Writers who are interested in getting a fiction book published can take their work to one of the many online publishers that have sprung up to cater to the insatiable need for ebooks.
Writers who want to publish fiction but who aren’t interested in finding an agent and/or sending the manuscript off to a traditional publishing company can still get a book published. Online publishers work much like offline publishing houses, vetting manuscripts, offering royalty contracts and editing the finished works. However, they publish books much faster because they are primarily available in ebook form.
These book publishing companies don’t pay an advance to the writer, but they do publish books within months instead of a year or more, and they offer generous royalty percentages. Most online book publishing companies have their own Web bookstore where the book is sold, and most also make them available in larger online book stores. In addition to the ebook form, many of the books are also avialbale in print form online book stores. They aren’t generally offered in physical book stores, but the ability to get a book published in both print and ebook form is an attractive possibility for many writers.
What These Book Publishers Offer
Editing is provided to polish a completed manuscript before it’s published. The publishers also offer cover art that will best represent the book to its target audience. The contract period is often one to three years, and the rights will generally revert back to the author after this time. Writers should read the contract to be sure that they understand how long the publisher will own the rights. Royalty rates for ebooks can be as high as 50% of an ebook’s price. The royalty rates for print books are smaller.
Online publishers tend to accept manuscripts a more readily than traditional publishers. This gives beginning writers an opportunity to get a work published without extensive experience in the industry.
