The Difficulty

Dr. Chad Prevost
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The Difficulty is a show about the choices that shape a creative life, and the courage it takes to make them. Hosted by Dr. Chad Prevost, writer, publisher, and ICF-certified coach. Each episode explores a real decision point: craft, courage, failure, reinvention, and the stubborn belief that the work is worth doing. New episodes weekly. Subscribe for full episodes, transcripts, and Notes from the recording cutting-room floor. chadprevost.substack.com

  1. Opening the Doors: The Crossroads Commons

    2h ago

    Opening the Doors: The Crossroads Commons

    TL;DRToday we open the doors. Crossroads Publishing Group—a hybrid publisher of serious nonfiction in Chattanooga—announces the Crossroads Commons, our founding membership. Three tiers; fifty lifetime Founder spots, ever.• Join the Commons → crossroadspublishing.group/commons• Publish with us → crossroadspublishing.group/engagements• The catalog → crossroadspublishing.group/catalog• Questions → chad@crossroadspublishing.group Most small presses spend their first year trying to look like a big press. We’re not doing that. A hybrid publisher of serious nonfiction, based in Chattanooga, founded this year, built around the idea that books are occasions for community—and that the press’s job is to take that seriously.The Long StoryA few weeks ago I made a decision about how Crossroads Publishing Group would set itself apart: a real commitment to relationship. Then, on a mountain bike trail a few days ago, the bigger version of the idea arrived. It’s not just relationship—one-on-one, editor and author. It’s community. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it: leadership books end at community. Recovery books end at community. Theology, parenting, loneliness, climate—trace the actual argument and the topic turns out to be the doorway in. Community is the thing itself. So I’m building the press to take that seriously, not as a marketing line, but as operating structure. Today’s episode lays out the whole thing. Five structural commitments: * Every Crossroads author gets a direct-purchase URL for their community—their people buy from the press, their royalty is higher, and the relationship stays out of the algorithm. * Every book launches with an event in the author’s community, wherever they live. * Every Crossroads author appears on The Difficulty. * Authors meet each other—the catalog becomes a community of minds, not a list of titles. * Readers get a structured way to belong to the press: the Crossroads Commons, open today. The Commons, three tiers: * Reader — $200/year. Every new title shipped to your door on publication day. A quarterly Circle Letter. 20% off direct orders. Your name in the colophon of every title shipped during your membership year. * Patron — $500/year. Everything above, plus a signed limited-edition hardcover each year (printed exclusively for Patrons), an invitation to the annual Crossroads gathering, private author Q&As at every launch, and 30% off. * Founder — $1,000, one time, lifetime. Limited to the first 50, ever. All Patron benefits in perpetuity, your name permanently in the colophon of every title we publish during your lifetime, and one annual meal or coffee with me. When the 50 are filled, that door closes forever. The Commons isn’t a subscription to this podcast, The Difficulty stays free, always. It’s membership in the press itself. And you shouldn’t join from obligation or scarcity pressure. Join because the editorial direction and the community we’re forming matter to you, and you want to be part of the early conversation. → Join the Crossroads Commons The four doors, if you’re wondering which is yours: * Authors — from a $750 Legacy Audit to the full Compile to Publish engagement (print + ebook + audiobook, six to eight months): crossroadspublishing.group/engagements * Readers — the Circle: crossroadspublishing.group/circle * Writers developing a manuscript in community — the First Draft Cohort, applications open July 13, inaugural class begins September 14. * Just want a book? — crossroadspublishing.group/catalog — William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience is in print now; Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is next (and I’m narrating the audiobook myself) This is your moment to step in. —Chad This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    22 min
  2. Weekend Edition: What Have You Ever Gained from Witholding?

    2d ago

    Weekend Edition: What Have You Ever Gained from Witholding?

