About Us
As a team of writers, readers, and book lovers, we understand that your most valuable asset is your remarkable storytelling ability. We want you to have more time and energy to nurture that talent.
Building a website, setting up a storefront, and marketing your work are part of running an author business, but we’re here to make those logistics easier, so you can spend more time doing what only you can do: writing your books.
We’re building The Bookshelf to be a simple, intuitive platform where authors can create their website and direct sales store in one place, without the overhead of plugins, developers, or complicated payment and tax compliance*.
Our Mission
We believe readers want to support their favorite authors, not faceless retailers. We also believe authors who are fairly compensated for their hard work have the ability, and more importantly, the desire to write more books.
It all comes down to more books in the world, and that’s a mission we’ll never get tired of.
The Bookshelf provides the tools you need to build your website and storefront so it represents your genre, personality, and voice while also making it easy for readers to buy directly from you.
Our job is to make it as easy as possible for you to connect with your current and future raving fans, which means you don’t have to get post-graduate degrees in web design, programming, and accounting.
What Makes The Bookshelf Special
Authors have many choices for platforms to build a website on, and even a handful of options for cobbling together a storefront. What makes The Bookshelf the best choice is our combination of user-friendliness and author-centric focus.
When launched, our storefront features will allow us to take on the responsibility of being the Merchant of Record. This means we’ll handle all the sales transaction logistics, including tax compliance* (collecting, remitting, and following all international regulations), payment processing, chargebacks, disputes, fraud liability, invoicing and receipts, and more.
We plan to remove the most stressful barriers to entry that come with starting an online storefront.
We also offer:
- Custom website and storefront building tools
- Print book, eBook, and audiobook fulfillment partners
- Author-specific business and marketing education
- An ever-growing library of resources to help you succeed at every step of the publishing process
- And competitive pricing, too!
Meet The Bookshelf's Mascot, Bailey Beaver!
Beavers are known as keystone species because their dams have the power to transform entire ecosystems. They restore stability and health to their wetland neighborhoods, encouraging complex and varied habitats and wildlife.
We see authors as the beavers of society. Through your stories, characters, and worlds, you help reshape the intellectual ecosystem of the world. Authors help people feel seen, heard, and understood.
Reading improves empathy, which leads to stronger social ties and communities, and reduces stress. By exploring social issues, sharing experiences of hardship, trauma, and recovery, and offering dopamine hits from humor, spice, and everything nice, books change lives every day. Save lives every day.
Bailey Beaver, The Bookshelf’s always cheerful mascot, represents our appreciation for authors who are working tirelessly to make our world a better place.
Meet the Team
Jenna Coleman
CEO
Jenna is the co-founder and CEO of The Bookshelf, where she helps authors take ownership of their creative work, and the businesses behind it, by selling directly to their readers. Before The Bookshelf, she co-founded Atticus, helping build one of the most trusted publishing tools for authors.
As The Bookshelf’s CEO, Jenna oversees product development, growth, and discoverability, guiding the programming team and collaborating closely with industry partners to build and operate the platform. She ensures that every voice is heard, spearheading collaborative solutions and improvements across every detail of The Bookshelf.
A mom of four, Jenna is fueled by coffee, books, travel, and the endless joy of figuring out new ways to make publishing simpler and more rewarding. Fun fact: she once spent seven weeks traveling Europe in a van with her husband and four kids, ages eight weeks to six years.
Ryan is the co-founder and CFO of The Bookshelf, where he oversees financial operations, tax compliance, and risk management, taking on the merchant-of-record responsibilities so authors don't have to. He also co-founded Atticus, an indie publishing tool, where he serves as CFO. His sixteen years of experience in financial services also includes private banking, business lending, investment services, and liaison work with the Federal Reserve.
At The Bookshelf, Ryan ensures the long-term financial health of the company while guiding strategic decisions. He thrives on collaboration and innovation, drawing inspiration from author and reader conventions, where he loves connecting with the community.
Away from the numbers, Ryan is a devoted husband and father of four, navigating the chaos of family life with humor and dedication. He is a passionate traveler and collector of books, and channels his creativity into Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and epic bedtime stories.
Ryan Coleman
CFO
Chelsea Morning
CXO
Chelsea is the Chief Experience Officer at The Bookshelf, where she liaisons with authors to help them achieve success with their websites. With over a decade of experience in publishing, she’s worked with authors of every genre to help them navigate steps from manuscript inception to launching books with impact.
As the bridge between Bookshelf authors and the internal team, Chelsea loves listening to and learning from authors just as much as she loves guiding and assisting them. She also leads support initiatives and produces social media and educational content for The Bookshelf.
