About

CIRCADIAN is a Berlin based independent publishing house born in 2017.  Our mission is to inscribe imaginary into the real: we only publish books that call the reader to action, this is why we also produce events that provide a context for the books to be practiced and to come to life.

Every publication we do must be concerned with proposing ways of stimulating embodiment and bridging the content of the book into the reader’s experience. A book then becomes the source code for an operating system that can be tried on by anybody who’s interested to expand their capacity to act.

Every author collaborating with us will decide their own particular way of bringing ideas into action. For example, daily rituals, set of exercises, daily practices, training methods, methodologies, scores, instructions, directives, handbooks, embodied ethics, protocols, manuals, games, experiments, and performances, which will also be realized in the frame of events with the audience.

Every release of CIRCADIAN ignites circulation between theory and practice in both directions, developing embodying value systems, and exercising mindsets.

The books that we publish support each other: our system of distribution of income gives priority to release a new book. When you buy one of our books you are directly financing one of the books from our waiting list. You can follow this process at any time and check the status of our crowdfunding campaigns online.

We sell our books at:

• Order them directly at our website
• Local Pick up in Berlin: contact diegonante@gmail.com +4917628138255
• BOOKSHOPS:

Hopscotch Reading Room Book store (Kurfürstenstr 13-14 Berlin)
a.p. Bookstore Lindowerstr 20, Berlin,
Walther König in Gropius Bau,
About Books in Linninenstr 112 Berlin,

Publishing Criteria

• Any sort of practice, manual, exercises, methodologies, ethics, practical philosophy..
• Printed book, e-book, or any other format
• The publication should propose concrete ways to inscribe the (non)imaginary into the real: by way of concrete practices, instructions, exercises, recipes, training methods, daily rituals, games, experiments, etc.
• The release of the publication is the event where the practice presented comes to life

 

Production Model

CIRCADIAN is a non-profit publishing house: we stream all the revenue towards making, publishing, and promoting the books. Therefore, the sales of each book support the publication of the next ones, so that the books help each other come to life.

Our incoming cash flow (from sales or investments) is split into three parts:
1. The Author’s Fee
2. Our Admin Fee (inc. copy-editing, promotion, sales, etc)
3. Future Production Costs for the Next Book(s) on the waiting list

We make a special arrangement with each author individually, but normally we prefer that each of the 3 parts gets at least 20% of the income. For example, if we made a deal where the author’s fee [1] is 20%, the admin fee [2] is 30%, and the future production costs [3] is at 50%, then if the author’s book makes €800 in sales, the author gets €160, CIRCADIAN gets €240 for the production work (design, copy-editing, promotion, distribution), and we have €400 to pay the print of the next book(s). We usually like to involve the author to decide which books on the Waiting List would be given priority, but of course we also want to publish those books first, which have been waiting the longest time.

This model ensures continuity and enables us not to think about investment as this is taken care of by the previous publications. Of course, the author – or anybody else – can also bring in the investment with them and finance the publication and production of their own book. In which case we don’t have to wait until we had enough sales of the previous book to print the new book and the income from that publication would be considered as investment into the next books that are to be published. In fact, this is how we started CIRCADIAN: we printed our first 3 books (Dangerous Dances, Betraying Ambition and The Special Agent’s Manual) with our own money and refused the author’s fee. So that all the income we had went into CIRCADIAN admin and into financing the publication of the next books.

 

What We Can Offer

CIRCADIAN is a young publishing house, but we believe in our concept and we think it provides a very good and precise frame for a certain kind of books that are missing at the market. We have experience in making printed and digital books, as well as e-book sales and search engine optimization. Our network of associates and authors have experience in many different fields: from copy-editing and translation to graphic design, marketing and software development. We’ve also organized lectures, seminars and performing arts events in Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Moscow since 2006, so we can really help in making the practice presented within the books come to life. If you want to get your book distributed worldwide in high-street retailers and earn a lot of money upfront, we’re probably not the best choice. But if you would like to take part in our adventure and have a dedicated team working closely with you on bringing your practice to life, then honestly we don’t know a better publishing house to do that (and if you do, please, do send us a link!)

 

Distribution Model

We use digital tools to distribute the publications. We like to devise a specific strategy that works best for each book and that is also congruent with the book’s concept. However, there are some elements that we found to work consistently, especially if they are aligned into a narrative that helps promote the book’s main ideas and also produces the momentum for the book’s marketing campaign. For example:

Step 1: online fundraising campaign to create awareness

Step 2: social network campaign just before the book is released

Step 3: release event, the practice of the book comes to life

Step 4: promoting the book within specialized communities, word-of-mouth advertising

Step 5: initial sales period – limited edition print + digital copy

Step 6: gather feedback (engage the readers in the making-of)

Step 7: reiterate (repeat the cycle above: e.g. new edition, new events, etc)

 

Our Production Timeline

Step 1: Initial Contact – Introduction
CIRCADIAN and the author(s) find each other and engage into a dialogue about the new publication. We like to do it through a chat and we actively use group chats on Telegram of Whatsapp for that. You can contact us on circadian.books@gmail.com and we will get in touch with you.

Step 2:  Moodboard – Sketching the Practice
Together we create a moodboard of ideas. A kind of mosaic for what the book is to become. We like to use digital tools for this practice: anything from an online chat and Tumblr to the Google drive or Slack, but also we find it important to have personal meetings and conversations, especially when we can practice what you are writing about together in real life, using our bodyminds.

Step 3: Project Planning – Agile Book Development
After we get the outline of the book, we create a short synopsis, a table of contents and a cover. We then plan the timeline for the book creation, publication and distribution. We like to work in short iterations, taking on the framework used in agile software development. Meaning that rather than waiting for 1 year to make something happen we try to make it in, say, 3 months and then use the initial feedback from readers to make a 2nd improved edition. Our priority is to release quality content, but we also understand that in this world of fragmented narratives it is important to embrace shorter iterative work spans and frequent feedback.

Step 4: Online Campaign – Promotion
Once we are 2-4 weeks into the production cycle and we can have a realistic estimate for the publication date, we put the book online for pre-orders. We found that Kickstarter-like online crowdfunding campaign works the best to create awareness, because it brings in some extra motivation and game-like element to the whole process. We also do social network campaigns to create awareness.

Step 5: Publication
When the book is ready to print, we send it to a copy-editor and give a copy to a few people for last-minute feedback. We then print a few test copies and let them be for a moment, so that we have some distance from the book. After this “quarantine” period, we make the final print run of limited edition copies and – in the meanwhile – create the digital versions (PDFs and Kindle-ready) for online distribution (including Amazon).

Step 6: The Practice Comes to Life – Release Event
One of the main aspects of each CIRCADIAN book is that the practice comes to life during the release event. Together with the author we carefully plan how, when and where it’s going to happen. It’s also a great opportunity to create extra awareness about the book, bring the supporters together, and get some initial feedback on the practice itself.

Step 7: Distribution
Once the books arrived, we send them over the people who participated in crowd-funding campaign and make sure that the book appears in all main distribution channels. We also perform search engine optimization together with the author to ensure that their book can be found by those who are interested in the subject. It is also followed by social network campaign.

Step 8: Reiteration
After the initial feedback we start working on the next version of the book, which can be distributed digitally (or in print) to all the supporters and customers. This helps the practice stay alive even after the publication and to continue inscribing itself into the real through human encounters.