Renown Publishing
Patronage meets publishing
Turning stories that must exist into books that shape generations.
Our Sacred Craft
Story is sacred. It is how a generation learns who it is, what it loves, and what it believes is possible. Yet we live on two-minute clips, a lifetime of trailers without ever opening The Lord of the Rings. Renown restores the whole story. A machine can write a book by Friday. It cannot write a life.
The Foundation of Everything We Create
Old World Craftsmanship
In a world that rewards speed, we honor depth, detail, and patience.
Human-Rooted Originality
Every narrative is shaped by lived experience. Not lessons. Not lectures. Lives.
Sacredness of Story
We approach story with reverence because it holds real power. To heal. To reveal. To remain.
Old World Craftsmanship
In a world that rewards speed, we honor depth, detail, and patience.
Human-Rooted Originality
Every narrative is shaped by lived experience. Not lessons. Not lectures. Lives.
Sacredness of Story
We approach story with reverence because it holds real power. To heal. To reveal. To remain.
Who This Is For
Some come to Renown after years of meaning to write their book. Others never planned to, until someone they trust told them they must.
We select our commissions as carefully as our clients select us.
You’ve built something, led something, learned something that took years to understand. And lately you’ve sensed that what you’ve learned isn’t yours to keep. That is usually why people find us: they’ve realized the things that matter most don’t pass down on their own.
Some of the people we work with never appear on the cover. They’re patrons: stewards of capital and culture who commission a book so that someone else’s story reaches the people who need it.
What Renown Writes
The books we make
Personal Narrative
A life refined into wisdom for others walking a similar road.
Heritage Narrative
Preserving the identity, memory, and values of a family.
Founder’s Legacy
The inner story of building a company and culture.
Storied Truth
Parable or fiction that carries deeper truths through story.
Publishers ask: will it sell?
Patrons ask: should it exist?
Renown is built for the second question.
Your Path Awaits
For leaders and families passing down more than wealth. We help you find the wisdom inside your story and what it means for those who follow.
Most people who come to Renown never set out to write a book. Someone they trust simply told them they must.
For those who fund the stories a culture needs. You commission a book that must exist and place it in the hands it was meant for.
Your Story
For leaders, families, and the stories that turn a life. We shape each one into a book that changes the course of those who follow.
Your Story
For leaders, families, and the stories that turn a life. We shape each one into a book that changes the course of those who follow.
Patronage
For those who fund the stories a culture needs. You commission a book that must exist and place it in the hands it was meant for.
Patronage
For those who fund the stories a culture needs. You commission a book that must exist and place it in the hands it was meant for.
For advisors, family offices, and friends
Introducing Someone?
Most families come to Renown through an introduction. One email is all it takes, and we handle the rest with discretion.
See How Introductions WorkFrom Our Clients
In good company
Forewords for Renown authors
- John C. Maxwell, #1 NYT bestselling author
- CeCe Winans, gospel artist
- Ron Blue, Ron Blue Institute
- Henry Kaestner, Faith Driven Entrepreneur
- David Steward, World Wide Technology
- Kendra VanderMeulen, CEO, NCF
- Jeff Spadafora, Halftime Institute
- Jørgen Mads Clausen, chairman emeritus, Danfoss
- Rob West, CEO, Kingdom Advisors
Endorsements from
- John Pepper, former CEO, Procter & Gamble
- Bill Rhodes, former CEO, AutoZone
- James E. Hughes Jr., family wealth author
- Willie Robertson, CEO, Duck Commander
- Shawn Stockman, Boyz II Men
- Peter Greer, CEO, HOPE International
- Kevin Yoder, Habitat for Humanity
- Wayne Brady, Emmy-winning host
Where Caleb has spoken
- Mastering Multigenerational Wealth
- Merrill Lynch Family Learning Forum
- Museum of the Bible Summit
- Purposeful Planning Institute
- TFO Family Office
- The Heritage Institute
- Extraordinary Family
- Glen Eyrie Writers Conference
- Talking Billions and Finish Line podcasts
- Entrepreneurial Legacies
- Rising Gen Expert Series
“You can’t do surgery on yourself.”
-Steward of a $1B enterprise
“Renown helped us create a living link for generations.”
-Patriarch, $100M annual enterprise
“What stood out most is that you listened. Really listened.”
-Senior Partner, UBS
“It felt a bit like I snuck and read your diary. Instead of telling me what to think, you presented stories. Your writing let me think for myself.”
-A reader of a client’s first draft
“Way better than we expected. A third-generation board member keeps saying it should be mandatory reading for every new employee.”
-CEO, family-owned global industrial enterprise
“It is not mythology. It is documented history that readers can verify and discuss. This is the crown of your work.”
-Chairman emeritus, global industrial company
“There’s a little girl in me who used to write stories to make sense of the world. She came back to life in this process.”
-Clinical Trauma Specialist
“I found myself engrossed in my own story, and now I have a cohesive narrative of my own life. It’s so grounding.”
-Sixth generation, iconic American candy brand
“I saw things I had never fully recognized before.”
-Twelve-year Major League veteran
“What stood out most? I felt deeply heard the entire journey.”
