By: Michael Beas
There is a particular kind of professional who doesn’t fit neatly into one category. Not quite a creative, not quite an executive, not quite a strategist, but somehow all three at once. DeVasha Lloyd has been that person her entire career, and it took her twenty years of working at the highest levels of media, healthcare, and publishing to understand that the thing connecting all of it was never the industry. It was the story.
Today, she is the founder of Elevation Publishing Group, a New York City-based boutique publishing company that is quietly redefining what it means to bring a book to market. But the road that led her there is worth understanding, because it explains everything about why the company works the way it does.
From Opera to the Boardroom
DeVasha trained as a classical opera singer at Rider University’s Westminster Choir College before pivoting into media and never looking back. That background isn’t a footnote in her story. It’s the foundation of how she thinks. Opera demands precision, emotion, timing, and the ability to hold an audience’s attention without losing the thread of the narrative. She brings all of that into every room she walks into.
Her career took her through some of the most recognized names in media and healthcare content. WebMD, Forbes Books, Everyday Health, and Natcom Global. At each stop, she built something, grew something, or transformed something that wasn’t working into something that was. Across those years, she earned a reputation for understanding what people actually needed and building the right offer around it, not by following a formula but by reading each situation on its own terms.
At Forbes Books, she published over 80 titles authored by top CEOs, working directly with some of the most recognized names in business and healthcare to bring their books to market. She didn’t just sell publishing packages. She helped people understand what their expertise was worth and how to put it in front of the audiences that needed to hear it.
The Gap She Kept Seeing
The more time DeVasha spent inside the publishing industry, the more clearly she saw the same problem repeating itself. Authors were putting books into the world without any real plan for what happened next. The book would launch, briefly surface, and then disappear into the enormous volume of titles competing for attention.
It wasn’t a talent problem. It wasn’t even always a quality problem. It was a strategy problem. Nobody was helping authors think about the book as a beginning rather than an ending. Nobody was treating the publication date as a starting gun rather than a finish line.
That observation became the seed of Elevation Publishing Group. A company built not just to publish books, but to activate them.
Building Something That Reflects What She Knows
Elevation Publishing Group operates on a hybrid model that gives authors something traditional publishing rarely does: full ownership of their work, full royalties, and a team of experienced professionals working alongside them from concept to market in as little as six months.
The roster already spans business thought leadership, healthcare, academic writing, and young adult fiction, a range that reflects DeVasha’s instinct for breadth and her belief that great ideas deserve professional platforms regardless of genre.
What she brings to every project is the same thing she brought to every sales floor and every boardroom she’s ever walked into. A clear read of what matters, an honest assessment of what’s missing, and a genuine commitment to making it work.
The book, she says, is only the first move. Everything she’s built is designed to make sure the moves that follow it are just as strong.
Discover more about DeVasha Lloyd and the vision behind her work at Elevation Publishing Group.
