Velluminous Press is an innovative, British-based micropublisher offering its readers a selection of quality fiction and non-fiction, and its authors fee-free, royalty-paying publication through Amazon and other internet bookshops, in print-on-demand paperback or - in special circumstances - hardback.

Note: Velluminous Press is not accepting fiction submissions at the moment.

Pre-Submission Guidelines

Before you submit your work to us, please take some time to make sure that what we do is a reasonable fit for what you want. We are only interested in working with authors who understand, and who believe they can benefit from, what we do. If we end up offering you a contract we will ask you to read this web page carefully before signing, so you might as well do so beforehand--it could save time and trouble for everyone concerned.

Here's the first thing I want you to consider: Have you ever bought a book from a small press? From Velluminous? Have you ever gone to the Amazon page of an unknown author and ordered her book just for the hell of it?

I thought not.

If not you--then who? Selling books, particularly fiction, is tricky even for the big players with big marketing budgets, which is why they're so picky about signing unknown talent. They know from experience that a first novel from an unknown author is unlikely to cover its costs. Trade publishers gamble on a few promising first-time novelists in the hope that the second and third book will do better, and that the losses on the first book will ultimately turn into overall profit (and that occasionally, one of those promising authors might develop into a million-seller). If you want some case studies with hard figures, check out this article by Denise Little.

Consider the following telling excerpt from the article:

"Here’s the math for a typical first science fiction or fantasy paperback:
18,000 X $6.99 X (5,000÷18,000) X .5 = $17,475 gross income
(Print run) X (cover price) X (Sell-through %) X (discount) = gross income"

which tells us that a typical first SF novel might sell only 5,000 copies even when promoted and placed into bookstores by a major trade publisher. Reading further in the article, we see that the loss on the example book is $19,046. The publisher anticipates that loss--it's an investment made in the hope that the author's future books will do better. If not...well, no business can afford to keep making the same mistake over and again.

The figures in that article apply to a book published through a major trade publisher, which we're not. We're a micropublisher using digital technology and online distribution channels, printing books as they're ordered. Our main outlet is Amazon.com. Our books also appear on the websites of borders.com and bn.com and others, but not on the shelves of Borders or Barnes&Noble. If your dream is to see your work on retail shelves throughout the country, and maybe to earn enough in royalties to give up the day job, then there's a well-trodden path that (if your work has sufficient market appeal) will give you a better shot than we can. There are signposts to that path all over the place, for example here and here.

If you've already explored the path and found it didn't lead anywhere you wanted to go, and if your work appeals to us and persuades us it might find its market niche and sell in (at least) modest numbers, then Velluminous may be the publisher for you. You won't get rich and you won't get overnight success, but you will get a professionally produced and edited book with a cover that sets it apart from the crowd. But be aware: unless your marketing drive and abilities significantly up the ante on the promotion we're able to do, the chances of even getting close to those 5,000 sales (the measly 5,000 that lost the trade publisher $19,000 in the example I examined above) are vanishingly small.

Then again, since our business model is not predicated on printing, shipping and warehousing tens of thousands of books that we have no expectation of selling, you also won't be saddling us with a $19,000 loss on 13,000 pulped novels (and your creation won't be costing the environment goodness knows how many trees, truck-miles and CO2 emissions, either).

When you think about it, the mainstream book trade is nuts.

(Surely it's unusual for a trade-published book to sell only 5,000 copies? Check out this blog entry by GirlOnDemand (an anonymous Penguin Putnam author) discussing US book sales. While you're there, you might also want to glance at her reviews of two Velluminous titles: Ransom Seaborn and Miss Alice Merriwether).

Submission Guidelines

Antispam Subject Line
Please begin your subject line with the word "Submission" (so your email doesn't fall foul of our spam filters).

Attachment Format
Our preferred file format is plain text, 2 line breaks between paragraphs and no line breaks between lines (so the text can flow to the window or printer width). Please code hyphens as "-" and dashes as "--", and indicate scene breaks with one or more '#' characters. We can also accept Open Document text (.odt), classic Microsoft Word (.doc), or Rich Text Format (.rtf) files. Submissions in formats we can't open, don't get opened.