    This is one of the slower Saturday episodes—no announcements, no news. Just a piece of the book I’m writing, read and thought through out loud. It starts on Circe’s island, where Odysseus’s men have already been turned into pigs. It passes through Dante’s hell, where the greedy push boulders forever, and through Midas’s palace, where a father reaches for his daughter and finds cold metal. And it ends somewhere closer to home: the quiet withdrawal, the measured non-engagement, the parts of ourselves we’ve decided are too valuable or too vulnerable to share. Because here’s the thing about Avarice: in its deepest expression, it was never about gold. It’s a misdirected search for transcendence. We’re not hoarding money, we’re hoarding self. Time, warmth, attention, the willingness to be known. And the endpoint of all that protecting isn’t wealth. It’s isolation. Two questions sit at the center of this one: What are you unwilling to give? And what is that withholding costing the people who need you? If the episode does something to you, here’s the assignment, which is also the argument: share it with one person you’ve been quietly withholding from. —Chad P.S. — Monday’s episode is different. I have an announcement about the press, about what we’re building, and about how you can be part of it. It’s the most excited I’ve been about anything in a while. Come back Monday. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    20 min
  3. The Questions a Serious Editor Asks of a Manuscript

    4d ago

    The Questions a Serious Editor Asks of a Manuscript

    Monday’s episode last week was about green-lighting yourself, refusing to wait for institutions to validate your work. Today we go one layer deeper. Green-lighting yourself does not mean publishing whatever you’ve got. It means doing the editorial work seriously, on your own behalf, so what you publish is actually ready. Editorial direction is more specific than most writers think. Here are six questions a serious editor asks of a manuscript before saying yes to it. You can start asking these of your own work today. * What is this book actually about * Who is the reader * What shelf does this book sit on * What is the reader’s journey * Where is the prose working and where is it slipping * What is the work remaining Each question comes with an exercise you can do on your own manuscript right now. This episode also covers when outside editorial direction is most useful (later than most writers think) and what Crossroads’s Editorial Framing Brief actually provides for writers who have done their own work and still can’t see what they’re missing. If you’re working on a manuscript and want a publisher who thinks this way about the editorial standard—voice, testimony, weight per paragraph—Crossroads is that press. We’re in our founding season through summer 2026 with founding-rate engagements. Discovery call → 20 min, free, let’s chat. Author Engagement and First Draft Cohort here! —Chad This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    35 min
  4. The AI Conversation Just Shifted. Here's a Short Survey of Different Approaches.

    Jun 8

    The AI Conversation Just Shifted. Here's a Short Survey of Different Approaches.

    WHAT’S EMERGING AND WHAT IT MEANS The question is shifting from “should writers use AI” to “what kind of writing is worth doing.” Tim Moon argues the shame regime around AI use is making honest conversation harder. The Atlantic piece shows the detection question is real but temporary — and the deeper question is what’s lost when the thinking that produces writing goes away. Ramachandran shows the Commonwealth Prize fiasco was really a story about what we’d been rewarding. Sun and Morine both argue the writer’s comparative advantage is not the absence of AI but the presence of voice and testimony and the kind of writing only this writer would do. For the writers I’m trying to publish at Crossroads—for the writers in the cohort, for the writers I’m talking to in discovery calls—this is the frame I want to model. We are not the press that takes a position on AI. We are the press that asks whether every paragraph is bearing weight, whether the voice on the page is the writer’s voice, whether the manuscript contains things the writer brought back from somewhere only they have been. Those questions can be asked of a manuscript written entirely by hand or one written with AI assistance or anything in between. The questions are the editorial standard. The tools the writer used to get there are the writer’s business. What’s freeing about this conversation is that it lets serious writers be honest about their actual practice without performing a position. That’s what Sun and Ramachandran and Moon and Morine are doing. That’s the tone I want for Crossroads, for the show, and for the writers we’re working with. THE READING LIST - Sanjana Ramachandran, The Print — Should we leave writing to AI? - The Atlantic — How to Tell AI Writing (May 2026) - Tim Moon, Substack — AI: The Scarlet Letters - Jasmine Sun, jasmi.news — Comparative Advantage of Independent Writers - Nicholas Morine on LinkedIn — Mile Wide, Inch Deep --- If you’re working on a manuscript and want a publisher who thinks this way about the editorial standard—voice, testimony, weight per paragraph—Crossroads is that press. We’re in our founding season through summer 2026 with founding-rate engagements. Discovery call → 20 min, free, let’s chat. Author Engagement and First Draft Cohort here! —Chad This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    29 min
  5. Weekend Reflection: Wanting Everything and Becoming Nobody