-Retired Principal Partner, Edward Jones
What Makes Our Storytelling Different
Story was never meant to teach. It was meant to be trusted. It reaches around the wall and goes where teaching cannot. We trust the one who lived it, because what they survived gives the words their weight.
A card from Hallmark can say every right thing. The note you keep is the one in your father’s hand, where his presence comes through the page. That is the difference lived experience makes.
“The question I ask now is, what story do I want to tell? As opposed to, what truth am I trying to tell?”Sixth generation, iconic American candy brand
The Author Transforms First
Before anyone else reads your story, you do. Almost to a person, our authors say the book did more for them than for any reader. The process is the gift. The book is what it sets in motion.
Wisdom That Sticks
A story about someone who walked the road first outlasts any principle. Values transfer when someone sees them lived.
A Story That Serves
The best books get pulled off the shelf at the exact moment someone needs them: a daughter at a crossroads, a successor stepping into the chair, a young leader wondering what the work is for.
Every Renown book is written for its hundred readers: the people whose lives this story is meant to change. We shape every page for them, so the story stays long after the last one and can turn the direction of a life.
The 18-Month Journey
Excavation
We listen until the stories beneath the stories surface. About three months.
Alchemy
Experience becomes art, written in your voice, chapter by chapter.
Consecration
The manuscript refined, designed, and bound. Then the book goes to work.
A book like this doesn’t sit on a shelf.
A Renown book is made to travel hand to hand. We teach our authors to ask the first readers it changes to pass it on with a note: “This book changed me. I believe it will change you. Read it, and then let’s talk.” We measure a book by what its readers tell us it changed.
Who We Are
We believe every life carries a story with a divine purpose, and that telling it well is an act of stewardship. Over eighteen months, we help an author find the meaning running through their life, then shape it into a book that does what instruction alone cannot.
Eight commissions a year, by choice. As Caleb puts it, “I’d rather be Michelangelo working on a few pieces than scaling fast.” He leads every one, with a house of award-winning writers who treat each book as a trust.
If it could be written without you,we don’t write it.
Meet Caleb Breakey
Story Confidant to Stewards of Capital and Culture
A story changed him first.
Caleb and his wife, Brittney, who works alongside him at Renown, put all of their wedding money toward their writing. They spent five and a half years living and working at a retirement community so they could write. Each morning Caleb had coffee with a dozen residents: a NASA engineer, a Boeing executive, a sea captain. He watched their families struggle to reach them and came to see it had little to do with age. What closed the gap was story.
Along the way he covered the New York Yankees for MLB.com and published three books with the traditional publishing houses Baker Publishing Group and Harvest House.
Today, from Bellingham, Washington, he is the confidant leaders and families trust with the stories they have never told. He has spoken at the Mastering Multigenerational Wealth Conference and the Merrill Lynch Family Learning Forum. He believes lived experience, more than any platform, is what moves a culture, which is why he will make only three hundred books in his lifetime, each one chosen for depth and impact on what is good, true, and beautiful.
What Ripples Forward
The story gets passed hand to hand. To a grandson deciding what to do with his life. To a mentee facing the crossroads you once faced. To a founder you’ll never meet who needs to know they’re not alone.
It becomes something people return to when they need to remember what matters, and your voice stays in the room long after you’ve left it. Most inheritances get divided. This one multiplies.
Begin With Discernment
If there’s a cause you carry, or a family you want to see flourish, there’s a story inside it that must exist. Every Renown journey begins with a conversation, and we’d be honored to listen.
An Invitation
Each year I work with a small number of stewards of capital and culture. The work begins with listening, long before any writing, until the wisdom of a life becomes a book worthy of it.
My clients describe receiving something deeper than a book. If this resonates, I would be honored to hear your story.
Yours in story,
Caleb
Caleb BreakeyFounder and Book Director
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the investment?
A six-figure engagement that reflects the depth of eighteen months of work. An accelerated path is also available. We are glad to discuss specifics on a Story Discernment call.
Who owns the book?
The author does, completely, even when a patron commissions the book. All intellectual property, including derivative works and adaptations, is assigned to the author.
Will what I share stay private?
Yes. Everything you share is held in confidence, and nothing reaches the page without your approval.
What will be asked of me?
Your presence and honesty. Tell us everything, and we discern what belongs on the page. About an hour a week through Excavation and the chapter calls, then a short review call every other week while the chapters are written.
Can I write the book myself?
You can. Some authors speak their story and we shape it into prose. Others hold the pen, and we coach them chapter by chapter. The Renown standard is high, and when the writing falls short of it, our writers take the pen.
What is a patron commission?
A patron funds a book that must exist, often someone else’s story: a leader whose life carries a movement, or a family whose story should travel beyond its own table. The author receives the full Renown experience and owns the book.
Can a commission be funded through a donor-advised fund?
Yes. We will walk through how it works on a Story Discernment call and bring in your advisors as needed.
Where do the royalties go?
To the author, when the author funds the book. On a patron commission, back to the patron’s donor-advised fund or toward more copies for the readers who need them.
I advise families. How do introductions work?
Many of our authors come through wealth advisors, family offices, and estate planners. We never pressure anyone you introduce, we keep your role confidential unless you say otherwise, and with your client’s permission we keep you in the loop. See how an introduction works.