Submissions that follow our guidelines are normally answered within a couple of months (those that don't, aren't). If you don't hear back from us, by all means send a follow-up email. Be aware that we don't have time to troubleshoot other people's email and anti-spam systems: if we receive a challenge-response or 'undeliverable' note then that will normally be the end of the matter for us. (How desperate for submissions did you think we were? :-)

Non-Fiction

We're interested in all kinds of non-fiction, but particularly in "How To" and "Self Help" books. For non-fiction submissions, please send

-	an outline of what you plan to cover
-	a brief overview of your background in the subject
-	a statement of how close the project is to completion .

If your non-fiction manuscript includes illustrations, please ensure that you have the original image files on hand, rather than simply embedding pictures in a Word document. For vector-type images (e.g. line drawings), we need the original vector files, not rasterised versions. These should be provided either as Adobe Illustrator or Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) files. For non-vector images, we need 300dpi files at 24 bits in a common format such as PNG or JPEG.

Fiction

Fiction is hard to sell to readers. Our retail outlets are online, meaning our customers come from the online population that's out there looking for stuff. What do people search for online? Vicarious fulfilment of various kinds, and facts. There may be other things, but those are surely the main ones, and only one of them has anything remotely to do with fiction. That might explain why romance and erotica are the two types of fiction that thrive best on the internet.

With that caveat out of the way, Velluminous Press will consider almost any works of fiction. We're happy to consider all genres, including adult fiction and erotica as long as it's well-plotted and characterised. We're not interested in work that relies for its impact on the glorification of violence, abuse, or exploitation. For fiction submissions, please send

Royalties and Contract

Royalties are based on equal revenue sharing between publisher and author, i.e. 50% of our net receipts from a particular title is paid as royalties to the author. Since we print books on receipt of orders, we don't keep a warehouse full of stock and have no incentive to dispose of books at a discount, as a major trade publisher might (e.g. to free space and avoid inventory tax). A 50/50 division gives equal incentives to both parties involved in making a title succeed. Some people state that any royalty scheme based on net receipts is a scam. My view is that those people have failed to analyse the position with on-demand printing, but of course you should follow their advice or not, as you choose.

Payment is made quarterly, provided at least twenty five British pounds is due to the author (we may pay lesser sums at our discretion). Any unpaid sums are rolled over and included in the following quarter's calculation.

Royalty payments are supported by full sales information.

We make a significant investment (both in effort and in cash) in each book. Since we're typically dealing with niche books that sell relatively slowly, we stipulate a 5-year contract term to give us the opportinity to earn out our investment. If you don't wish to tie your work up with one publisher for 5 years, we understand and wish you well.

To view or download a PDF file of our publishing contract, please click here.

Hints for Fiction Writers: a few things that turn us off

Weak openings. Readers need to be grabbed if they're to turn the first page, and so do we.

Lack of conflict. Books that sag in the middle for lack of tension.

Exposition delivered clumsily, or before the reader has a reason to be interested in it. Unless there's a good reason for an authorial presence on the page, we prefer not to see it--we want to watch the puppets, not the person pulling the strings.

Passive voice. Cliches. Wordiness. Too many clauses beginning with variations of "it is" or "there were" (unless you're doing a historical piece in period voice)--we prefer stronger and more direct writing.

Disjointed paragraphs in which the ideas don't flow from sentence to sentence.

Over-reliance on modifiers and generic verbs. Adjectives and adverbs have their place (particularly at the romantic/sensual end of the market) but there's no excuse for using them to prop up weak writing. Choose a more specific verb or noun instead. Don't make your characters walk everywhere; make them hurry, creep, tiptoe, stroll, retreat, circle, wander, skirt, advance, climb, ascend, descend. Paint a more specific picture. Similarly if they always look at things (or each other), make them gaze, stare, examine, scrutinise, read, inspect, glance...

Overuse of the word "suddenly". Comb your manuscript for every occurrence and persuade yourself that it's justified (hint: for any action that isn't gradual, suddenness can usually be implicit).

Using present participles to indicate sequences of events. The -ing form shows continuing, not sequential, action, so "Opening the door, he heard the rusty hinges squeaking" is okay but "Opening the door, he crossed the room" implies that he kept his grip on the doorknob long after he'd stepped over the threshold. And "Eating his dinner, he went to use the bathroom" suggests a character with questionable personal habits, to say the least. If you still need convincing after that, try "Submitting his manuscript to Velluminous, he received a rejection notice."

Pronouns with unclear antecedents. We're not complete pedants about this, but at least try to understand the problem and write in such a way that the reader can tell who is whom and what is what.