    Jun 6

    Weekend Reflection: Wanting Everything and Becoming Nobody

    In Dante’s Inferno, the lustful are not burned. They are swept, a great relentless wind moves them endlessly, helplessly, no footing, no direction, just the next gust carrying them where it will. This week’s episode is a weekend reflection; slower, more meditative, less about publishing and craft and more about the soul-work questions underneath. Lust in its oldest, broadest sense—unrestrained wanting. The fire the Greeks understood. The Cyclops’s single eye. Odysseus making himself Nobody to escape the cave. Emily Dickinson’s delight in being Nobody too. And the difference between failure (which you can face) and self-abandonment (which is harder). This is from a nonfiction book I’m working on. If the reflection register resonates, stay close—these weekend episodes will keep coming. The Difficulty is the podcast of Crossroads Publishing Group, a new IBPA-pledged hybrid press based in Chattanooga, TN. We publish serious nonfiction in three lanes—Argument, Reflection, Witness.00:00 What this episode is — the weekend reflection lane01:00 Dante’s lustful — swept endlessly by the wind02:30 The id, duende, and Heraclitus on fire03:30 The Cyclops — single eye, all surface, all appetite05:00 Odysseus calls himself “Nobody” — and it saves his life06:00 Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody. Who are you?”07:00 The American problem with being Somebody08:00 Personal — what got abandoned along the way09:00 Failure vs. self-abandonment10:00 Soul work, calling, and the descentCrossroads Publishing Group: crossroadspublishing.groupLearn more about two engagement opportunities happening right now: https://crossroadspublishing.group/start/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    13 min
  6. Hybrid Publishing Is Having a Moment

    Jun 4

    Hybrid Publishing Is Having a Moment

    Topics covered: A field report from week one of Crossroads Publishing Group—what’s coming in the door, what’s surprising, what’s confirming. What a hybrid press actually is. A working definition: a publisher where the author shares the financial risk via a fee (broadly $5K to $45K, depending on the engagement), in exchange for real editorial work, professional production, distribution under the press’s imprint, and a higher royalty share than traditional contracts. Why the vanity-press confusion exists, and why it’s no longer accurate to the category as it stands in 2026. The IBPA Hybrid Publisher Pledge—the trade-association standard the legitimate hybrid presses meet (and the vanity operations don’t). Three case studies of serious hybrid presses: She Writes Press (founded by Brooke Warner, 2012; 500+ titles; Industry Innovator Award from the Book Industry Study Group in 2017; Warner is chair of the IBPA) Greenleaf Book Group (Austin; operating since 2003; 1,500+ titles; multiple New York Times bestsellers) Lucid Books (Texas Christian hybrid; 5,000 authors in 20 years of operation) Three structural reasons the hybrid category is growing while the Big Five contracts: * The agent and Big Five pipeline is capped (≈1,000 active US agents, 3-5 new clients each per year) * Platform requirements at traditional imprints have become unworkable for serious working writers * The math of a hybrid contract is often better for the author: The traditional advance reality in 2026: $5K-$25K for non-celebrity nonfiction, declining year over year, with the author doing the marketing anyway, on a 10-15% royalty, with the publisher owning the ISBN. Why this matters for The Difficulty‘s actual listeners — coaches, therapists, consultants, pastors, mission-driven leaders, retired executives in second and third acts, working professionals in midlife transition. Five questions to ask any hybrid press before you give them a dollar: One — Are they IBPA pledged? If not, why not? Two — What is the author royalty split, in a specific number, with accounting schedule? Three — What editorial work is actually included in the price — developmental, line, copy, proofreading; at what stage; how many rounds? Four — Where does your book actually go after publication? Real distribution (Ingram, Amazon, Bookshop.org, library channels like Baker & Taylor and OverDrive) or just a SKU on a website? Five — What is the editorial selection rate? A serious hybrid press turns books down. About Crossroads Publishing Group: Crossroads is a hybrid press for practitioner authors—coaches, therapists, consultants, mission-driven leaders, and working professionals with a serious book and a body of insight. Three main category lanes on the site. 80% net royalties to the author. IBPA-pledged criteria built into the model. Inquiry door: crossroadspublishing.group Call to action: If you’re a practitioner author with a serious book and the hybrid path sounds like it could be yours, visit crossroadspublishing.group to start the conversation. Feedback on the show is welcome — what episodes are speaking to you, what you’d like to hear more or less of. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    30 min
  7. On Green-Lighting Yourself

