I have always believed in entrepreneurship. I have always admired the ability to build something special out of nothing, that not only affects you personally, but provides jobs to people, delivers your product to consumers, and becomes a small part of many families’ life.

      I had business ideas since I was sixteen years old. Some were good and some were terrible, but each brought something to my life whether it be excitement, the feeling of adventure and sometimes the satisfaction of accomplishment.

      I have also dabbled in writing since I was a teenager. I tried short stories, poems, novels, non-fiction self-help personal journeys, almost anything at different stages of my life. I have friends who did a lot more than me, they have finished their work, and some have become published authors.

      In conversation with them, the curious person I am, found out one fact that was surprising at first, but very logical afterwards, that even people who did get a deal to publish with a publishing house, didn’t really get anything that they have desired to get out of that experience. 

      Their books became available at stores and their friends jumped in to buy them, but beyond that, publishers did not make any effort to market or sell the book.  How come? Because those big publishing companies have tens of thousands of titles and very well-known authors in their portfolio, their books practically sell themselves, so logically, my friends’ books were just not a priority.

      My friends didn’t get a lot of money, fame, or respect from the writing community, or any kind of recognition for their hard work.  Besides being able to bring up the fact that their book is published at their Friday night get togethers, there wasn’t much else they got from it.

      Even worse is my next example, my friend Etan wrote more than fifteen books by now, but the first few he chose to publish with big publishing houses, and got absolutely nowhere with it. After that experience he decided to self-publish and was quite successful with that, building up his name in the process. 

      But with his name recognition on the rise, readers were looking for his older work, and found his earlier books which were published by a big publishing company.  Etan did all the work building up his name, and kept most of the money from his late books, but was still getting a dollar or so per book sold for his earlier editions.  The publishing company was just filling the order and was getting ten times as much as Etan.  It didn’t seem fair to Etan, and it didn’t seem fair to me.

      If you have entrepreneurial spirt in you, you may also consider the self-publishing route, but that’s not easy.  You take on the financial risk and burden of getting the book ready, printing it, distributing and marketing, and hoping you will succeed.  Even worse, it takes your valuable time from another activity that you probably should be doing, more writing. 

      I have decided to offer writers the third option, publishing with no expense to writers, taking care of the whole process from the rough draft to sales, but putting an honest effort to make the book as successful as it can possibly be.  There is no guarantee of success, but putting the whole team behind it seems to be a better option than just printing it and putting it on a shelf to collect dust.

      My company was born.  Reine Publishing has only one mission: to give more writers a fair shot at success, not just money, but recognition, respect, the ability to pay bills and quit their daytime job, the belief that they can do it full-time and have a career out of it, and the opportunity to write more in the future. 

      I truly believe, if Reine accomplishes this goal, then everything else will fall into place, the company’s success and growth, more networking connections, more resources, and the ability to make a book the bestseller it deserves to be.

      My concept is not the best, and definitely not the only option (although if you were rejected by big publishing companies time after time, it may feel so), I would never tell you to pick us over anyone else out there, but I would ask you to consider all of your options and try to understand what you will receive with each one of them.  After that consideration, if you feel we are the right place for you to do business (assuming your work is good quality of course), we will welcome you with open arms. 

      I would like to build a family of Reine published authors, where each writer knows the next one in the company, and we spend time together over luncheons, Christmas parties, or celebrating one of the author’s newly acquired success.  That’s the atmosphere I envision for the company, where everyone cheers for the next person, where we all strive to have a better and happier life and improve together one day at a time.

 

Ilya Rockwell

Ilya Rockwell has lived in Las Vegas for the past seven years. He is currently

the President and CEO of Reine Entertainment. He was previously a financial

advisor for Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. While books publishing and

finances are his passions, he has also studied law, managed private businesses,

worked in the corporate arena. He is on the board of directors of Nevada Rise

Academy.

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