Draft:Tertulia (application)
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Tertulia is an American book discovery, e-commerce, and author services company based in Brooklyn, New York City.[1][2] Its mobile application and website, which launched in June 2022, use editorial curation and machine learning to identify books being discussed across social media, podcasts, and other online sources, and let users purchase books directly within the app.[1][2][3] Order fulfillment is handled by Ingram Content Group, a Tertulia investor and partner.[2][4] The company also operates an affiliated consumer cooperative through which paying members receive shipping and purchase discounts and a proportional equity stake in the company.[3][4][5] Its author software consists of a tool for writers to create websites, storefronts and email campaigns.[6]
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|  |
| Type | E-commerce |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | June 7, 2022 |
| Headquarters | |
| Key people | Sebastian Cwilich (CEO, co-founder) Lynda Hamme (co-founder) Robert Lenne (co-founder) |
| Products | App |
| Website | tertulia |
In October 2024, Tertulia became the distribution partner for Belletrist, a book club founded by actor Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss, delivering the club's monthly picks to subscribers.[7] In 2025, the company introduced Tertulia for Authors, a website-building and direct-sales platform for authors that generates a site from a book's ISBN.[4][6][8]
History
Tertulia was founded by Sebastian Cwilich, a co-founder of the online art marketplace Artsy, who serves as the company's chief executive, Robert Lenne, formerly Artsy's head of product and design, and Lynda Hammes, formerly publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine; Cwilich is the company's CEO.[2][5] The company's name comes from the Spanish word for a social gathering or literary salon.[3] The company's engineering and data science team is based in Buenos Aires.[2]
The Tertulia app launched on iOS on June 7, 2022.[1][5] At launch, the app provided access to roughly 15 million print titles as well as personalized book recommendations.[3][5] According to Jim Milliot of Publishers Weekly, the app "uses both AI and editorial curation"; Hammes said the company had "vetted 10,000 different sources—including reviews, social media posts, awards, podcasts, bestseller lists, book club picks, and critics’ picks—to gather information".[5] The company said at the time that it planned to add audiobooks by the end of 2022 and e-books the following year, alongside a web version and an Android app.[3] In 2025, the company launched Tertulia for Authors, a tool that helps authors promote their books.[4][6]
Products
Discovery app and bookstore
The Tertulia app creates book recommendations drawn from social media and other public sources. It supports in-app purchasing, with orders fulfilled through Ingram Content Group.[2][4] The recommendation system was initially built using data from X, whose API Cwilich described as more permissive than those of other platforms, with machine learning trained to distinguish book-related conversation from unrelated mentions.[2] The app organizes recommendations into sections such as a personalized daily feed, a trending list, and content curated around specific "voices," including critics, journalists, and celebrities selected by the user.[3][9]
Tertulia Co-Op, which owns a stake of Tertulia's parent company, is a service where members pay an annual fee in exchange for free shipping and a discount on purchases, as well as equity stake in the company that grows in proportion to their book purchases.[3][5][9] As of late 2025, Tertulia reported roughly 100,000 unique monthly visitors to its platform, of whom about 10,000 were paying co-op members.[4]
Tertulia for Authors
Tertulia for Authors (TFA) is a website-building and direct-sales platform for authors. It went into beta in April 2025 and launched on November 18, 2025.[4][6] The tool generates websites for authors using the ISBN of their books, with data from Tertulia's partnership with Ingram Content Group.[4][9] It also offers a blog, email newsletter tools, an events calendar, and direct sales of e-books, audiobooks, and print books.[4] Publishing newsletter writer Jane Friedman praised the app's website builder and 14-day free trial.[6]
Funding and partnerships
Tertulia has raised more than $6 million in seed funding led by AlleyCorp.[2] John Ingram, then chief executive of Ingram Content Group, is also an investor and a member of Tertulia's board.[2] Ingram Content Group partners with Tertulia to handle fulfillment and distribution of books sold through the app and website, and supplies the book data used by Tertulia for Authors.[2][4]
In October 2024, Tertulia became the distribution partner for Belletrist, a book club co-founded by actor Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss. As part of the partnership, Belletrist's monthly book selections are mailed to paid Tertulia subscribers, and Belletrist members receive a Tertulia membership.[7]
Reception
The Tertulia app was reviewed by the The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, TechCrunch, Book Riot, and the blog Bookfox.[1][2][3][5][9] While the app's design and its approach of pairing algorithmic recommendations with human curation was praised, reviewers questioned the mechanics of its in-app book buying as well as the the modest scale of its co-op equity structure and practice of drawing on social media posts from users who had not directly opted into the service.[3][9]
Jane Friedman's publishing-industry newsletter covered Tertulia's bookstore in an April 2025 article describing it as a promising, Ingram-backed approach to book discovery.[10] Fast Company later included Tertulia alongside other book-recommendation services such as Whichbook and Goodreads in a roundup of book-discovery tools.[11] Publishers Weekly and the Alliance of Independent Authors covered the company's 2025 expansion into author services.[4][8]
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