About the Publisher

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There are many origin stories on the internet. This is one of them. We’re a self-publisher in language education.

On this page you can:

• Contact us as a customer
• Work with us as a freelance author or artist
• Get to know the publisher (Bakst) and his collaborators (friends)

Customer Contact

You can always contact us directly by sending an email to friends@bakst.de. We don’t have a dedicated customer service team or anything, but we’re monitoring the inbox and will get back to you quickly.

Want to use your EU/UK right of withdrawal (Widerrufsrecht) to cancel a recent purchase? You can withdraw from the sales contract within 14 days of receiving the goods without stating a reason. Tap the button below to do it quickly online:

Here are some good reasons to contact us:

• Asking about your orders, downloads, refunds and returns
• Letting us know how you like our work and what we can do better
• Wondering if we could collaborate on a cool project you had in mind
• Inquiring about bulk orders or B2B services for companies and universities
• Just looking to connect and geek out over languages like English and German

Poor reasons to send us an email include:

• Telling us you’re “still awaiting a reply” to that last spam email you never sent
• Suggesting how to revolutionize our synergies by integrating your AI wrapper into our workflows
• Making it awkwardly personal or political somehow. We just sell books. Be cool.

Contact Form

If you want to send us a message without sharing your email address, you can skip that field in the form below. Of course, we can only answer if you give us some means of contact. Otherwise, this is a good place to leave anonymous feedback.

Join the Language Community

There are a few places we like to hang out among like-minded language nerds, authors, publishers, and creatives.

Join us. We’re real people and open to network.

Social Media

If you want to follow us on social media, we’re here for it. Let’s enrich our feeds with educational content in English and German.

Alex Bakst, Self-Publisher

Hi. I’m Alex, and I’m the one responsible for this whole publishing adventure. I’m semi-active on a few social platforms and always open to connect with fellow language nerds.

Natali Tutanova, Illustrator

Natali is the illustrator behind all the artwork in our launch title. If you liked those satirical cartoons, you should definitely follow Natalie on Instagram for a regular dose of beautiful creativity: https://www.instagram.com/natalitales/

Heather Bakst, Co-Author

Heather Bakst writes some of our workbooks and is a silent but indispensable collaborator in all aspects of the business. The shared last name is obviously not a coincidence. Her involvement officially designates this your “one-stop mom-n-pop language shop.”

Anyway. Heather has her own language consultancy to run, which you can follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-bakst-32b665249/

Discord for English Students

Alex runs a Discord server called Bakst & Friends. Surprising name, right? In fact, the server was here first! For years Alex has been using it to work with his undergrad English students across different schools. Now we’re bringing it all together into one big happy community of English and German language nerds.

Our language community on Discord is open to everyone. Use this link to join us: discord.gg/CrNSEEgR7w

1. Tap the link to open Discord in the app or a desktop browser
2. Answer our onboarding questions to get the right roles (Visitor is a good place to start)
3. Engage with the community *salutes in Vulkan or whatever kids are doing these days… six-seven?*

One last thing before you join: At times our Discord server can be NSFW (not safe for work). It’s definitely not suitable for kids. That said, we work hard to maintain an open-minded space where everyone feels free to speak up. We do what we can to moderate all open channels, and we’re dead-serious about nasty or illegal behavior. Other than that, it’s a casual community where a certain amount of foul language and adult topics are allowed. Discord will show you our rules during onboarding. Please also note the Code of Conduct in section 9.2 of our General Terms and and Conditions.

Business Inquiries

If you’ve got a product or service that will help us run a better business, feel free to send us an email. We’re always open to your ideas and will respond promptly to genuine non-spam inquiries.

If you want to inquire about B2B language services, visit our sister site at https://www.germanbureau.com or send an email to team@germanbureau.com. Your teams will benefit from inhouse or online English workshops by real native speakers with university teaching experience. The freelancers at GermanBureau also provide professional translation, bilingual writing, and all-human voiceovers.

More recently, Heather has developed a cultural workshop program that combines English language training with a formal assessment and cultural awareness seminars. The program is designed to boost your professional development, positioning you for international career success in Germany’s multicultural business environment.

As our business client, you can hire us on demand for your next global project. If you’re an organization of any size looking to expand your reach wherever English and German are spoken, let’s talk. Our B2B services will help your people break down language barriers and make the most of modern multilingual tools.

Who Bakst, What Friends?

For now, this is a one-man business. In practice, though, we have a few people working behind the scenes to make our dreams come true.

The Publisher (Bakst)

Alexander Bakst is a former journalist turned translator and university lecturer in business English. He launched a freelance editorial outfit in 2010 and continues to work under that brand from his home office in Berlin. His main business is to provide bilingual writing services and language coaching to German companies and universities.

Alex is an alumnus of Brandeis University in Massachusetts, where he got his BA in Politics and Journalism in 2005. He was born in New York City and grew up bilingually in Germany from an early age. He’s a native speaker of English and German, conversationally fluent in French, and able to communicate in broken Spanish. These days he lives with his own bilingual family in Berlin.

Our Collaborators (Friends)

Natali Tutanova is our first indie collaborator. Her work as an illustrator moves people with cute cartoon characters, clever use of negative space, and other techniques we don’t quite understand but can definitely feel. We’re incredibly lucky to have found her.

Heather Bakst co-authors our workbooks and contributes world-class learning material to the site. Her experience with cultural training brings an important perspective to our work. Heather is an indispensable supporter of the business behind the scenes.

