The Publishing Journey
Types of Publishers
Understanding the Publishing Landscape
Navigating the publishing world can be confusing. To help you make the best decision for your literary career, here is a transparent breakdown of the main publishing models and how Tenshi Publishing Ltd operates.
1. Traditional Publishing
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- How it works: The publisher pays the author an upfront advance and covers all production costs. In exchange, the publisher takes full control of the rights and pays the author a low royalty rate (typically 8% to 10%).
- The Catch: It is incredibly difficult to break into, often requiring a literary agent, and the selection process can take years.
2. Vanity / Fee-Based Production Models
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- How it works: In a traditional vanity model, the service provider’s revenue is generated entirely from the author’s upfront fees rather than from book sales to the public.
- The Mechanism: Because their profit is realized immediately upon printing the author’s copies, these models rarely include strict quality gates, rigorous editing tiers, or active trade distribution infrastructure. Contracts in this space often require authors to purchase large minimum batches of their own books or hand over exclusive publishing rights.
3. Self-Publishing (Do-It-Yourself)
- How it works: The author acts as the project manager, hiring individual freelance editors, cover designers, and formatters independently, then uploading the files to retail platforms themselves.
- The Catch: The author must coordinate multiple vendors alone, and without formal training, it is easy to miss strict retail and print industry trade specifications.
4. Our Model: Partner-Subsidized Boutique Publishing
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- How it works: Tenshi Publishing Ltd bridges the gap between self-publishing and traditional care. The author provides a subsidized investment to cover the heavy lifting of production, while our press provides the professional infrastructure, a CIEP-aligned 4-round editorial process, elite trade printing, and official UK distribution.
- The Benefit: You retain 100% of your copyright, own your manuscript, and earn a massive 70% net royalty—far higher than traditional publishing—while receiving elite, end-to-end industry guidance.
IBPA Expectations of Publishers
As a member of the IBPA Tenshi Publishing Ltd is expected to:
- Define a mission and vision for its publishing program.
- Vet submissions.
- Commit to truth and transparency in business practices.
- Provide a negotiable, easy-to-understand contract for each book published.
- Publish under its own imprint and ISBNs.
- Publish to industry standards
- Ensure editorial, design, and production quality.
- Pursue and manage a range of publishing rights.
- Provide distribution services.
- Demonstrate respectable sales.
- Pay authors a higher-than-standard royalty.
Getting Published with TP
Thank you for your interest in getting published with Tenshi Publishing, we are here to remove barriers for under represented authors. As part of our efforts to build a more diverse community of authors we have written this to explain how the publishing process works. The publishing experience will be different for all authors, but this will point you in the right direction.
Step One: Complete Your Manuscript
The first step is to complete your manuscript, or at least have a sizeable amount written. You must have applied basic spell check and grammar checks and the first paragraph need not be indented, but subsequent paragraphs should be indented properly, using the tab key.
Step Two: Finding A Literary Agent / Open Submissions
Historically, most major publishers have not offered open submissions which has meant that the way to being published is via a literary agent. Although agents do play a critical role in looking after your interests and your publisher-author relationship, it is often quite hard to find an agent who is willing or able to accept your work. Some authors feel it is important that they find a literary agent and follow the traditional route for publication which can take months or even years; some authors do not want to take the traditional route in getting their book published. Either route is acceptable. The traditional route has changed over the years with some publishers having expectations that you have a social media following of at least 4,000.
Tenshi Publishing is a micro publisher and we are looking to help and support new and seasoned authors of non-fiction through our open submissions path. This does not mean that we are not picky of what we publish, we will always retain the right to refuse a submission, not necessarily because of its presentation or poor write up, but because it perhaps does not have the type of content we are interested in publishing.
Step Three: Applying to Tenshi Publishing Ltd
If you are interested in being published via Tenshi Publishing, you will need to e-mail us and attach the first 50 pages or 3 chapters to the email as a PDF. In the subject line you must write the title of your submission in this format: Book Submissions: “Healing for Health” – Joe Blog.
Tenshi Publishing cannot offer a traditional publishing route at the moment where we pay all the upfront costs, we are a micro publisher and do not have the financial resources to be able to do that; however, we will keep that option open should the right book and finances come along.
A Complete Boutique Publishing Package
1. Editorial Excellence
- Developmental Editing: High-level structural and narrative shaping by a CIEP member.
- Line Editing: Stylistic flow, pacing, and sentence-level refinement by a CIEP member.
- Copy-Editing: Grammar, syntax, and consistency passes by a CIEP member.
- Proofreading: Final quality-assurance and typo sweep by a CIEP member.
- Cover Design & Licensing: Custom design with final author approval (subject to industry trade standards).
- Typesetting & Formatting: Professional interior layout with final author approval (subject to industry trade standards).
- Premium Print-Ready Assets: Delivery of your finalized, print-ready digital manuscript.
- Nielsen ISBN & Barcode: Official UK registration and retail barcode generation.
- Industry-Wide Availability: Your title will be registered in our wholesale catalogue via our trade account with Gardners, the UK’s leading book wholesaler. This ensures brick-and-mortar bookshops or libraries in the UK can easily look up and order physical copies of your book on demand.
