The Publishing Journey
Types of Publishers
A Brief Look At Different Types Of Publishers
- Traditional Publisher – A traditional publisher bears all the costs of printing, editing, distribution and marketing, and pays the author an advance and royalties. If you can find yourself a literary agent who can secure you a contract with a traditional publisher then that may be the way to go for you. Do keep in mind that as part of the contract you may be expected to write a set amount of new books in a set amount of time and the average royalties paid will be around 5% – 7.5%, possibly more.
- Vanity Publisher – It seems that a vanity publisher makes its main profit from charging authors for the production and printing of their book rather than the main profit being from selling the books and receiving royalties. Vanity publishers are said to accept any manuscript as long as the author pays the fees which could run into the thousands; these publishers often also use tactics to upsell services and have been known to do very little to market your book to bookstores.
- Hybrid Publisher – A legitimate hybrid publisher such as Tenshi Publishing Ltd sits in the middle of the above two and takes a more collaborative approach entering into a partnership with the author and sharing some of the costs. A legitimate hybrid publisher is selective about what they publish and usually offer a higher royalty rate than a traditional publisher to compensate for the other costs. With hybrid publishers, the author pays for a portion of the production and the publisher ensures professional publishing standards, distribution networks, and editorial support. Tenshi Publishing offers 50% royalties.
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.
The Price Includes
- Publishing under Tenshi Publishing Ltd
- Developmental editing by CIEP member
- Line editing by CIEP member
- Copy-editing by CIEP member
- Proofreading by CIEP member
- Cover design & licensing
- Typesetting & formatting to trade standard
- Nielsen ISBN & barcode
- Print ready manuscript
- A free author page on our website, maintained by Tenshi Publishing
- Adding your book to our on-line shop
- Adding your book to our ONIX metadata trade catalogue & trade site
- Requesting your book be added to our Gardners account
- Contacting your local independent book shop as a direct supplier
- On-going author support if required
- Sending 6 copies to the Legal Deposit Libraries
- 2 year renewable non-exclusive contract with Tenshi Publishing Ltd
- 75% net royalties (after trade discounts and sales)
Please Note:
- You retain the copyright of your book
- You own the manuscript
- You are free to sell your book
- Your books will be printed in batches of 100 or more, from an offset litho printer, ordered through Tenshi Publishing at cost price plus shipping
- 100% royalties from book sales that you sell from your own website or personal social media account, but you must not undercut T.P
- Discounts for in-person events or book signing is permitted
- There are no hidden fees
- There is no sly upselling
Your Author Responsibilities Include:
- Fact checking to ensure accuracy (you are the professional in your field)
- Written permission for any quotes if required
- Correct referencing (a handbook will be available for you to download).
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
- Other word counts will be calculated prior to signing your contract
- If your final word count is unknown, we can discuss options
- Financial discrepancies in the final word count will need rectifying.
| Manuscript Words | Price 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).