Rick Kaempfer: 20 Years: The Birth of Eckhartz Press

Thursday, July 18, 2024

20 Years: The Birth of Eckhartz Press

This year marks my 20th year as a professional writer. Over the course of 2024, I'll be sharing a few of those offerings you may have missed along the way.

I've done a ton of interviews about my writing, but only once was a feature about me as the publisher of Eckhartz Press. This was published in 2018 by Voyage Chicago.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rick Kaempfer.

Rick, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.

I founded Eckhartz Press in Chicago in 2011 with my longtime collaborator and friend David Stern. The name “Eckhartz” is a tribute to the men that gave us our creative genes; My father Eckhard, and Stern’s father Fritz. Eckhartz Press is a boutique Chicago publishing company dedicated to serving the brave new 21st-century publishing world; the laughing “E” logo a constant reminder that life is too short – don’t ever lose your sense of humor.

In addition to being the co-author of four Eckhartz Press releases, “Father Knows Nothing”, “Records Truly Is My Middle Name” (with John Records Landecker), “Gruen Weiss Vor” (with Todd Schneider) and “The Living Wills” (with Brendan Sullivan). I have been published several times before (including a novel “$everance” and a how-to-book about radio called “The Radio Producer’s Handbook”), Before that, I was also a member of the media for more than twenty years as the producer of two highly acclaimed radio shows (Steve Dahl & Garry Meier and John Records Landecker), and I still cover the industry as the media critic for the Illinois Entertainer.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?

We admittedly learned how to be publishers through trial and error. I knew how to write and handle media publicity, and Dave knew the paper and printing business, but we had never interested the two before. There were some missteps along the way, but most of those came from not having a deep understanding of potential landmines in the legal and financial world. We can see them now! Full steam ahead!

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Eckhartz Press – what should we know?

We are considered a hybrid publisher, meaning that the authors share in the cost and profits with us as total partners. We offer our expertise in the various different elements of the process. Not every author needs us for everything. For instance, some have their own book designers or editors, and some are very internet/social media savvy. We’ve discovered that being flexible is important because every author is different. That’s what makes us different from traditional publishers (who do everything and keep 90% of the profits), and self-publishing (who have to learn every aspect of the process), We also like to concentrate on Chicago authors, stories, and audiences. There are 8-million plus people in this town–and we want to super-serve that audience.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?

David Stern is my co-publisher, and he is just as important to the success of Eckhartz Press as I am. We complement each other perfectly. He is more adept at handling the business end, and I’m more adept at handling the talent. We also get along tremendously well because we’ve been best friends for nearly 40 years.

The other person who really helped this company was John Records Landecker. When the Radio Hall of Famer agreed to be published by this little unknown publishing company, he put us on the map. All good things that have happened to us in the past five years have flowed from that gutsy decision on his part. We’ll always be grateful.

And finally, we’ve had some great people working with us and the authors to make each book special. We couldn’t do it without our, book designers, editors, proofreaders. and printers. There have been at least a dozen of them without whom we couldn’t do this.

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