one of his closest friends and someone whose support and professional ability mattered deeply. They met through music at a guitar retreat, at a point when both wanted a change. Other colleagues bring different capabilities and valued skills to the team. Alexander speaks of the people around him with affection, linking their expertise to his wish for a kinder working environment. The decision to publish less was also a decision about the kind of employer and colleague he wanted to be.
Whether it’s his relationships with his employees or his authors, Alexander emphasizes the importance of finding people who remind him of the pleasure of the job. Even while taking a step back from the rigorous publishing schedule he chased before, he still wants to do the work, he says; he just wants the projects he accepts now to preserve what he enjoys about it.
Sustainable Success
As much as his success has come from years of effort and energy, Alexander also credits it to a characteristic that’s much harder for new authors to control: “Nobody was doing what I was doing at that time, and I happened to be the person,” he says.
For authors today, Alexander acknowledges the challenges debut authors may face from a saturated market and the paradox of needing to generate sales before they can afford to invest in marketing. And though Alexander says he prefers reading work by humans, in an industry that saw 2.6 million new titles self-published last year, he also understands why some authors embrace AI tools as part of their business.
“Everyone has the right to succeed. And ultimately, whether we're musicians or writers or stand-up comedians, we are performers. We create things for other people to read,” he says. “And if they enjoy them, do they care about where it's come from?”
When asked to imagine what the industry will look like in the next six to twelve months, Alexander didn’t have a prediction. But with his company’s publishing schedule and workflow, he knows at least where Fundamental Changes will be—and what he wants to prioritize in that time. Although the CEO says he continues to feel guilt when he is not working, reflecting on how his company has grown—and how his mindset has shifted—he’s happy with where he has landed.
“I think that's definitely been something over the last two years where I just looked at, well, I've been doing this for over a decade. Everything is impermanent,” he says. “I didn't particularly set out to make this my life in the first place. It just sort of came into my life, and I was very lucky, and I worked hard to advantage that. But there was this kind of [question of], ‘What do I want my life to be?’ And my life is not that anymore. It's content. It's happier.”
For a founder whose teaching notes have grown into hundreds of books, Alexander is still learning some lessons himself. Maintaining his business more recently has included deciding what it should ask of him and of everyone helping to run it.
Fundamental Changes may have roughly twenty new books a year to make. But more than the number of books published, Alexander wants to ensure enough room around them to enjoy the work and the rest of his life.
