How to Build a Creative Business

From The Dougie dance to Billboard-charting bands to a $3.7M Isom #1 pre-order-the playbook from the founder of Rippaverse Publishing. Memoir and how-to from Eric July.

Eric July popularized The Dougie, fronted Billboard-charting bands (Fire From the Gods, BackWordz), built a YouTube channel into a creative platform-and then founded Rippaverse Publishing, generating $15M+ in direct-to-consumer sales with zero outside investors, partnerships with McFarlane Toys and Iron Studios, and a $3.7M pre-order on the debut Isom #1. This is the playbook, drawn from the receipts, not the theory.

Part memoir, part working how-to manual. Eric July walks through pricing, budgeting, fulfillment, marketing without a budget, scaling a small operation, and-maybe most useful-how to survive the “selling out” criticism that comes with success. The throughline: nobody is coming to save you-and that's good news. July lays out how the Rippaverse model-direct-to-consumer pre-orders and full ownership-turned an audience into a publishing operation, and what any creator can take from it, whether they sell comics, music, or anything else they make.

A trade-paperback nonfiction title that opens the business and creator-economy lane of the Rippaverse Publishing program, and the founder's first book under his own publishing house. From Eric July, founder of Rippaverse Publishing.