After selling the Lyons Press to Globe Pequot in 2001, Tony Lyons by 2006 was ready to establish his new venture, Skyhorse Publishing. (Incidentally, desperate for a name for his new venture, Lyons borrowed Skyhorse from Brando Skyhorse, one of his senior editors.) Skyhorse began publishing in the spring of 2007 and netted $2.7 million in sales. The projection for 2008 is $4.1 million.

The list for Skyhorse is very much like at Lyons Press—fishing books are a staple (Tony’s father, Nick, is one of the foremost fly-fishing experts in the world), as are military, reference, sports, humor, and memoir. The list also includes reissues of out-of-print books.

But a publisher, no matter how young, is always searching for a big name. Skyhorse is banking on the name of former Minnesota governor and ex-wrestler Jesse Ventura. Skyhorse had a leg-up on the competition in acquiring Ventura’s property because consulting editor Herman Graf—founder of Carroll & Graf—had a long-term relationship with Dick Russell, who was to be Ventura’s co-writer on Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me. PW asked Bill Wolfsthal, Skyhorse’s associate publisher and director of sales/marketing, how much money it took to corral Ventura. Like most publishers, Wolfsthal suddenly turned shy. "We do not reveal advances paid," he said, but added, "I can say that we came up with an innovative advance structure, and that an independent, maverick politician like Jesse Ventura was a perfect fit for an independent, maverick publisher like Skyhorse."

So what does one do with a Jesse Ventura? "From the start," says Wolfsthal, "we planned a major three-week promotional campaign to include major media, [but] we have had a steady flow of media requests from major media outlets since we announced the book. I’ve given a lot of thought as to why the response has been as big as it has. My theories are that Governor Ventura has been unavailable for interview for the last few years, living off the grid in Baja, California, and the presidential election continues to be major news. Governor Ventura is such a great interview—willing to attack Republications and Democrats and the religious right and the media—and Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me is more fun to read than books by any other politician I can think of."

Although Wolfsthal considered hiring outside help, all the publicity was handled in-house. Jennifer Hobbs, Skyhorse’s publicist, planned the publicity tour—lucky for her—around the apparently endless presidential campaign. "The response from the media was not in one huge tidal wave," reports Hobbs. "My main pitch was how his book directly relates to the presidential race. A lot of the issues he talks about in his book raise questions being discussed in this year’s campaign—health care, Cuba, the war in Iraq, and more. However, the bookings for Larry King Live! and The Colbert Report came early. Once those were booked, other media followed and it’s been a steady flow ever since."

Beginning April 1st, besides King and Colbert, Ventura will be hitting the airwaves with the likes of Wolf Blitzer, Jimmy Kimmel, Neil Cavuto, Campbell Brown and Hannity & Colmes. In all, nearly 40 publicity appearances have been booked with the national and local media. The first printing of 40,000-copies has already shipped and Skyhorse is getting set to go back to press once Ventura hits the publicity trail.

It also turns out that Ventura is a pleasure to work with. "Often authors can have unrealistic expectations of being on national, prime-time television," says Hobbs. "Governor Ventura did not have these high expectations. He did not give me a list of names to contact in the media or phone numbers to people who will interview him. I quickly got the feeling that whatever publicity I was able to create would be good enough for him. Unlike most people—either famous or everyday office folk—Ventura is a ‘celebrity’ who doesn’t care about what other people think about him. He isn’t shy about his opinions and he will be quick to tell you how he feels."