[Sean]

The Big Idea (Bakst & Friends)

Let’s be honest: Nobody starts self-publishing to get rich quick. You have to be naïve enough to have ideals. For the founder of Bakst & Friends, that means sharing the joy of learning a language through self-published books, indie art, and Denglisch merch.

Of course, you have to be a little crazy to go from English teacher to micro-publisher. But that’s exactly what happened: Alex started writing a book and ended up dreaming big.

From the founder:

The idea of a micro-publisher for language enthusiasts grew out of my eclectic freelance career, now going on 20 years, as an English teacher and German translator. It’s also the product of a motley bilingual life, now going on 40 years, as an American living in Germany. Educational publishing brings it all together.

When I first started teaching English, a lot of my source material came from standard textbooks by big-name authors like Raymond Murphy, Paul Emmerson, or Stephen Bailey. My students and I have learned a lot from their books, which are still useful resources today.

At the same time, I found myself constantly adapting the material to the real people in front of me, from undergraduate students in northeastern Germany to corporate teams all across the country. I was moving away from the “strictly business” vibe of classic textbooks toward a more unvarnished style for the modern age. As the years went by, I developed a lot of my own material for German-speaking students and professionals who need to get things done in English.

That’s been great for my groups, but I’ve long wanted to share my best work with a wider audience beyond the confines of a few classrooms and video calls. An illustrated book felt like a good place to start. The format is light but informative, and illustrations bring it to life with artistic intent. That’s something I couldn’t do alone as a teacher, even though it makes the lessons more memorable.

And so I overcame my imposter syndrome — you know, my “inner pig-dog” — and went for it. I found an illustrator, started writing, and fell in love with the work. What came next surprised me: It was our creative process with the illustrator that really inspired me to take this project a step further. There’s a huge appetite for authentic human content, both for creators and consumers, and I felt like we could play a part in that movement. This led me to register Bakst & Friends as a publishing business in Berlin.

I’m excited for all the talented creatives I’m sure to meet along the way, and I can’t wait to see what’s next. I hope we can build something real together!

How to Get Involved

If you’re an author or artist looking for new venues to publish your work, consider reaching out to us. As a tiny but proudly independent label, we’re always on the lookout for indie creatives who share our passion for language education.

What We Can Do for You as a Publisher

We might not have the resources of a big publishing house, but with us you can be stubbornly independent and take ownership of your contributions to the finished product. Our contracts are freelance-friendly, and we try to outmatch industry-average rates for royalties and profit sharing.

Another point is that our collabs are actually collaborative. It feels weird to state the obvious, but in practice, the talent–publisher relationship is lopsided: You’ve got this giant corporate entity on one side — you know, the random house penguins — and on the other side, a single person whose main business is not the business but the craft. This creates a power imbalance.

When you work with us, you’re working with fellow creatives who just happen to be running a business. This can be beneficial, but it depends on what you’re looking for. We want to be clear on what we can and cannot do for you.

As a micro-publisher, we can provide resources for our mutual success:

• Lean distribution with access to nationwide bookstores, major German retailers (Thalia, Hugendubel), and Amazon
• Book listings, ISBNs, and other formalities — if you’re just starting out in Germany, we’ll guide you through the process
• Local production partners for high-quality offset printing of paperbacks, hardcovers, and other print products
• Global fulfillment partners for book-sale logistics including packaging, handling, shipping, and returns in Germany and the EU, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.
• Pre-production work such as editing, proofreading, and cover design — you have a say in the freelancers we choose for the job
• Guerilla marketing through our website, social media, and narrowly targeted ads
• Promoting your work at indie cons and other events
• Networking with creators and industry insiders

What We Can’t Do as a Micro-Publisher

We’ve hinted at it a few times now, so let’s just spell it out in plain English: We don’t have a lot of money. There. We said it.

If you were hoping for a six-figure advance on that blockbuster book deal of yours, you’ve come to the wrong place. If that’s your game, more power to you! You’re going to need an agent, a big publisher, and one helluva book.

Here are some things big publishers typically offer that we cannot match at scale:

No big advances. It’s not that we’re against the advance-payment-for-royalties model per se, it’s just that we can’t afford to pay authors huge sums of money up front. To be fair, mainstream publishing houses don’t really do that either unless you’re already a big deal, in which case what are you doing here?

We do envision paying an advance to collaborating authors, as is customary in the industry. Our advance will be modest by big-publisher standards, but you’ll keep a more generous share of our sales once the actual royalties start coming in. That’s the trade-off we can offer.

No mass marketing. Big-name publishers have big-bucks marketing with full-time staff and deep connections. It’s perhaps the single strongest argument in favor of the big guys: You write the book, they sell it HARD. That’s our business, too, but we do it on a much smaller scale using low-cost tactics targeted at niche readers in specific regions. If you want to become the next global bestseller, you should probably talk to the penguin.

No hands-off collabs. Our company is young, and we’re still figuring things out as we go along. If you’re looking for a write-and-forget deal where you offload your manuscript and let the publisher do the rest, then our collaborative approach will likely frustrate you. For a hands-off experience, you’re better off with a traditional publisher.

Still Convinced We’re a Good Fit?

Please contact us! We’re excited to get to know you and hear your ideas.

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More About Us

If you still have unanswered questions, take solace in these links:

• Explore our complete catalog of English books and Denglisch merch for language learners
• Access free exercises, worksheets, and lessons to get started on your learning journey in English or German
• Read the legal fine print for things like general terms and conditions, refunds and returns, shipping rates, and our privacy policy
• View the shopping cart and manage your account or create one for easy access to your orders, downloads, and details

Otherwise, don’t hesitate to contact us. A real human will respond as soon as someone is free. Thanks!