    Jun 1

    On Green-Lighting Yourself

    Brooke Warner, the founder of She Writes Press, gave a TED talk in 2017 called “Green-Lighting Yourself” that I have been thinking about for years. The argument: the traditional creative industries, publishing and film and music, have shifted toward green-lighting only artists who are already famous or who have celebrity connections. The writers and filmmakers and musicians who refused to wait for those industries to discover them, who chose to publish or produce their own work without permission, have a name. Warner calls them green-lighters. The line from her talk that I cannot let go: “Legitimacy cannot be bestowed. You have to take it.” This episode is about what that line means in 2026. There is a question every writer who has been carrying a book for a long time eventually has to face. Are you going to keep waiting for someone to greenlight your work, or are you going to greenlight it yourself. In this episode I share three of my own green-lighter moments. Co-founding C&R Press at thirty-two. Launching Crossroads at fifty-two. And the book I am writing right now, The Crisis of Being Nobody, which will publish through Crossroads because no traditional gatekeeper is going to greenlight it on my behalf. I also talk about what green-lighting actually requires, beyond the romanticized version. Four specific things. The work has to be good. The practical labor of getting the book into the world has to be done. The waiting for institutional bestowal has to end. And the writer has to return to what made them want to do the work in the first place. The episode closes with an invitation. What is the work you have been carrying that you have not yet greenlighted. Notice what happens in your body when you sit with that question. Whether something opens or something flinches. The answer the institution is not going to give you is one you have always been able to give yourself. The Founding Voice cohort, for the first three writers signing a publishing engagement with Crossroads, is open through August 31, 2026. * Submit a project: https://crossroadspublishing.group/inquire * Book a discovery call: Calendly link here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    40 min
  8. Wrestling with the Self

    May 30

    Wrestling with the Self

    When I was seventeen, I drove my parents’ conversion van home from a party with a six-pack in my system and a freshly-dented bumper on a stranger’s parked car. The officer who arrived at our house decided not to charge me with driving under the influence. He told me to go inside and sleep it off. I have thought about that night for thirty-five years. This episode is an essay reading. The material is personal. Three stories from my reckless adolescence in Richmond, Virginia, told plainly. The drinking and driving. The LSD afternoon at a Goochland County rock quarry. The way my parents finally put me in rehab and the way I was outraged when they did. I survived my adolescence on a margin of unearned protection that I did not deserve, and the survival did not feel, then, like the gift it was. The essay turns to the strangest passage in the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 32. Jacob wrestling the man who turns out to be God, holding on through the dislocated hip, refusing to let go without the blessing. The man gives Jacob a new name. Jacob leaves with a permanent limp. The limp is, in the strange grammar of the story, the proof that the blessing was real. The argument the essay makes is the argument the book it comes from rests on. The crisis of being nobody is not solved by the world finally recognizing you. The world is busy. The crisis is solved by the wrestling. The wrestling produces a self that can speak. The wrestling produces the work. The wrestling produces a person who has something to say because they have done the work of finding out what they are. The blessing is real. The limp is yours forever. So is the name. → The Crisis of Being Nobody: forthcoming late 2026 from Crossroads Press → Submit a project: crossroadspublishing.group/inquire → Subscribe to The Descent: chadprevost.substack.com → Book a discovery call: Calendly here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com

    27 min
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About

The Difficulty is a show about the choices that shape a creative life, and the courage it takes to make them. Hosted by Dr. Chad Prevost, writer, publisher, and ICF-certified coach. Each episode explores a real decision point: craft, courage, failure, reinvention, and the stubborn belief that the work is worth doing. New episodes weekly. Subscribe for full episodes, transcripts, and Notes from the recording cutting-room floor. chadprevost.substack.com

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  • Creator
    Dr. Chad Prevost
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    276
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Crossroads Publishing Group
  • Show Website
    The Difficulty