Market First Publishing

About

A new breed of publisher,
built for today.

Market First Publishing helps experts, leaders, and storytellers turn a book into authority, audience, and income.

Founding story

Why we built Market First Publishing.

Market First Publishing began with a frustration its founders kept hitting from opposite sides of the same problem. Through his marketing firm Pubvendo, Josh Schwartz watched serious authors pour their hearts and sweat into their books only to market to a desert - building their audience was prioritized last. Joseph Lawrence saw the mirror image: well-made books that never found readers because marketing was treated as an afterthought. They reached the same conclusion — a book should be published - and marketed - as a single, integrated act. Market First Publishing is what that conviction looks like as a company.

“
A book marketed last is bought never... 
The founding conviction

Mission

Our books work for the people who write them.

The authors who matter most to a category — operators, scholars, ministers, novelists, designers — are rarely served well by either trade publishing or the vanity market.

We exist for them: a press that produces books to a trade standard and treats marketing as part of the craft, not a step tacked on afterward.

Model

The marketing-first model.

A book should be published and marketed as a single, integrated act. Editorial, design, production, and launch run on one calendar, against one positioning brief. The result is a book that arrives ready to perform — and you keep the majority of your book's earnings — the exact terms depend on the publishing path we build together — and your copyright.

The team

The people behind the press.

Decades of combined experience across publishing, marketing, and authorship.

The Market First Publishing founders: Joseph Lawrence, Josh Schwartz, and Bob Batchelor
JOSH SCHWARTZ, JOSEPH LAWRENCE, AND BOB BATCHELOR
  • Joseph Lawrence

    Joseph Lawrence

    Co-Founder & Director of Publishing

    Joseph Lawrence holds a master's in publishing from George Washington University and has worked in the industry since 2022. As Director of Publishing, he oversees MFP's editorial and production operations across all five imprints — managing the full journey from manuscript assessment through production, distribution, and launch. A writer himself, publishing literary fiction under the pen name Joseph Eldredge, he brings a working author's instincts to every project he shepherds through the house.

  • Josh Schwartz

    Josh Schwartz

    Co-Founder & Director of Marketing

    Josh Schwartz is the Founder of Pubvendo, a leadership branding and book marketing agency he has built over nine years into a platform that has marketed more than 1,000 titles across virtually every major publishing category. With 17 years in the industry, he brings proven expertise in audience segmentation, author brand differentiation, and performance marketing — and prior client relationships spanning Amazon, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Disney, and Scholastic. He holds degrees in English, Psychology, and Business from George Mason University and Georgetown University, and guest lectures on book marketing at the George Washington University Graduate Program in Publishing. At MFP, Josh leads marketing strategy and pipeline across all five imprints, ensuring every title launches with a campaign built to perform.

  • Bob Batchelor

    Bob Batchelor

    EXECUTIVE EDITORIAL CONSULTANT

    Bob Batchelor is an award-winning cultural historian and biographer with 21 years in publishing, including six as a publisher. A three-time Independent Press Book Award winner, he is the author of 16 books and editor of 19 — best known for his trilogy of biographies on Marvel icon Stan Lee, and for his acclaimed work on Jim Morrison and the Doors, Bob Dylan, John Updike, and The Great Gatsby, among others. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and Time, and he has served as on-air commentator for NPR, PBS NewsHour, the BBC, and National Geographic. At MFP, Bob leads editorial development for Tudor House, the biography and memoir imprint, bringing deep experience as both a prolific author and a longtime editorial shepherd of other writers' work.

The house

Five imprints, one standard.

Get in touch

Talk to us about your book.

Submit Your ManuscriptBook a consultation