We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lauren Wise a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Lauren thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
If we are talking about what they did right, we’d be here a while—they are still my ultimate sounding boards for business ideas and, without a doubt, my biggest cheerleaders. But if I had to boil it down, they each gave me a distinct half of the exact skill set I use today as an editor and entrepreneur.
My dad instilled an unshakable business ethic in me and taught me the absolute necessity of talking to everyone. He operates on the belief that you build an empire one authentic connection, one business card, at a time. He taught me early on that the busboy you take the time to chat with today might just be the person you run into ten years from now when your paths cross again for a bigger reason. He showed me that treating everyone with respect and genuine curiosity isn’t just good karma; it’s good business. You never know where a great story, or a great partnership, is going to come from.
My mom, on the other hand, gave me my grit, my grace, and my passport. She pushed me to be the best version of myself, teaching me how to find grace when things get challenging and, most importantly, how to love myself. She is also my all-time favorite travel buddy. She didn’t just take me on vacations; she raised me with a rugged, backpacking mentality. Together we’ve navigated the streets and landscapes of France, Austria, Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy, and beyond.
That kind of unfiltered exposure to the world completely shaped the book editor I am today. It taught me to be fiercely open to different cultures, voices, and editorial styles, and it hardwired my brain to always look for writing that is anchored in the senses. Between my dad teaching me how to read a room and my mom teaching me how to read the world, I ended up with exactly the right foundation to help authors tell their stories.”
Lauren, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Midnight Editors ultimately started as a highly lucrative, slightly rebellious college hustle. I was a journalism student, and my peers started slipping me $75 a pop to write their literature and culture papers. Eventually, they realized they should probably write their own papers and just pay me to fix them. That was my first clue that I had a knack for making other people sound brilliant. I took that instinct into the magazine world, cutting my teeth on a wild variety of publications—from a historical Old West magazine, to a fashion glossy known as the ‘Vogue of the Southwest,’ to a massive travel publication. But the real lightbulb moment happened when a friend asked me to edit his leadership book. It clicked: I could marry my lifelong obsession with reading to my editorial expertise. I focused on learning the rules and ropes of book editing, and officially launched my company in 2009. I originally called it Midnight Publishing for the simple, unromantic reason that I was perpetually burning the midnight oil.
Over the next fifteen years, my career expanded in ways I couldn’t have predicted. One day, I was looking for a book publicist for an author working with me, and I met with the CEO of a company that did book publicity. She told she’d just acquired a hybrid publishing imprint, She Writes Press, and the publisher needed a right hand woman. She told me to come back Monday to start. Thinking she was kidding, Monday came and she called: “Where are you?” I laughed, but then realized: to really learn what I needed to know in order to publish a book in an authentic, transparent way—I couldn’t teach myself that education. So from there, I spent my days as an Associate Publisher shepherding award-winning books into the world, and my nights as a music journalist interviewing rock legends like Robert Plant, Dolly Parton, Metallica, and Alice Cooper for publications like VICE and Phoenix New Times.
But the deeper I got into the publishing trenches, the more I noticed a heartbreaking trend. Brilliant authors were coming to me completely burned—either by gatekeeping, a bad editing experience, or a publishing process that felt like an expensive, exhausting maze. They had these transformative stories, but no one had ever taken the time to explain the actual business of the industry to them.
My role at She Writes Press ranged from learning acquisitions, cover design strategy, project editing, inventory management, operations, and metadata (the data about a book). One of the ventures I’m most proud of is co-creating and spearheading the STEP contest, which has awarded 8 women authors of color publishing deals since 2018. In 2025, I decided to rebrand my company to Midnight Editors in order to bring my dual lens of editorial craft and operational publishing reality to authors.
I realized that authors today don’t just need a red pen; they need an advocate and a strategist. We evolved into an editorial and publishing strategy studio because I wanted to provide a transparent, fiercely supportive space for authors. I help writers at every step of their writing and publishing journey, whether that’s
shaping early pages with assessments on full manuscript or their first 50 pages, editing a completed manuscript, or figuring out what publishing path is the best fit for them. My goal is to give them the high-level publishing intelligence they need to get their books into the world, without ever having to sand off the raw, true edges of their art.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn the deeply ingrained, traditional mentality that ‘higher is always better.’ We are all handed this script that says success means relentlessly climbing the ladder until you reach the top.
A few years ago, I was handed the ultimate opportunity to do exactly that. I had the chance to potentially step in as the publisher at a book imprint. In this industry, you really don’t get a higher title than that. I won’t lie—my ego was absolutely thrilled. I wanted that shiny title. I wanted the validation of being seen as ‘important’ at the very top of the publishing food chain.
But as I stared down that opportunity, I went through a massive internal crisis. I realized that sitting at the top of a corporate ladder was going to pull me away from the very thing I actually loved: getting my hands dirty in the manuscripts and fiercely advocating for the authors themselves.
So, I did the exact opposite of what the traditional script tells you to do. I walked away. Instead of taking the title, I poured everything into my own company, rebranding to Midnight Editors so I could offer authors what I knew they desperately needed: high-level publishing strategy combined with real, boots-on-the-ground editorial care.
I had to completely unlearn the lie that a bigger title means a bigger impact. The truth I’ve found is that the place God calls you to isn’t always the top of a corporate ladder. Usually, it is the exact place where your greatest passion meets an industry’s greatest need. For me, that meant stepping out of the executive suite and proudly staying in the editing room.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Social media is a tricky beast; you generally either love it or you don’t, and it’s definitely a generational thing. I belong to that very last micro-generation that didn’t grow up with a cell phone glued to my hand. They weren’t a fixture for me until college, back when MySpace and early Facebook were the Wild West.
Since rebranding to Midnight Editors, I’ve realized a few hard-and-fast rules about building a platform. First: regardless of your personal feelings about an app, you have to figure out where your target customer actually hangs out, and you have to go there. Second: get familiar with the platform, but if managing it takes too much time away from your zone of genius—doing the actual work of running your business—hire someone who implicitly understands your vision to do it for you.
Third, be consistent with your message, and stop trying to sell. Try to connect. I know it sounds like a marketing cliché, but it’s the absolute truth. You also have to be willing to adapt. For a long time, I assumed my primary audience was on Facebook. But as we started testing the waters, I realized TikTok was actually a massive driving force. I was amazed by how many young authors are on there, hungrily consuming the writing, editing, and publishing education we post. We only created an account a few months ago, and a day hasn’t gone by where we gained several followers. So, while we still maintain our Instagram and Facebook presence, we direct a ton of energy toward TikTok and are now ramping up YouTube.
Every single day, I’m on there answering questions. It absolutely drives customers to our business, but more importantly, it encourages writers to keep going. Getting a comment that says, ‘I really needed to hear this today’ is incredibly validating.
Honestly, social media has also been a massive tool for my own growth. I am no stranger to public speaking at publishing conferences, but I’ve never necessarily loved it. Making myself the literal face of the Midnight Editors brand on video forced me to get comfortable being front and center. My biggest tip for anyone starting out? Do the work to get it off the ground, interact constantly, and just be yourself. Stop worrying about looking perfectly polished or traditionally ‘professional.’ People don’t connect with perfect; they connect with real.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://midnighteditors.com
- Instagram: @midnighteditors
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MidnightEditors
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenwise/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Midnight_Editors
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@midnighteditorsofficial
