Serial entrepreneur Stephen Blake Mettee died from a heart attack while snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands on November 18. He was 76.
Mettee cofounded a number of businesses across many sectors—among them, a wine wholesale company, several restaurants, a sailboat dealership, and a printing company—and was the founder of independent press Quill Driver Books and Hummingbird Digital Media, a direct-to-consumer e-book and digital audiobook distributor and retailer.
Quill Driver, a publisher specializing in nonfiction, launched in 1994, and Mettee sold it to Linden Publishing in 2008. In 2015, he founded Hummingbird, a direct-to-consumer e-book and digital audiobook distributor and retailer, and sold it in 2020. He also served a stint as chair of the board of directors of the Independent Book Publishers Association.
Mettee is survived by his son, Joshua Blake Mettee; his sister, Jane; his daughter-in-law Annette; and four grandchildren.