Sloppy point-of-view. If you haven't mastered POV, absorb the last few chapters of Orson Scott Card's "Characters and Viewpoint" and implement the ideas before submitting.

We will work with authors to strengthen promising manuscripts. That doesn't mean we welcome sloppy work: a tight, well-written manuscript has a much higher chance of acceptance. If we really like a story but feel it's let down by the delivery, we may edit it extensively (more likely, we will reject it). If having your work edited would be a problem to you, we discourage you from submitting.

If the above seems mysterious to you, chances are that you're not ready to submit to Velluminous or anywhere else. Read some books; take some classes; join a critique group (either online or local). You could do a lot worse than studying Sol Stein's "How to Grow a Novel" (UK title: "Solutions for Novelists").

FAQ

Q: How much will you charge me to publish my book?

A: Nothing, if we accept it. We are happy to charge anyone who's so desperate to pay that they persist in asking, though. If that's you, please include a scan of your most recent bank statement with your query, so we know how much you can afford :-) Seriously, if you want to pay for publication we suggest you take a look at lulu.com.

Q: How much money will I make if you publish my book?

A: You'll make half of our net revenue from the title. How much that is depends on how many of your books are bought by the reading public. The quality and genre of your work, and your own self-marketing abilities, will be the main decider. Luck may come into it too.

Q: What promotional efforts will you make on behalf of my book?

A: If you're looking for a publisher that can afford a major promotional investment in your book, then you've already spent too much time on this web site. Essentially we do whatever we can with limited time and resources: we submit books to Amazon's Search Inside program, and to review venues that accept small press/on-demand books. Every new arrival is featured on the front page of the Velluminous web site, together with a substantial excerpt. But the main thing we can do is to produce a professional, competitively priced product that has a chance of attracting attention and thus generating positive word-of-mouth. To help your book succeed, you really need to beef up our promotional efforts with strong, imaginative initiatives of your own. If you just sit back in anticipation that your Amazon page will be swarmed by eager buyers, you're likely to be waiting a long time.

Q: Am I expected to purchase copies of my own book?

A: No, but you may do so on discounted terms if you wish. We do not pay royalties on discounted author copies (it makes more sense to give an up-front discount) but we do offer the best deal we can, because we wish to support whatever promotional activities our authors can devise.

Q: How can I promote my book?

A: Use your imagination and your research skills--there are plenty of ideas, websites, and how-to books out there. In the meantime here are some suggestions: put your work in the hands of people who will give it strong, honest, authoritative reviews. Thoughtful, positive Amazon reviews can make a difference. There are other ways to promote on Amazon too (check out Listmania lists and see how authors use them, for example. Keep up-to-speed with Amazon's new features such as keyword tagging, product wikis and author blogs).

If you haven't got a web site, you need one and you need to promote it. Seek out suitable web rings and join them. Arrange link exchanges with other relevant websites. Participate in online forums that interest you, and mention your book/website in your sig. Don't crash forums simply to spam them! A one- or two-line sig isn't considered spamming, or you can often put a URL in the forum "about you" area, which is also acceptable. Exploit your email sig too. Write a blog.

Above all, be honest with your online promotional activities; anything less will come back to bite you. If you seed your Amazon page with glowing reviews in different names, people will know it was you and they will punish you with counter reviews and/or unhelpful votes.

If you have (or can make) contacts with publishing/media professionals/qualified experts prepared to provide a suitable quote, we can put that on the back cover blurb as well as on the Amazon description and in the press packs we send to review venues.

Q: Are your books returnable? What wholesale discounts do you offer?

A: They are not returnable, though we may consider making them so if a book performs phenomenally well. Our typical wholesale discount is 40%.

Q: Why should I choose you over an established trade publisher that will get me into bookshops?

A: I must have missed the part where we advised you to do that.

Q: Why should I choose you over a self-publishing site such as Lulu.com, or a vanity publishing site?

A: See previous answer. But for completeness, here's what we offer over the vanity/self-publishing websites: first and foremost, rejection notes. Then editing (of several kinds), professional-quality cover design, page layout, basic promotion as outlined above, a reasonable retail price and trade discount. And last but not least, no author fees.

Q: Will you consider my previously published, out-of-print book?

A: Yes, as long as you can confirm your identity as the author of the book, and provide a statement from the previous publisher confirming that the rights have reverted to you. However, just because another publisher accepted a particular work doesn't mean that we will.