Outside of work, Chelsea is either penning a new fantasy series, spending time with her wife and their small menagerie of pets, rearranging her bookshelves, or cheering for her favorite basketball and football teams.
Monique is the Chief Marketing Officer at The Bookshelf, where she leads marketing strategy, partnerships, and audience growth initiatives across the platform. Drawing on two decades of sales, marketing, copywriting, ghostwriting, and publishing production experience, her specialty is organic growth.
Through educational programs and community-driven initiatives, she helps authors develop strong brand strategy and reader connection by creating personalized, repeatable systems to grow their visibility and convert it into community and sales.
When she's not working on The Bookshelf, writing, or reading, Monique is probably watering her plants, walking other people's dogs, or pouring herself a glass of red wine.
Monique Danielle
CMO
Felicia Wetzig
CQO
Felicia is the Chief Quality Officer at The Bookshelf, where she manages internal systems, documentation infrastructure, and QA processes, keeping information moving through the pipeline clearly and consistently.
Before joining The Bookshelf, Felicia spent more than a decade as a self-published author — ultimately achieving USA Today bestseller status before signing with an independent press to focus on building tools for authors. She brings a background in digital humanities research and metadata work, along with hands-on experience in the author tools industry, a combination that turned out to be ideal for bridging author needs and technical execution.
When she's not breaking software for a living, Felicia can usually be found with a matcha latte, reading horror, gaming, or being judged by very opinionated cats.
Our Values
The following principles embody our dedication to authors, readers, and the publishing community as a whole.
Building Foundations
We work with authors to build thriving, healthy ecosystems. The business of publishing should be symbiotic, with readers and authors thriving off each other, and platforms like The Bookshelf acting as a bridge between them. Together, we’re all better.
Open Communication
Simple miscommunication should never be the leading cause for major conflict—not in your stories and not in our business. We’re committed to sharing as much information as we can, as clearly and honestly as possible. We welcome feedback, questions, and comments and value the relationships that come from transparent, open communication.
Ownership & Empowerment
You deserve to own the relationships and financial profits that are earned from your hard work. With The Bookshelf, authors own their platforms, IP, data, reader relationships, and profits. You own your success. We support you.
Knowledge Sharing
Knowledge is power, so they say, and we believe in empowering authors. Our team is dedicated to researching, analyzing, and reporting back on trends, best practices, and everything that an author needs to build a successful business. We learn, teach, and grow together.
Service First
The Bookshelf’s team is made up of authors, but our business is dependent on the lived experience and requirements of the thousands of individual, one-of-a-kind authors who need websites and storefronts. We are here to make sure you have the ability to create the business of your dreams, and that means service is and will always be at the center of our business.
Human-Centered Design
Every decision we make is designed, first and foremost, to support authors and the author-reader connection. We don’t consider our profits first because we know that the real secret to our success is your success. If your needs as an author are not just met, but exceeded, our business and the entire publishing ecosystem will have no choice but to thrive with you.
Equality & Inclusion
No ecosystem can survive without diversity. The world we want to build together embraces stories that share the widest range of voices, experiences, and perspectives. We’re committed to offering solutions that welcome and include every author, so every reader has the opportunity to find their representation.
Literary Freedom
Humans have always told stories to record history, share social mores and values, and entertain. Writers should be free to explore the dark and traumatic alongside the joyful and aspirational. We stand for uncensored creativity and storytelling with standards: punching down—promoting hate or fear—is not freedom of speech; it's harm.
For the Love of Books
We’re all here because we love books. There is nothing quite like the escape, catharsis, and pure joy that fills a reader when they discover a new, phenomenal read. Together, we get to make that happen. What could possibly be better?
What does The Bookshelf help authors do?
The Bookshelf simplifies website design and direct sales for authors, so they can focus on writing and their reader relationships. We also offer real human support whenever you need help.
How is The Bookshelf different from other platforms?
The Bookshelf is built specifically for authors, offering templated website designs that are easy to edit, intention-focused, and fully customizable. As our storefront features launch, authors will be able to sell directly to their readers, while The Bookshelf handles transaction and compliance requirements.
What does Merchant of Record mean for authors?
Selling products through an online store involves layers of tax compliance*, payment processing, chargebacks, fraud liability, and much more. As the Merchant of Record, The Bookshelf will be responsible for these logistics.
*Tax compliance refers to sales tax, not income tax. Authors are still fully responsible for recording and remitting their personal and/or business income tax.