- ONIX Metadata Integration: Inclusion in the official ONIX trade catalogue for global bookstore discovery.
- Boutique Retail Support: Direct outreach to your local independent bookshops as an official supplier.
- Tenshi Digital Ecosystem: A dedicated author page on our website and placement in the Tenshi online storefront.
- Legal Compliance: Fulfilment and shipping of 6 required archive copies to the Legal Deposit Libraries.
We partner with elite trade print infrastructure, utilizing state-of-the-art HP Indigo digital presses. Our books are manufactured to strict commercial retail standards using advanced polyolefin hot-melt bonding for maximum spine flexibility and longevity.
- The Paper: We use 120gsm of “A” grade, uncoated white paper. It is glare-free, thick, opaque, and crisp, giving every page turn a highly satisfying and premium feel whilst carrying official FSC certification proving sustainable wood pulp sourcing.
- The Cover: We feature a 350gsm soft-touch laminated cover that resists shelf-wear and fingerprint marking, giving the book a heavy, expensive weight in the reader’s hands while preventing corners from curling.
- Author-First Rights: You retain 100% of your book’s copyright and own the manuscript completely.
- 2-Year Flexible Agreement: A 2-year renewable, non-exclusive publishing contract with Tenshi Publishing Ltd.
- 70% Net Royalties: Earn 70% net on all retail trade sales (after trade discounts and sales operations).
- 100% Direct Sales Royalties: Keep 100% of the profits from books you sell directly on your own website, social channels, or at in-person book signings and live events. While online retail prices must not be undercut, you are entirely free to offer custom promotional discounts for all in-person event sales.
- At-Cost Printing: Order physical stock in batches of 100+ via Tenshi at strict cost price plus shipping (with clear invoice transparency).
- Our Promise: There are no hidden fees, and there is no sly upselling. Flexible milestone instalment plans are available via bank transfer. Every manuscript accepted by our press does not just pass through a standard production line. Our founding editor is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and personally oversees our comprehensive 4-round editorial process. To guarantee industry-standard care, we proudly benchmark our baseline editorial compensation against the official CIEP suggested minimum copyediting rate of £37.11 per hour, ensuring every book reflects our elite boutique house style.
- Your Part: Author responsibilities include ensuring factual accuracy, securing written permission for external quotes, and utilizing correct referencing format (downloadable handbook provided).
- Please Note: While our distribution framework makes your book globally orderable by high street retailers, physical shelf placement remains at the sole discretion of individual bookstore managers.
If you choose to submit your manuscript to Tenshi Publishing and we accept it, please take time to think it through. You can take as long as you need to decide, but please remember that because we are a micro publisher we are very limited to the amount of manuscripts we can accept at any one time; quality is our motto, not quantity. The above information will be in your easy to read and understand contract.
If you decide that Tenshi Publishing is not for you, we wish you all the best on your publishing journey.
Book Publishing Price List
Prices Are Calculated on the Length of the Manuscript
- Locked-In Quotes: If your manuscript falls between or outside these brackets, your exact total will be calculated and locked in writing prior to signing your contract.
- Books in Progress: If your book is still being written and the final count is unknown, contact us to discuss your options.
- Submission Word Count: Your package rate is fixed based on the total word count of the file submitted at onboarding. Any significant text expansions or additions made by the author after the contract is signed will be billed separately.
- Subsequent Revisions: Because our intensive 4-round process involves evaluating every single word submitted, no discounts or partial refunds will be issued if the manuscript’s word count decreases during the editing or revision phases.
| Manuscript Word Count | Package Investment GBP |
| 40,000 | £3,500 |
| 45,000 | £3,875 |
| 50,000 | £4,250 |
| 55,000 | £4,625 |
| 60,000 | £5,000 |
| 65,000 | £5,375 |
| 70,000 | £5,750 |
| 75,000 | £6,125 |
| 80,000 | £6,500 |
Word count is for the entire manuscript (do not include the cover).
Milestone Payment Plans
To make your publishing journey as smooth as possible, we spread your project investment across four manageable instalments. Each stage is tied directly to a clear production milestone, ensuring total transparency from start to finish.
- Instalment 1: Deposit & Project Launch (25%)
- Due: Upon signing your contract.
- What it unlocks: Secures your publication slot, establishes your project timeline, and triggers your initial high-level Developmental Editing stage.
- Instalment 2: Style & Mechanics Pass (25%)
- Due: Upon your approval of the Developmental Edit, prior to starting the next phase.
- What it unlocks: Triggers your comprehensive Line Editing and Copyediting rounds to refine your book’s voice, flow, and narrative precision.
- Instalment 3: Design & Production Phase (25%)
- Due: Upon your approval of the core editing passes, prior to entering layout.
- What it unlocks: Triggers the beginning of your Book Cover Design and Interior Typesetting & Formatting.
- Instalment 4: Distribution & Global Launch (25Due: Upon your final layout sign-off, prior to global file upload.
- What it unlocks: Covers your final Proofreading pass, Nielsen ISBN registration, ONIX trade catalogue integration, and Distribution setup via our Gardners trade wholesale channel.